Executive Interview with Neal Sandy, CMO of Life Care Solutions

Can you talk a little bit about your career and what has made you successful?
I’ve been in marketing for 21 years, 20 of which was in healthcare.  I had a brief stint in sales training before that. I think what has made me successful is taking advantage of opportunities that have been presented to me and in some cases making opportunities.  When I first started I tried to get as deep as I could, as fast as I could, so that I could be an expert at something – I think that has served me well. Even early on, I was always quick to tell people what I did not know and then I would try to go get it – fast.  The result of that is people see that you are honest and believe what you say.

What do you find is the best way to ramp up quickly?
The first thing is to go hang out with your customers.

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Featured ECLP: Marwan Chaar

Who: Marwan Chaar, ECLP Class of 2013, Energy

 

School: MBA 2009, Harvard Business School; MS 2005, Stanford

 

Where: Dubai, UAE

 

What: I have been working in Business Development for the last two rotations - the first with the Power & Water BD team and the current one with the Global Growth and Operations (GGO) BD team in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT) region. While very different, they both provided great experiences. 

In the P&W BD team, I was involved with the divestment of GE’s Emissions Testing business. GE’s M&A process is recognized by the industry as best-in-class; I learned a lot working on that transaction. In addition, I helped the BD Leaders in various activities including due diligence & financial modeling of potential acquisition targets. 

In GGO BD, the work is quite different. The MENAT region does not have much inorganic M&A activity, so the work BD does here is more related to partnerships, JVs, and even some strategy work. We are involved closely with the $1bn “”Project Kingdom”” investment that will take place over the next few years.

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Global Giveback: GE China ECLPs Planting Trees in Beijing and Shanghai

An old Chinese proverb says “One generation plants a tree; the next sits in its shade.” On early morning of April 13th, 2013, 34 China ECLPs, family members and co-workers gathered in both Shanghai QingPu district and Beijing FangShan district to plant trees. This event is not only in response to the GE Global Giveback initiative, but also contributes to improving air quality and the living environment in China!

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Global Giveback: GE for Glenwood Gardens

Volunteers from GE (48 including 8 children) worked with Glenwood Gardens staff (7) to install 720 seedling trees ranging in size from 18” to 5’over a 4 hour period on Saturday morning, April 27th. The trees were installed in two primary park locations, an area bounded by the main entry to Glenwood to the north and by Riddle Road to the south. Approximately 250 to 300 of the seedling trees were installed along this area that is adjacent to Springfield Pike. Most species installed were small native trees such as hazelnut, dogwood, redbud, papaw, hawthorn, and serviceberry. Other species included black gum, sycamore, swamp white oak, and yellow poplar on the western center to edge of the land area. The second planting area continues the re-foresting of a parcel in the exhibit meadow and path below Highfield Discovery Garden. Approximated 425 to 450 seedling trees were planted in an area that three years ago was nearly a total understory of invasive bush honeysuckle.

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Featured ECLP: Hsin Ying Lee

Who: Hsin Ying Lee, ECLP Class of 2014, Capital, China

School: MBA 2012, London Business School

  

Where: Commercial Distribution Finance, GE Capital, Shanghai

  

What: During this first rotation, my responsibility is to support the Assignment Leader to establish a new business for Commercial Distribution Finance (CDF) in China.

 

Like a startup, we literally were building everything from scratch. Our goal is to have all cross functions and infrastructures ready by end of 2012 for the business to start operating in 2013. To ensure the successful completion of the project, each week I worked with 12 different functions on the scheduled deliverables, constraints and solutions.

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Global Giveback: Lauren Marcum (ECLP 2014) for Capital Area Food Bank

Nothing brings together representatives from 4 different GE businesses like a good cause. On Thursday, April 25th, I had the pleasure of volunteering at the Capital Area Food Bank in Northeast Washington, DC with fellow ECLPs, an ECLP alumnus, and several other colleagues. The group represented Capital, Corporate, Healthcare, and Power & Water. Heather Seidl (ECLP 2013, Healthcare) coordinated the event while getting married and returning from her honeymoon only days before the event – now THAT is giving back!

 

The Capital Area Food Bank distributes over 33 million pounds of food annually. Our group worked with several other local volunteers to create “Weekend Packs” – bundles of food that would be distributed to elderly in the community who normally rely on food distribution centers that are often closed on the weekends. Our next task was to create hygiene products that would be given to families in need. I never thought I could have so much fun sifting through donated shampoo bottles and toothpaste packages!

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Featured ECLP: Romain Berlier

Who: Romain Berlier, ECLP Class of 2014, Aviation, France

 

School: MBA 2012, HEC Paris 

 

Where: Sales Support Director, GE Aviation, Paris, France

 

What: As Sales Support Director, I define the strategy and build the commercial offers to sell new engines and services to airline companies. In addition to good analytical skills, this role requires strong communication and leadership skills to work effectively with remote Sales Directors, and to synthesize all the necessary data in building offers that best meet customers’ needs.

 

This role is a great opportunity to understand every aspects of GE Aviation organization, and interact with a large number of key players within the organization: from marketing to sales, and to product expertise, this is a perfect role to dive into Aviation world!

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Global Giveback: Anne Nash (ECLP 2014) for Junior Achievement

Anne Nash (right) at Junior AchievementFor Global Giveback, I volunteered at Junior Achievement (“JA”).  JA is a global organization serving underserved schools across the world.  JA’s mission is to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy by providing a full-day learning course with interactive games, presentations, and competitive sessions under 3 pillars of work readiness, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship.

 

All volunteers had to take 2-hour training sessions prior to volunteering and then were provided with curriculum materials and schedules for the day. I was tasked with teaching a 5th grade class with 30 students and was paired with another work colleague – Katie Foos. The first session involved entrepreneurship and we divided the students into groups and gave them 10 minutes to come up with an innovative product that will solve a problem they can relate to, as well as a price point, and sales pitch. Their ideas were surprisingly good and they allowed us to understand their thought process… one came up with a skateboard that had a GPS installed, another came up with a chocolate candy bar with gummy bears in the middle,… throughout our 6 sessions we got to know the inquisitive students better. At the end of the day we handed out JA-completion certificates to each student and they were very excited – for us the whole day was a rewarding experience and it was also great to participate in Global Giveback.

Featured ECLP: Kristin Thompson

Who:  Kristin Thompson, ECLP Class of 2013, Energy Management, US

 

School:  MBA 2011, University of Maryland

 

Where:  High Voltage Solutions, GE Digital Energy, Atlanta, GA

 

What:  I currently support the commercial launch of GE’s new XD product line. XD is a high voltage primary equipment manufacturer based in Xi’an, China, and the products build out GE’s Digital Energy portfolio. Last year, GE entered into a relationship with XD that includes (1) a 15% ownership in XD, (2) an agreement for GE to sell XD products in selected countries outside China, and (3) a JV for XD to sell GE secondary equipment in China. I work on the team responsible for #2.

 

This has been an exciting rotation: it’s entrepreneurial, it’s China, it’s global. It is not very often that you get to work on a start-up with a large company like GE. All of us on the team find ourselves filling many roles.  Working with a Chinese partner requires each company to overcome language barriers and differences in our approaches to business. Sometimes this is harder than it seems. And because our goal is to take XD’s products global, and to integrate XD into other GE projects, we collaborate daily with the regions and other P&Ls. The role provides great exposure.

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Global Give Back at Mubadala GE Capital

The Future Centre for Special Needs is a non-profit organization that provides special education and therapy-based services to young individuals with disabilities.  Founded in September 2000, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the Future Centre is dedicated to improving the quality of life of its students by providing them the tools to reach their full potential, thus transforming their future.  The Future Centre has an annual average of 170 students with various disabilities such as autism spectrum, down syndrome, cerebral palsy, motor disorders, speech and language disorders or specific learning disabilities like ADHD and dyslexia.

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