N@N

GE Names Vice Chairman John Rice to Lead GE Global Growth & Operations

^{Published on 2010-11-08 11:20:33 - Market Wire}
 

FAIRFIELD, Conn.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--The General Electric (NYSE: GE) Board of Directors has named John G. Rice to lead the companya™s global operations. Rice, a GE vice chairman since 2005, will be in charge of GEa™s growth outside the United States. Rice will relocate to Hong Kong and his appointment is effective Jan. 1, 2011.

"He is well known and respected by global business and government leaders and our employees. We are entering a period of great opportunity in global markets and, as a result, our teams must be more decentralized, faster and more local."

aJohn Rice has served customers, built partnerships and done deals around the world for more than 20 years,a said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. aHe is well known and respected by global business and government leaders and our employees. We are entering a period of great opportunity in global markets and, as a result, our teams must be more decentralized, faster and more local."

aWe are raising the stature of everything global in GE,a Immelt said. aJohn will lead teams that will use our local domain strength and talent to execute our growth and export strategies.a

Rice, 53, will be responsible for all non-U.S. markets with particular emphasis on high-growth markets such as China, India, the Middle East and Brazil where he will accelerate GEa™s efforts to meet customer needs with GEa™s leading technology and services. In many of these markets, this includes GEa™s acompany to countrya growth strategy in which GE works directly with governments to meet local needs.

aWe expect global sales to be about 60 percent of GE going forward,a Immelt said. aOur global growth has expanded by about 15 percent a year for most of the past decade and we expect it to continue in the future,a Immelt said.

Rice will oversee 12 integrated local organizations that will include business development, commercial teams, finance, controllership and legal. This will include China, India, Southeast Asia, Latin/South America, Russia, Canada, Australia, the Middle East, Africa, Germany, Europe and Japan/Korea.

In his 32-year GE career, Rice has led two of GEa™s most global businesses, Energy and Transportation. Since 2007, Rice had led GEa™s Technology Infrastructure business, which included Aviation, Transportation and Healthcare. Those businesses will now report directly to Immelt and report financial results separately beginning in 2011. A full bio for Rice is available [ here ].

Nani Beccalli, who has successfully built GEa™s global team for the past nine years, will continue to lead Europe, Japan and Korea reporting to Rice. In addition, Beccalli will build and lead a new aOne GEa approach in Germany, in which leaders from across GEa™s businesses in that market report to Beccalli. GE established a similar aP&La structure in India last year.

aWe are able to take this next step in our growth as a global company because of the strong foundation that Nani Beccalli built over the past nine years,a Immelt said. aGermany offers significant growth opportunities for GE and we need an experienced leader like Nani to use his deep expertise and extensive network of contacts to build a aOne GEa™ approach in Germany.a

aWith Johna™s and Nania™s leadership and more integrated local teams, we will be a better and more competitive global company a" with more local business development, customer support, research and product development,a Immelt said.

Immelt has made improving GEa™s global capabilities a priority since becoming CEO in 2001. In that time, GE has diversified and built its global resources, adding local talent, research and development capabilities and sales and marketing assets in growth markets. GE also has become one of the biggest exporters from the United States, selling more than $18 billion worth of U.S.-made goods and services outside America in 2009, up from $7 billion in 2001, for average growth of more than 12 percent. As a result of this global growth, GE has created thousands of new manufacturing jobs in the United States in the last two years.

GE (NYSE: GE) is a diversified infrastructure, finance and media company taking on the worlda™s toughest challenges. From aircraft engines and power generation to financial services, health care solutions, and television programming, GE operates in more than 100 countries and employs about 300,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the company's Web site at [ www.ge.com ].

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements:

This document contains aforward-looking statementsa a" that is, statements related to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address our expected future business and financial performance and financial condition, and often contain words such as aexpect,a aanticipate,a aintend,a aplan,a abelieve,a aseek,a asee,a or awill.a Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. For us, particular uncertainties that could cause our actual results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements include: current economic and financial conditions, including volatility in interest and exchange rates, commodity and equity prices and the value of financial assets; the impact of conditions in the financial and credit markets on the availability and cost of General Electric Capital Corporationa™s (GECC) funding and on our ability to reduce GECCa™s asset levels as planned; the impact of conditions in the housing market and unemployment rates on the level of commercial and consumer credit defaults; changes in Japanese consumer behavior that may affect our estimates of liability for Grey Zone claims; our ability to maintain our current credit rating and the impact on our funding costs and competitive position if we do not do so; the adequacy of our cash flow and earnings and other conditions which may affect our ability to pay our quarterly dividend at the planned level; the level of demand and financial performance of the major industries we serve, including, without limitation, air and rail transportation, energy generation, network television, real estate and healthcare; the impact of regulation and regulatory, investigative and legal proceedings and legal compliance risks, including the impact of financial services regulation; strategic actions, including acquisitions, jointventuresand dispositions and our success incompleting announced transactions and integrating acquired businesses; and numerous other matters of national, regional and global scale, including those of a political, economic, business and competitive nature. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements.