Jack Welch is the most famous CEO in the world. His 20-year reign as the head of General Electric brought the company from bureaucratic behemoth to dynamic and revered powerhouse. During his tenure, GE market value grew from $13 billion to $500 billion. In the process, Welch's management innovations have made him the most influential CEO of his era.

Jack Welch is the most famous CEO in the world. His 20-year reign as the head of General Electric brought the company from bureaucratic behemoth to dynamic and revered powerhouse. During his tenure, GE market value grew from $13 billion to $500 billion. In the process, Welch's management innovations have made him the most influential CEO of his era.

Welch earned a BS degree at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he was one of the school's top engineering students. In 1958, he headed for the Midwest, earning both his MS and Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Illinois at Champaign, where he also met his wife. Welch found himself attracted by two offers upon his graduation: one at Exxon in Baytown, Texas, and the second at GE in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1960, Welch headed for the company where he would spend the rest of his career.

In 1971, Roy Johnson, then head of GE's human resources department, recommended that Welch be promoted to VP of the chemical and metallurgical division, citing his "driving motivation, natural entrepreneurial instincts, creativeness, aggressiveness, and his abilities as a natural leader and organizer."

In April 1981, Welch assumed the helm of GE and it was here that his legacy would begin. In a series of controversial decisions and tough calls, Welch began to transform the company.

Part of that transformation was to make GE a people company where ideas flourished and boundaries disappeared. Welch pressed his theory of a "boundaryless" culture in which all levels of the company participated in innovation and problem solving. The "vitality curve" became a model for building a "people factory" with the greatest talent in any corporation. In his second decade, Welch focused on four basic initiatives: Globalisation, Services, Six-Sigma, and e-business.

In October 2000, Welch, began talks with Honeywell after finding their business in aircraft engines, industrial systems, and plastics to be a good fit with GE. The merger was derailed by antitrust concerns from the European Commission.

In his recently published book, JACK: Straight from the Gut, Welch gives a candid, engaging account of his rise to the top, his tenure there, and the perspectives and lessons he learned along the way. By turns hilarious, insightful, and full of the knowledge he gained along the way, the book is a brilliant and intimate glimpse into the life of the most important CEO of our time.

On September 7, 2001, Jack Welch said goodbye to GE, and its people, who have comprised the whole of his business life. He appointed Jeff Immelt to succeed him and set in place a staff that he believes will support his successor. The next chapter in GE's history is set to begin.