Josie Jardim
General Counsel, Latin America, GE Corporation
When I joined GE three years ago and began to understand the breadth of the company and how we operate on a daily basis, I could see the impact that a company such as ours could have on the communities in which we operate.
Some of the impacts are straightforward. Having a GE manufacturing facility in an area means that the company will look after the environment in that community and will make sure employees are taken care of. In countries such as ours, where there is an enormous amount of people who don’t hold formal jobs, that’s a huge issue — you allow those people to have access to labor rights that they would otherwise not get. When you have a plant in a community, people get jobs and with those jobs come benefits like health insurance, pension funds and a safer working environment.
There are other effects that our company has on communities. Our environmental, health and safety standards and our reputation are two of our most significant areas of impact. Our EHS standards have been raising the bar where we operate. We have the ability to help upgrade or improve the entire industrial chain. GE will only purchase from other companies that comply with environment and labor laws, so you can see an automatic upgrade in the standards of companies in the region. In addition, the way we measure our impact on the environment is one of a kind and GE’s standards are used as a benchmark for other Brazilian and multinational corporations in the region.
Our reputation has also had an impact on the community. As a Brazilian, it is important to me that more companies operate with rigorous process and compliance standards like GE. Building a reputation is a long-term effort and the results come in bits and pieces. Part of our job is to influence the reputation of the community where we do business. Because we have strong processes, we try to support our communities in embracing those types of standards. It’s not a U.S. company or GE telling people what to do, it’s employees showing how transparency is important and how we can help the country where we live to raise its own standards.
Another way that the company has had an impact on the reputation of the region is through its work in developing leaders. If you go back 10 to 12 years, the senior executives at GE in Brazil were American. This has dramatically changed. The company has committed and invested to develop leaders locally. The impact of this investment is that today, we’re seeing a lot of talented Brazilians coming back to the country to look for good jobs after having left to find other work. The company does a tremendous job in developing leaders at all levels. As people receive training and are exposed to projects, the company benefits, but the investment is being made in the individuals and in the community.
It’s comforting to work for a company that has rigorous standards. I am proud to tell others how we do business. We make money and we follow the rules. It is an amazing accomplishment for the region.
