(1935- )

Jack Welch is the popular name of John F(rances) Welch Jr., who is the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of General Electric Company.
Being a native of Salem, Massachusetts, received his B.S. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Massachusetts in 1957 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois.
He joined General Electric (GE) in 1960. Through his aggressive marketing of the company's plastics, materials, and consumer goods and services, he earned steady promotions (vice-president 1972, senior vice-president 1977--9, vice-chairman 1979--81) before becoming GE's eigth and youngest-ever chairman and CEO in 1981 in the Company's 121-year history.

Regarded as a master of strategic planning, if a ruthless executive, he redefined GE's areas of concentration and mandated that the company be number one or two at everything it did. Enterprises that either fell outside the strategic orbit or failed to perform were sold. The result was 132,000 layoffs, 73 plant closings, and more than 200 sales of products or businesses, and a major acquisition - RCA (1985). He became one of the country's most respected and influential business leaders for transforming an industrial giant into a flexible, entrepreneurial organization.

Mr. John F. Welch is a former chairman and a member of both The Business Council and the National Academy of Engineering and is a member of the Business Roundtable.

"Hate bureaucracy and all the nonsense that comes with it." Those were Jack Welch's marching orders to his troops. Word came that he will step down as CEO of General Electric in April 2001 and, as if a gold watch weren't enough, is Fortune magazine's "manager of the century." He remade a giant company, seeking new ventures and abandoning those GE couldn't dominate. Criticized for laying off workers, he also shifted power to the shop floor. On his watch, GE's market value shot from $13 billion in 1981 to $425 billion today.

Some things aren't taught in business school. Just weeks away from the final act in a five-year-long succession drama, General Electric Chairman and CEO Jack Welch pulled a stunner. He snatched Honeywell International from the arms of suitor United Technologies in June 2000 in a $45 billion deal?the largest industrial merger ever?and said he would postpone his pending retirement until the end of 2001 to oversee the acquisition. "This is not a story of the old fool who can't leave his seat, who loves the job so much he can't go home," Welch, 64, insisted at a press conference held on the NBC (which GE owns) set where Saturday Night Live is broadcast.

"The world of the 1990s and beyond will not belong to 'managers' or those who can make the numbers dance. The world will belong to passionate, driven leadersópeople who not only have enormous amounts of energy but who can energize those whom they lead."