Jack Welch

About Jack Welch

Jack Welch goes by the name as John Francis Welch Jr. He was a leading business executive, writer, and chemical engineer from America. He is also renowned for having served as the CEO and Chairman of GE (General Electronics) from the time of 1981 to 2001.

Upon retiring from GE, Jack Welch received a whopping severance payment amount of around $417 million. It has served to be the largest of such payments in the history of business in the world. By the time of 2006, Welch’s Net worth was estimated to be at around $720 million.

Jack Welch's Education and Early Life

Jack Welch was born on 19th November, 1935 at the Peabody in Massachusetts. Welch was both a Catholic and an Irish American. Throughout the period of his early life during high school & middle school, Welch came across work during the summers in the form of a golf caddie, shoe salesman, delivery boy for newspapers, and drill press operator. For his education, Welch went to Salem High School. Here, he participated in hockey, football, and baseball.

His Time in General Electric (GE)

Welch went on to join General Electric (GE) in the year 1960. He worked as a chemical engineer in Massachusetts and earned a salary of around $10,500. In the year 1961, Welch planned that he will be quitting his job in the form of a junior engineer as he was dissatisfied with the increase in salary that was offered to him. Moreover, he was also quite unhappy about the overall bureaucracy that he was observing at GE. However, Reuben Gutoff –a leading executive at GE, convinced Welch to remain at GE. Gutoff delivered him the promise that he would help Welch in the creation of an environment of a small company as desired by Welch.

By the time of 1968, Welch went on to become the Head and Vice-President at the plastics division at GE. In the given role, Welch was responsible for overseeing production & marketing for the plastics that were developed at GE. He was in the given position until the time of 1979. In the year 1977, Welch was given the position of the Head of Consumer Products and Senior Vice President. In 1979, he went on to become the Vice Chairman at GE.

In the year 1981, it was Welch who was hailed as the youngest CEO & Chairman at GE.

Later Career

After Welch retired from GE, he became a leading adviser to Clayton –a private equity firm. In addition to delivering advisory and consulting roles, Welch was quite active at public speaking. Therefore, he co-wrote a famous column with his wife for BusinessWee. In December 2016, Welch went on to join the business forum that was assembled by Donald Trump –the then President-elect, for providing strategic as well as policy advice on economic issues.