GE : imagination at work - General Electric

人 物 Our PeopleNo Shortcuts to Success— An Exclusive Interview with Ma Mingming, Winner of theGE ECLP Growth AwardIn order to train employees and cultivate a diverse talent pool inmarketing and sales for GE, Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE,launched the Experienced Commercial Leadership Program (ECLP)in 2002. This first-rate program has already recruited nearly1,000 potential marketing and sales talents. In 2011, standing outamong 200 candidates, Ma Mingming has won the Growth Awardof GE ECLP.In 2009, GE ECLP changed its recruiting requirements whenselecting candidates, hoping to find talent with workingexperience in government affairs, especially people who haveworked for the Chinese and American governments in theenergy and electric sectors. At that time, Ma Mingming workedfor the US Embassy in China as a senior commercial expert inthe Department of Commerce, making her a perfect candidatefor GE’s program. She also discovered her career goals matchedECLP’s training purposes. When she finally joined the ECLP, shewas the only Chinese ECLP trainee in GE Energy that year.During her first rotation after joining the ECLP, Ma Mingming becameinvolved in the GE China Sustainable City program. To choosesuitable cities as pilot examples, she put in a considerable amount oftime collecting GE’s internal resources and formulating ideas for theproject. To streamline and expedite work flow, Ma Mingming readlarge volumes of information and set up a portal that integratedinformation about sustainable cities, including special definitionsand background information on government policies, each cityin the project and GE’s line of green products. The portal gave hercolleagues quick and easy access to the information.While working for the program, Ma Mingming maintained openand active lines of communication with government staff fromdifferent regions to get insight into how to better integrateGE’s products into the planning phase to make each city trulysustainable. After the first rotation wrapped up, Ma Mingminghad completed a 58-page feasibility report on the GE ChinaSustainable City program, comprehensively analyzing all thecollected internal and external information. The report hasestablished a solid foundation for other colleagues to continuethe next step of the program.Ma Mingming’s second rotation started in marketing for GE Energy.During this time, she was involved in various projects, but researchingcombined heat and power generation of China’s airport constructionwas the highlight. At first, Ma Mingming thought the work was easybecause she could utilize GE Aviation’s experience and connectionsto complete the project. It was later that she learned that althoughGE Aviation had cooperated with each airline and formed specialconnections, the business division barely had any ties in the energyplanning field. In other words, airport construction was a newfrontier for GE Energy. GE has already multiple cutting-edge energyproducts and devices including aero gas turbines and Jenbachergas engines. The Chinese government embraces combined heat andpower generation and energy consumption reduction technologies,and plans to build a number of new airports in the near future,presenting GE with a great opportunity to promote its products andtechnologies that are able to meet the energy needs of these newairports.By learning about GE’s advantages, Ma Mingming utilized heraccumulated experience and former working relationship tocommunicate with China Airport Construction Group Corporationof CAAC (CACC), helping GE jumpstart the airport constructionproject. “CACC undertook 70% to 80% of the airports’ design andplanning, but their staff knew little about combined heat andpower technologies and gas turbines. We discussed the projectin depth and found that CACC and the local airport constructiongroup were interested in GE’s energy products and technologies,which facilitated cooperation between the two sides. Due todiffering business philosophies and the complexity of GE’stechnology, we couldn’t share all our technology with them atonce; but we were able to introduce GE’s energy products andtechnologies, such as the Jenbacher and aero gas turbines, tothe designers of the airports. We sincerely hope GE and CACC’scooperation will come to fruition in the construction of the secondBeijing capital airport.” Ma Mingming said.Ma Mingming started her third rotation at the headquarters ofRenewable Energy in the United States. With the rapid developmentof China’s wind energy market, foreign wind turbine manufacturershave less advantage as domestic sellers dominate the market.Chinese enterprises have been able to continuously lowertheir prices and save on costs, causing manufacturers to faceunexpectedly tough competition. To create a viable marketingstrategy, it was essential to accurately assess the competitiveenvironment and learn more about the upper industry chain marketfor wind turbines. To do this, Ma Mingming conducted a survey onthe upper industry chain market, and analyzed the competitionto help her American colleagues understand China’s wind powermarket through geographical perspectives and cultural differences,verifying the necessity of building joint ventures in China. This surveyalso demonstrated that the joint venture can reduce the cost as wellas improve GE’s competitiveness in China’s wind power market. Alsoat that time, Ma Mingming coordinated the planning of the GrowthPlay Book (GPB), which indicates GE’s business strategy and longtermoutlook process.The rotations motivated Ma Mingming to continue growing andmake daring moves to boost her career, which eventually wonher the Growth Award. Her experience at GE proves the saying,“no pain, no gain”. When she found out she had won the GrowthAward, Ma Mingmingwas surprised with the result;there were more than 200 excellent candidates and she was thefinalist among them. She believed she was selected for the awardbecause of her excellent performance and went beyond theprogram’s expectations during her three rotations.When asked about the secrets to her success, Ma Mingming said:“There are no shortcuts to success, only great efforts can lead youto your goal. During my rotation, I tried my best to devote myselfinto the projects I was put in charge of. My hope was that when myrotation finished, I would be able to provide something valuable formy team members and leaders. The project development I achievedduring my two-year ECLP life, all the training and practice, has pavedthe way for my career at GE. Thanks ECLP for giving me a platformto grow and challenge myself.”After finishing her job rotation at ECLP in July 2011, Ma Mingmingreceived a number of job offers from different GE departments.Apart from her hard work, she attributed her success to leadersin the Business Program and HR Department who helped heralong the way, including three leaders on her job rotation - ScottSitu, Hans Chia, Kevin Jerwann - and the two Business ProgramManagers, Lyne Girard and Dean Park. ECLP is a platform forGE to cultivate future leaders, so GE leaders from HR and theProgram Management department has devoted their time andenergy to make this program a success. After two years in ECLP,Ma Mingming has grown into a mature employee with a strongworking spirit and leadership abilities. Ma is proud of her quickrise during the ECLP program and believes ECLP can attract moretalented individuals who can make contributions that ensure GE’sprosperous future.43 LIFE at GELIFE at GE 44