H. Lawrence Culp Jr.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
2018 – Present
8 years (current)
Key Decisions & Impact
As the first outsider ever appointed to lead GE, H. Lawrence Culp Jr. inherited a sprawling, severely indebted conglomerate teetering on the edge of collapse. Rejecting decades of established corporate orthodoxy, he immediately instituted a rigorous 'Lean' management operating system (the 'Flight Deck' model) to eliminate internal waste and bureaucracy. His most historic decision, however, was concluding that the core GE conglomerate model was unfixable. He orchestrated the unprecedented, very complex strategic breakup of the 130-year-old company into three separate entities: GE Aerospace, GE HealthCare, and GE Vernova.
Legacy
Culp's tenure represents one of the most remarkable and successful corporate turnaround operations in modern American business history. By systematically dismantling the unwieldy empire built by his predecessors, he eliminated over $100 billion in heavy corporate debt and restored focus, agility, and profitability to the underlying industrial businesses. As CEO of the remaining GE Aerospace entity, his legacy is defined by his willingness to destroy the well-known GE conglomerate in order to save its constituent parts.