GE is filled with business leaders, not philosophers. We understand that the best companies don’t make decisions based on what they hope for, but rather on the facts they see. We win by being a valuable, global company and by engaging members of every community we operate in all over the world. We play to our fundamental strengths. We have the world’s best industrial businesses that compete in large markets. We add enterprise strength through what we call the GE Store. We are building a culture that is simpler, faster, and more accountable.
Positioning GE to win has required change. Every leader talks about change, but most are just managing momentum. This is a luxury we didn’t have in GE. We refocused the company to be in businesses where we can lead while investing in new capability to capture future growth. We want GE to be essential to our customers, investors, and the world.
Over the last decade, we transformed the GE portfolio, increasing the portion of earnings from our industrial businesses from about 45% to 90%. We strengthened our competitiveness through investments in technology, globalization, and efficiency. In the past year, we sold most of GE Capital assets at good prices, integrated Alstom – our largest industrial acquisition – and announced plans to merge our Oil & Gas business with Baker Hughes, creating a broad industry leader. These are “once-in-a-lifetime” deals for most companies. We did them all in one year.