Brackett Denniston
General Counsel
General Electric Company is a diversified business, providing a range of products and services from jet engines to power generation, financial services to plastics, and medical imaging to award-winning programs. GE traces its beginnings to Thomas A. Edison, who established Edison Electric Light Company in 1878, and today the corporation consists of six core business units— generating $150 billion in revenue in 2005. GE is the only company listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Index today that was also included in the original index in 1896.
Led by general counsel Brackett Denniston, the Legal Department is diverse. Thirty-seven percent of all GE attorneys are women and 15 percent are minorities. Of attorneys who report directly to the general counsel or are business general counsel, 25 percent are women and 10 percent are minorities. “Our diverse lawyers have had a crucial role in making us a world class legal team,” says Denniston. “We have focused on using the best tools and leadership to ensure that we attract, develop, and retain diverse talent and we will continue to develop ways to increase the diversity of our legal team. Diversity makes us better.”
GE’s Legal Department has an active Diversity Council, chaired by Cecilia Lofters, senior corporate intellectual property counsel, Transactions. “We think that a focus on metrics drives the attraction, development and retention of diverse talent in GE Legal. I am privileged to lead a committed team that has made this initiative a priority,” says Lofters. The Diversity Council spearheads the efforts to recruit, retain, and advance women and minorities. With a strong focus on mentoring to help retain diverse attorneys, the Diversity Council is launching a Mentoring Tool Kit to support lawyers across the company in their mentor and mentee roles. The tool kit helps each mentoring pair define the objectives of their relationship in order to clarify each person’s role, while establishing the ground rules for working together and communicating effectively. The kit also contains a metrics scorecard to track progress and participation. Additionally, GE’s Diversity Council schedules quarterly meetings with the GE business legal organizations to discuss mentoring best practices and monitor progress.
GE Legal has also established an awards program. Each year, the department presents the GE Legal Global Diversity Award, which recognizes a senior member of its Legal Department who made an extraordinary contribution to diversity in the GE Legal Organization. In selecting award winners, GE looks at nominees’ participation in internal and external diversity initiatives such as its Diversity Mentor Program, involvement with its Diversity Council, and that individual’s commitment to work with outside counsel to promote inclusiveness. The honoree receives a plaque and a monetary award in the amount of five thousand dollars to the charity of their choice.
GE received the prestigious Catalyst Award for developing professional women, the Executive Leadership Council Award for its commitment to diversity and the advancement of African Americans. Black Enterprise magazine recognized the company as one of the “Top 40 Companies for Diversity.” The Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights awarded GE with the prestigious Higginbotham Award for Corporate Leadership in celebrating inclusiveness in the workforce, and five GE leaders were recognized by the National Black MBA Association on its “Top 50 Under 50” list.
At press time, the N.Y. dinners had not been held. Group photos of the award winners for the northeast region will appear in the Jan./Feb. 2007 issue of Diversity & the Bar®.
From the November/December 2006 issue of Diversity & The Bar®