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Immelt: GE's classic management toolkit was best suited for private equity

Jeff Immelt · #116 Jeff Immelt: Leadership In A Crisis · Jul 27, 2021 · at 42:13

Former GE CEO Jeff Immelt explains why the operational playbooks developed under Jack Welch translated effectively to private equity rather than modern product-driven companies.

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“You know, if you look at the basic GE toolkit that I grew up with, it was almost the perfect match for private equity where You took a company, you had five years to turn it around. You didn't have to make big bets on products and technology. And so I think to a certain extent, some of the people who left GE did best in private equity versus going to run other companies.”

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