Power Letters 2022: Nabil Habayeb, SVP – GE, president and CEO – GE International Markets

Reflecting on the last 12 months, 2021 was a truly unique year. Unlike the largely difficult 2020, many of us were able to find cautious optimism, even as we continued to grapple with ups and downs. The optimism came from, among other things, the increase of “silver-lining” thinking that focused on what we have learned from this crisis, and an acceptance that the world will never be the same – for better or worse.

We know the challenges are not yet behind us, with new variants continuing to impact us all. However, the pandemic has highlighted businesses’ need and ability to strengthen the agility and resilience with which they approach daily operations, in order to meet their short-, medium-, and long-term goals. This is a good thing, as change will continue to be the constant of our lives.

New realities call for us to be better prepared, and GE is rising to the challenge. That is why we focused on three core priorities in 2021 and will continue to build on them into 2022.

The first is the need to address the energy trilemma: a global imperative to balance energy availability and affordability, while expanding more sustainable energy systems. This requires a broad mix of technologies, with a focus on renewables, hydrogen, natural gas, smart grids, digital and carbon capture technologies. The energy transition is an organisational ethos at GE. Having announced our own goal to be carbon neutral by 2030, we further ramped up our ambition to be a net zero company by 2050 – encompassing the Scope 3 emissions from the use of our products.

The second key priority for us is to build solutions related to precision healthcare. Precision health is about leveraging digital solutions and data to address disease prevention and detection, and to determine the best course of treatment for each individual patient. By merging clinical medicine with data science and applying advanced analytics, we are working towards delivering better healthcare to more people, across every touch point in health delivery.

The third transformational element is the future of flight. With our partners, we are focused on solutions that seek to make aviation more seamless and sustainable. We are doing this through initiatives such as the recent flight with United Airlines, which was the first commercial flight with passengers on board to use 100 per cent drop-in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for one of the aircraft’s two engines. Recent flights operated by Etihad Airways and British Airways also used a fuel mix containing SAF, and GE Aviation is also working with Emirates on plans to test 100 per cent SAF in 2022.

These priorities are a further reflection of our ambitions for this year in line with our plans to form three public companies focused on healthcare, aviation and energy. As independently run companies, we will be better positioned to deliver long-term growth and create value. Each company will benefit from a deeper operational focus, accountability, and agility to meet customer needs; strategic and financial flexibility to pursue growth opportunities; and business- and industry-oriented career opportunities and incentives for employees.

Much of our work in 2022 will focus on this next chapter in GE’s legacy, while remaining dedicated to the key themes that make GE the company – soon, the companies – of the future. Three times stronger, we will continue to rise to the challenge of building a world that works.