From Fast Company — Generation Flux: Beth Comstock
Last Updated on Friday, 13 January 2012 09:08 Written by spence Friday, 13 January 2012 09:07
BY: ROBERT SAFIA — NJanuary 9 – A conversation with Beth Comstock, GE’s chief marketing officer. She is responsible for Ecomagination and Healthymagination, GE efforts that account for billions of dollars in sales.
Photo by Brooke Nipar“In a big company, you never feel you’re fast enough.” Beth Comstock, the chief marketing officer of GE, is talking to me by phone from the Rosewood Hotel in Menlo Park, California, where she’s tapping the pulse of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. She gets a charge out of the Valley, but it also reminds her how perilous the business climate is right now.
“Business model innovation is constant in this economy,” she says. “You start with a vision of a platform. For a while, you think there’s a line of sight, and then it’s gone. There’s suddenly a new angle.”
Executives at GE are bracing for a new future. The challenge they face is the same challenge staring down wide swaths of corporate America, plus government, educational institutions, and more: These organizations have structures and processes built for an industrial age, where efficiency is paramount, but adaptability difficult. Changing direction within these embedded systems is rough terrain.
