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[[♪upbeat music♪] [Commercial Leadership Program (CLP)]]
[[Charles Haworth - GE Energy]]
[[C. Russell] You are listening to Jobs in Pods.]
[Welcome to Jobs in Pods, the only podcast where you can hear real employers]
[talk about their jobs and tell you what it's like to work there.]
[I'm your host, Chris Russell.]
[This jobcast will feature GE Energy's Commercial Leadership Program, CLP.]
[It is a 24-month program designed to develop commercial talent]
[within the GE Energy business.]
[Qualified candidates can expect a great deal of exposure and job experience]
[from four rotations within GE Energy.]
[It includes formal classroom training in GE's state-of-the-art facilities,]
[mentoring from senior leadership, and career planning during two years,]
[leading to a full-fledged commercial role.]
[Joining us today to discuss the role is an Energy CLP program member from Europe,]
[Hey, Charles. Welcome to Jobs in Pods.]
[[Haworth] Hi, there. Thanks for having me on.]
[[Russell] So tell us, why did you choose to work at GE?]
[[Haworth] In fact, I came from a GE family,]
[so I've grown up knowing GE for a long time.]
[My father has worked here for 25 years,]
[and my impression after that amount of time]
[was basically what a big, diverse company it was]
[I lived all over the world as a child, and that was due to GE.]
[[Russell] How would you describe a typical day for what you do as a CLP?]
[I've done four international rotations in different countries and different businesses]
[within GE Energy, so a typical day changes from rotation to rotation.]
[But I would say normally I come into the office,]
[fire up the laptop, and check emails and calendar]
[and then plan the day ahead.]
[Typically, on the CLP program we're working in commercial operations or sales,]
[so I can be working on a number of different deals at any one time.]
[So planning the deal and also preparation,]
[but alongside that, I also tend to have a lot of special projects]
[which we get assigned to during our rotations--]
[creating special tools and processes ]
[and also on top of that to squeeze in any extra time, ]
[the CLP program offers a lot of other tasks and things.]
[We're on committees and get involved in different things on the CLP side.]
[A lot of organizational skills are required.]
[[Russell] Talk about the training that you receive for this.]
[[Haworth] Well, the training again is very diverse.]
[The great thing about being on this commercial program ]
[is we have some formalized training that we have to do as part of the program]
[over the two years, and these are very, very good GE hosted trainings]
[where we typically fly to a training center somewhere nearby where your rotation is,]
[and then we'll have a formal training from topics from finance]
[to power plant evaluation and pricing to power plant technologies]
[and sales, negotiations training, and so it is very, very varied and diverse.]
[On top of that, when you have different rotations,]
[we get rotation specific training, so specific product and service trainings as required.]
[[Russell] Charles, what are the things you really like about your job?]
[[Haworth] It's got to be the diversity and the people I work with.]
[I came from a science background at university,]
[and I came into this business training program, and I'm just learning so much every day.]
[Every rotation every six months you're seeing a completely different business,]
[I'm learning all the time, and that's what I love the most about it.]
[[Russell] Speaking of the people you work with, what are they like?]
[[Haworth] Extremely diverse.]
[In the office right now I can probably pick up about three or four different languages]
[There are people from all over the world, all different backgrounds.]
[Whenever I go on business trips and meetings with the CLPs,]
[I think the Energy program at the moment has representatives]
[from nearly every country on the globe.]
[It's very diverse, but I think the overriding thing]
[is everyone has the same kind of common enthusiasm and drive,]
[and there are very interesting people you get to meet, very highly educated, etc,]
[and are a very good crowd to work with.]
[[Russell] And you're in Austria right now, is that correct?]
[[Haworth] Yes. I'm in a place called Jenbacher]
[where they make reciprocating gas engines.]
[I've been here for three months, and it's very nice so far.]
[[Russell] Excellent. So how would you say the CLP challenges you?]
[[Haworth] The challenge is probably apparent ]
[from taking a new job role every six months.]
[So even though we're on a training program, very often we step in]
[and we take over the real role from day one.]
[So the learning curve is extremely steep.]
[You need to get to know everybody in the new business very quickly.]
[You have to learn the products and everything very quickly]
[and try and step into that role,]
[which is very, very challenging but very enjoyable at the same time.]
[[Russell] So it sounds like all this diversity and stepping into these new roles all the time]
[is really going to help in your career development at GE. Is that correct?]
[The way I judge that myself is when you explain to other people]
[what you're doing on the program and you tell them where you've worked]
[all over the world, in all different languages, different cultures, different businesses,]
[the response you get from people is often amazement.]
[It's such an unique opportunity that I think for career development it goes without saying]
[[Russell] All right. That will do it for this edition of Jobs in Pods.]
[Charles, thanks very much for your time today. >>[Haworth] Thank you.]
[[Russell] For more information on careers with GE, visit gecareers.com]
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