Way back in the summer of 2004 , I was a junior analyst at General Electric’s consumer finance back office. As part of a small yet elite team that served Shrikant Dash,then VP CRM and founder- CEO of India’s first analytics company GE Analytics ( later merged with GECIS , which became GENPACT)- I learnt […]
Way back in the summer of 2004 , I was a junior analyst at General Electric’s consumer finance back office. As part of a small yet elite team that served Shrikant Dash,then VP CRM and founder- CEO of India’s first analytics company GE Analytics ( later merged with GECIS , which became GENPACT)- I learnt modelling at the hands of people who built the first VBA macros and logistic regression SAS models in India. I also was one of the first holders of GE stock options barely some months out of business school and man I was proud of those 1.90 shares.
And over and over it was drilled into us , in emails ,posters and online trainings – the spirit and letter of General Electric’s integrity. GE’s integrity policy continues to be one of the most demanding in order to cut down on operational risk.Simply put – it said Don’t be caught lying and Dont lie in the first place.
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So it was quite disappointing that GE itself is in some sort of accounting scandal at managing earnings, during profit falls at the consumer finance business . The articles now ,the share fall and the suspicion that GE smoothed earnings to boost profits , by cutting down on reserves in the boom days , as it cut back aggressively on the risk portfolio. These are some blog articles http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2009/03/memo-to-jeffrey-immelt-if-you-are-going.html
but especially Justin Fox’s article in Time http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2009/03/04/has-ges-long-history-of-accounting-cleverness-finally-caught-up-with-it/
Guess integrity isn’t what it used to be . Wonder what Neutron Jack would say about this.
I guess integrity in 2009 is simply different than in 2004
