2009 GE Alumni National Conference

3rd National GE Alumni Conference

“HR Strategies for the New Economy”

October 16, 2009 GE Global LearningCrotonville LeadershipJohn F. Welch CenterOssining, NY

Agenda

A.M.

8:30 – 9:30 Registration

9:30 – 9:40 Conference Welcome & Kickoff

9:40 – 10:20 Speed Networking

10:20 – 10:30 Break

10:30 – 12:15 General Session- GE HR Best Practices – John Lynch, SVP HR

- Session C Update & The 21st Century Leader, Susan Peters, CLO

12:15 – 1:30 Lunch & Free Time

Agenda

P.M.

1:30 – 2:10 Panel Discussion: HR Trends 2020

2:10 – 2:50 Concurrent Breakout Groups Round I

2:50 – 3:10 Break

3:10 – 3:50 Concurrent Breakout Group II

4:00 – 5:00 Keynote Address

- Jeff Immelt, Chairman of The Board & CEO

5:00 – 5:30 Closing Remarks & Wrap-Up

5:30 – 6:30 Cocktail Reception & Networking

6:30 – 8:00 Dinner

Concurrent Breakout Groups

Ethical Leadership(Danielle Warren, Ph.D & Nancy DiTomaso, Ph.D - Rutgers University, Institute of Ethical Leadership) Given recent corporate crises, ethical leadership has taken a central role in protecting organizations from incidents that will derail strategy and threaten survival. Professors Warren and DiTomaso will discuss the major issues that need to be addressed in creating an environment of ethical leadership. They will describe recent trends in thinking about ethical leadership and common organizational pitfalls as well as tactics for improving ethical decision-making in business.


Executive CompensationManaging your Compensation Committee’s Expectations (Robin Ferracone - Farient Advisors)

The most perplexing issue in executive compensation is how much to pay for performance. Boards and management are jointly responsible for ensuring alignment of pay and performance to ensure a “fair deal” between shareholders and executives, and maintaining retention of top talent. Drawing upon Farient Advisor’s proprietary research, which is the subject of their upcoming book, they will show why executive pay and performance can be better aligned and discuss what to do about it.


Legal Implications of Capitol HillYou better prepare for what’s coming down the road (Laura Sack - Vedder Price)

Is your organization prepared for all of the legal implications of the Obama administration? Management-side labor & employment counsel from Vedder Price P.C. (a business-oriented law firm with offices in NYC, Chicago, and D.C.) will provide insight on the Employee Free Choice Act, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and other pending/proposed federal legislation that is likely to impact your organization for years to come. This is your opportunity to learn how you can best provide direction for your senior management on critical and potentially costly matters to your company.

Concurrent Breakout GroupsSuccession Planning & Success FactorsHow Succession Planning can Impact your Bottom Line (Dr. Steve Hunt - SuccessFactors):

It’s time to transform succession planning from a once a year event to an ongoing way of managing and developing talent for your company. The purpose of succession management is to ensure a steady supply of talent for pivotal positions within an organization. The best way to do this is to create ongoing processes and cultural norms within an organization that ensure it is constantly attracting, developing, retaining, and promoting high potential employees. Yet many companies approach succession as a once a year event where employees are “racked and stacked” into broad, often ill-defined categories. This session addresses innovations in talent management methods and technology allowing organizations to shift away from the traditional succession mindset to less disruptive and more effective approaches, which are integral to ongoing TM activities.


Talent Management in 2015Where will they be and how do I convince them to join my team? (Michele James, Principal - James & Company)

The war for talent has not stopped; it has just begun. Your organization will demand leadership that can build organizational capabilities to create products and services that will result in customers giving you money versus your competitors. HR's responsibility is to bring talent to the table and influence senior management to hire them. This presentation will provide direction & guidance on how to build a world-class organization for global environments. HR either needs to get in the game or get out of the way.... does your CEO understand your value proposition...we can tell you those HR executives who have achieved this and their approach.

Speaker Bios

Jeffrey R. Immelt is the ninth chairman of GE, a post he has held since September 7, 2001.

Mr. Immelt has held several global leadership positions since coming to GE in 1982, including roles in GE's Plastics, Appliance, and Medical businesses. In 1989 he became an officer of GE and joined the GE Capital Board in 1997. A couple years later, in 2000, Mr. Immelt was appointed president and chief executive officer.

Jeffrey R. Immelt

Mr. Immelt has been named one of the "World's Best CEOs" three times by Barron's, and since he began serving as chief executive officer, GE has been named "America's Most Admired Company" in a poll conducted by Fortune magazine and one of "The World's Most Respected Companies" in polls by Barron's and the Financial Times.Mr. Immelt is also a member of The Business Council, and he is on the board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.Mr. Immelt earned a B.A. degree in applied mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1978 and an M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1982. He and his wife Andrea have one daughter.

Susan P. Peters is a vice president and leads Executive Development for GE. Responsible for talent identification, leadership development and succession planning for GE executives worldwide, she assumed the role in 2001.

Ms. Peters first joined the company through the Human Resource Management Program of GE Appliances in 1979. Her assignments included organization and staffing in Louisville, Kentucky, and employee relations in Columbia, Maryland.

Susan P. Peters

In 1981 Ms. Peters became manager of Union Relations in the Central Air Conditioning Department in Trenton, New Jersey. When that department was sold to the Trane Company in 1982, she transferred to Tyler, Texas, as professional relations manager. She returned to GE in 1984 as manager of Non-exempt Relations for GE Plastics in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Ms. Peters was appointed manager of Human Resources for GE Plastics in Worldwide Marketing and Product Management in 1986, and in 1989 she transferred to Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands, to manage human resources for GE Plastics' European manufacturing sites. In 1990 she moved to Fairfield, Connecticut, to become manager of Human Resources Staffing and Development, and the following year she was promoted to manager of Human Resources for GE Plastics, Americas. She moved to Louisville, Kentucky, in 1993 to become the senior human resources manager for GE Appliances.Ms. Peters was appointed a company officer in 1997, and in 2000 she became executive vice president of Human Resources for NBC. In 2007 she assumed responsibility for all training and development, including leadership.Ms. Peters graduated from St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, with a B.A. in English Literature and from the University of Virginia with a Master's of Education. She serves on the National Board of Directors of Girl Scouts of the USA. She is married and has one daughter.

John F. Lynch is GE's senior vice president of Corporate Human Resources and is based in Fairfield, Connecticut. A native of Edinburgh, Scotland, Mr. Lynch worked in a number of management roles in human resources for one of the UK's major finance houses for 18 years. In 1991 he joined the UK Auto Finance Business of GE Capital, and in 1994 he was promoted to HR Leader for GE Capital Retailer Finance-Europe The following year he moved to Stamford, Connecticut, as Senior HR Leader for GE Capital Global Consumer Finance, now GE Money.

John Lynch

In 2001, Mr. Lynch was elected a GE company officer, becoming vice president in Human Resources for GE Medical Systems in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (now GE Healthcare). Following the Amersham acquisition in April 2004, John led human resources at the new global headquarters for GE Healthcare in London. In 2007, Mr. Lynch was appointed senior vice president of Corporate Human Resources, reporting directly to the GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. He has overall human resources responsibility for GE's 320,000 employees worldwide.Educated at Blairs College, Aberdeen, and St Andrews College in Scotland Mr. Lynch and his wife Sarajane have three children, Suzy, Johnny and Katy.

Founder, James & Co. Ms. James previously was Chief Talent Scout for Time Warner and served as the leader of a world-class executive search and recruiting organization across all Time Warner businesses domestically and internationally. She identified top talent, internally and externally, to fill leadership roles throughout the company and facilitated cross-divisional moves that resulted in attracting and developing the world's best talent. Prior to joining Time Warner, Michele was Managing Director of the world’s largest Executive Search Firm Korn Ferry where she led the media, entertainment and convergence practice in identifying executive talent for major media entertainment technology companies.Before entering the field of search, Michele held executive and operating positions at a number of firms in the cable and media industries. These include: Executive Vice President and partner of US FiberCom Network, Inc., a subsidiary of TCI/US Cable Groups; Vice President for Cable Sales and Marketing at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s Group W; and Vice President of the media brokerage firm FBC.

Michele James

Director, Business Transformation Services, SuccessFactors Dr. Steven Hunt is Director of Business Transformation Services at SuccessFactors where he oversees the development and implementation of technology-enabled talent management solutions to maximize workforce engagement and productivity. Dr. Hunt has over 15 years experience designing talent management solutions supporting a range of applications including performance management, staffing, employee development, culture change, workforce transformation, and succession planning. He has worked with a variety of industries including retail, healthcare, dining, manufacturing, finance, information technology, transportation, and public sector organizations. A recognized expert in the field of technology-enabled talent management solutions, Dr. Hunt has played a pivotal role in the design and implementation of talent management tools that have improved the accuracy of strategic business decisions affecting well over a million employees working for several hundred different companies ranging from small start up organizations to some of the largest employers in the world. Dr. Hunt holds a Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from The Ohio State University, a B.A. in applied mathematics and psychology from the University of California, San Diego, and professional certification as a Strategic Professional of Human Resources (SPHR) from the Society of Human Resource Management. Prior to joining SuccessFactors, Dr. Hunt held positions with Kronos Talent Management Division (formerly Unicru Inc.), Starbucks Coffee Corporation, SHL Inc., Personnel Decisions International, and the U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories.

Steven T. Hunt, Ph.D., SPHR

Shareholder, VedderPriceLaura Sack is a shareholder at VedderPrice and a member of the firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group. For more than 15 years, Ms. Sack’s practice has been devoted exclusively to representing management in labor and employment law matters. Her practice currently includes litigating employment cases before state and federal courts, representing clients before administrative agencies, designing and conducting employee-training programs, and counseling management on labor and employment law issues. Following a one-year clerkship with the Honorable Raymond J. Pettine, United States District Court Judge for the District of Rhode Island, Ms. Sack joined the labor and employment law group of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City. Ms. Sack spent more than five years at Simpson Thacher, representing employers ranging from multinational financial institutions to local non-profit organizations. During her tenure at Simpson Thacher, Ms. Sack spent several months working in-house as interim labor and employment counsel to Philip Morris Management Corp.

EducationJ.D., Yale Law SchoolA.B., magna cum laude, Brown University (Phi Beta Kappa)

Laura Sack

Professor, Rutgers Business SchoolChair, Management & Global BusinessNancy DiTomaso is Professor of Management and Global Business at Rutgers Business School—Newark and New Brunswick. Her research specialties include the management of diversity and change, the management of knowledge-based organizations, and the management of scientists and engineers. Her Ph.D. is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and she previously taught at New York University and Northwestern University. She also has a Certificate in Business Administration from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and attended Proyecto Linguistico in Quetzeltenango, Guatemala.She has co-authored and co-edited five books and has had articles published in such journals as Academy of Management Journal, Sex Roles, Leadership Quarterly, California Management Review, and the Journal of Engineering-Technology Management. She is currently completing a forthcoming book entitled The American Non-dilemma about how people think about issues of inequality. In addition, she has been analyzing survey data on the career experiences of 3200 scientists and engineers from 25 major companies.

Nancy DiTomaso

Assistant ProfessorAccounting, Business Ethics & Information SystemsThe main focus of Professor Warren’s research is constructive and destructive deviance in business organizations and the effects of social and financial sanctions on these behaviors. She is not only interested in examining what causes certain behaviors but also the standards used to judge conduct. Her empirical studies include an intensive multi-method examination of traders on the floor of financial exchanges, quantitative analyses of auto insurance fraud investigations, quantitative and qualitative survey research on social exchange (guanxi) in Chinese business, and experiments on deception at work. Her research appears in the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, and numerous book chapters.

Danielle Warren

Robin A. Ferracone

CEO, RAF Capital LLCExecutive Chair, Farient AdvisorsMs. Ferracone is founder and CEO of RAF Capital LLC, and founder and Executive Chair of Farient Advisors. RAF Capital makes strategic investments in HR-related businesses, one of which is Farient Advisors. Farient Advisors helps clients make performance-enhancing, defensible, and timely decisions that are in the best interests of their shareholders. Ms. Ferracone provides executive advisory services to public and private companies, including private equity firms.From March 2005 to March 2007, Ms. Ferracone was President of the Human Capital business of Mercer, a business that includes human capital consulting, software, and data services globally. Prior to that, Ms. Ferracone was Chairman of the U.S. West Region for Mercer's parent company, Marsh & McLennan Companies, market leader and Worldwide Partner at Mercer, and President and Chairman of SCA Consulting, a firm she co-founded in 1985 and sold to Mercer in 2001.Ms. Ferracone is a member of Duke University Board of Trustees, Harvey Mudd College Board of Trustees, and World Presidents' Organization. In 2007, Ms. Ferracone led a special Task Force on Governance for Duke University. Ms. Ferracone received an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar and a B.A. summa cum laude in Management Science and Economics from Duke University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Planning Committee

Nadine Alexandre

Bonnie Brown

Michael Bruno

Deborah Burke

David Gilman

Carla Haase

Sally Hackett

Jim Martin

Peter Mercer

Carol Pasmore

Pam Porath

Janet Sansone

Mike Schiavoni

Eve Sheridan