Life at GE : Careers : GE

What are the best aspects of your current job?

As an architect, I am able to see across all activities within IT, which keeps it interesting. Would love to have time to deep dive into all our projects to help out, but it's not possible. I miss the detail at times. I also get to translate the technical aspects into language that stakeholders can understand. Being able to demystify some of the complexities we have in IT is actually quite rewarding. On a similar note, I am able to understand more about the business processes and our imperatives that help drive that focus across IT and deliver real value to our organization.

What are the best things about working at GE?

I joined GE two years after the acquisition of Amersham (where I was a consultant for eight years). This meant I chose to join the company, and I have no regrets. I love the structure, the focus on people development and of course the great products at Healthcare and other businesses. I recently did a cross-GE business project where I was able to get a sense of the scale of the company with all its people, systems and processes. Truly astonishing. If you go to IDM and register yourself on the DL "@CORP Telling Our Story," you get a weekly mail of all the executive summaries and PR highlights from GE. It is a great way to learn what our company is doing.

It is not always easy, but if you can manage your workload and navigate the process it can be very rewarding.

How did your background/previous work experience prepare you for your current role?

I was born in Cyprus, raised in New Zealand, and have worked for 15 years in Holland, Germany and Sweden. I was an IT consultant for most of that time, so I was used to working hard with a delivery-focused mindset. I think the combination of having moved around, together with a strong work ethic, has helped me enormously at GE. It is important to understand different people and cultures and to also realize that whilst we all feel the pressures of work, it is no different in other large companies, and here we are part of something truly great. I am extremely proud to be working in the Healthcare industry, and this helps keep me interested.

What is the most challenging project you've worked on at GE?

I think the most challenging was in 2006 when we created a new Oracle instance for Life Sciences and merged three manufacturing, finance and distribution systems into it. It was most challenging, because we were recently acquired and were still learning GE tools, rules and processes. It was also challenging, because it was new technology for us. Since then, the Life Sciences IT team has done a fantastic job in moving many legacy applications to this strategic platform, and that includes quite a number of large acquisitions. We are about to embark on a large project to remove the final layer of legacy ERP systems into Oracle, and I am very excited about that. Fingers crossed for SII funding!

What are the top technical skills that you take pride in possessing and/or still draw upon for your job?

Truth be told, many of my technical skills are getting out of date. However, as a former programmer, I still enjoy getting involved in logic issues regardless of the language. I am a stickler for very detailed testing, which is critical for many of the complex supply chain changes we have made of late.

During the Whatman integration of sales offices, I led the Data team, and we managed to convert five MFG/PRO systems into 32 companies on six JDE instances housed on four computers. We converted all open transactions during a single night and had only $160 currency differences for $22 million of orders. I love the detail that goes around planning and executing these events.

What is the best piece of career advice you can offer IT folks embarking on a technical career at GE?

We are putting the "T" back in IT. This is a great initiative. I feel it is important that those of us in IT understand more of the detail, technology and business processes. Being in IT is not just about managing GDC resources, as important as that is, it is also about ensuring we have sufficient depth of knowledge to truly understand the best and most effective way to deliver for our business.

I would also encourage people to connect with the many great teams we have, such as Enterprise and Application Architects, Middleware, Compute, DBAs, etc. We have so much collective knowledge out there. The trick is understanding enough to make the right decision and guide the teams doing the work and knowing when to go to an expert for help and advice.