Jeff Immelt

Jeffrey Robert Immelt (born February 19, 1956) is an American manufacturing executive working as a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates. He previously was the CEO of General Electric from 2001 to 2017, and the CEO of GE's Medical Systems division from 1997 to 2000. Immelt's tenure saw GE's largest divestments in the company's history, as the company sold almost two-thirds of its subsidiaries and assets.

Immelt was born on February 19, 1956, in Cincinnati, the son of Donna Rosemary (née Wallace), a school teacher, and Joseph Francis Immelt, who managed the General Electric Aircraft Engines Division.

Immelt attended Finneytown Secondary Campus. There he captained the football and basketball teams. In college he played football and was an offensive tackle. He earned an A.B. in applied mathematics and economics cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1978. He was president of his fraternity, Phi Delta Alpha.

During his years at Dartmouth he worked summers on a Ford assembly line in Cincinnati; after graduating he worked for Procter & Gamble, where he shared a cubicle with Steve Ballmer, who went on to become CEO of Microsoft. He obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1982 and described business school as "one of the most intense times of your life." He was later offered to work for Morgan Stanley, which he declined. Instead, he wanted to work for General Electric like his father.

Immelt joined General Electric in 1982, working in GE's plastics, appliances, and healthcare businesses. He became a GE corporate officer in 1989, joined the GE Capital board in 1997 and took the reins of the corporate leadership of GE Healthcare^{[citation needed]} before assuming his position as CEO in 2001.

Four days after Immelt became CEO, the September 11 attacks took place which cost GE's insurance division $600 million, killed two employees and directly affected the company's Aircraft Engines sector.^{[citation needed]} After becoming CEO, Immelt offered an expanded set of financial reports in addition to GE's traditional format.

Immelt participated actively in mergers and acquisitions, purchasing Amersham PLC for $9.5 billion in 2004 and Alstom's power business for approximately €12.4  billion in 2015. Immelt sold GE's plastics business for $11.6 billion in 2007, NBC Universal for $8 billion in 2013, and GE's appliances business for $3.3 billion in 2014. In 2015, GE announced it would sell its real estate holdings for $26.5 billion and most of GE Capital's assets.

During Immelt's tenure as CEO, the company's financial performance suffered considerably, as shares of GE dropped 30 percent, while the S&P 500 rose by 134% over the same period of time, which had led to suspicions of his managerial competencies to be called into question when running the day-to-day operations of the corporation. GE restated its earnings in 2005 and agreed to pay the SEC $50 million to settle allegations of accounting fraud in 2009.