GE Vernova Teaches Us About Real Energy Transition

Speaker A: Uh, solving hard things requires simple solutions. What is the core? How do we focus on not trying to do too many things but what do we do best at core?

Speaker B: Our guest today is Roger Martello. Roger is the chief corporate officer and the chief sustainability officer at a new company that is named GE Vernova. So let me say a few words about the company, GE Vernova. It's in fact a uh, 2023 spin off uh from GE that is focused specifically on energy transition. Their mission is very explicit, electrify to thrive and decarbonize the world. They worked across power, wind and electrification. They have around 75,000 employees worldwide. They have an installed base of roughly 55,000 wind turbines and 7,000 gas turbines. And with this, through their technology they helped generate about 25% of the world's electricity. It also has a goal of carbon neutrality in its facilities and operations by 2030. Now let me say a few words about Roger. Roger's career is actually not that typical of the one of very long tenured GE executive, at least what you have in mind. He has worked ah, at the US Department of Justice. He was also the general Counsel at the EPA, the U.S. environmental Protection Agency and then he led major environmental work as a lawyer in private practice before being in the C suite. Now helping lead uh, GE Vernova globally and operate at a global scale. So in today's episode of the Shift Code and you know we always try to cover the interactions of innovation, transformation, leadership. We will explore how to transform an industrial legacy into a purpose built energy technology company that drives decarbonization at uh, global scale. Good morning Roger.

Speaker A: Pierre, good morning. It's great to see you and thank you for the honor of including me on your terrific podcast.

Speaker B: So Roger, I want to talk about you a little bit at the beginning of this uh, podcast and try to understand what shaped your view of transformation. So you started as a trial attorney and then you went on with the doj, the epa, private law, G. Vernova. So what did policy and litigation teach you that still helps you today?

Speaker A: Well you know Pierre, if I look back on you know, over 30 years now in Washington and those various roles, I think your comments were really fair. A lot of them look like they don't have much in common. But the one thing that I kind of took away from them which I think helped so much with innovation today is for whatever reason, I'm sure there's some psychological reason for this. Someone uh, can explain it to me someday is going back to my earliest jobs. I always Kind of raised my hand to do things that were really, really hard and frankly, things that other people didn't want to do. I remember a few weeks, know, as a very young lawyer, long time ago in the Justice Department, getting pulled into a library by some managers and some other lawyers who had just signed up and they had a file of cases, like literally physical files. They, they were called DJ Files for Justice Department. And, um, this was before things were all electronic. And these were effectively the cases that nobody wanted to do. Uh, they were all losers, they were very unpopular, they were tough. And cases more senior lawyers had given up. And I didn't know any better. There was no reason for this. And they're like, we need someone to volunteer to do these. So I just raised my hand. I'm like, well, how can I serve? How can I help? And I think that was the beginning of something I've kind of seen throughout my career, is just instinctively always wanting to kind of run towards the fires, do things that are hard, do things that are challenging, even if others don't. And I think if you think about innovation, innovation by its nature is something that's super hard. Right? It's very important we continue to run operations day to day. That that's always the foundation for what we need to do. We need to be lean and how we deliver on the things we're going to do, but that's not enough. Um, that's something that's just expected at this point. The winners in the future are going to be decided by the innovation mindset. And that's something super hard, something we have to challenge ourselves to do. So whatever roles I had in the way you've described, describe them. My career, GE has been the hardest of all these challenges, uh, the trajectory from when I showed up, the evolution of ge, I feel like we're coming out stronger. But to me, that's been what I've taken away from. This is just this being willing to raise my hand to sign up for the hard things and to put myself in the middle of that. Not because I'm trying to do it for my own purpose or my own gain. It's just instinctively, I think, something that innovation needs. And I like to solve hard problems. I like to be part of a solution. I like to come up with creative ways to get to good outcomes, even if the situation looks pretty bleak. And I appreciate that my leaders at GE have given me those opportunities to do so. And that's what we're going to be focused on for the years to come, is how do we do things that are really, really hard? How do we spend our time doing things that are tough?

Speaker B: And uh, beyond raising your hand and volunteering for doing stuff that is almost impossible, did you develop a sort of method like any frameworks from those years, doing other things that you can still use, or uh, how does it even shape your views on transformation? You know, what exactly were you able to transfer?

Speaker A: I think there's a few things in there. I think one is I've come to be a big optimist and I think hopefully today we'll talk about that. I'm so optimistic about the future. I've never been more optimistic on these issues, climate change, sustainability, energy than we are today. And I think if you're an optimist, you're always going to find a path forward. It may be unconventional, but, and you may have to take some steps back before you can really move forward. You may have to fix some things, correct some things, take an accounting of like here's some really bad news, we have to get behind us, but that'll make us stronger moving forward. It's kind of the history of GE and GE Vernova. We had to do some really hard things before we could move to succeed. So I think just being willing to kind of take a creative mindset, uh, with an optimistic attitude and how you say, well, this is not the conventional way to get to a solution, but there is a path that's going to kind of serve my client, serve my business, serve my stakeholders and having that flexibility. And I think that's a big part of it. But then the second part of it, which is probably the most important part, is just an understanding that no matter what you're doing, it's not about you, it's about serving others. It's a service mentality. And if you can take your personal ego, this is what I've always found. This is the best advice I probably got in my career early days from a senior DOJ lawyer when I was very nervous about showing up in court. And the lawyer came up to me as I was about to take the microphone, he said, just remember, it's not about you. And if you can take your ego out of it and just say this is not about you, you're here to serve an outcome. You're here to serve your team, you're here to serve your stakeholders, your employees, you're here to serve the planet. It gives you this laser sharp focus and allows you to bring in the right subject matter experts, allows you to bring in, build the best Team possible. And when you have that diversity of views on your team and the diversity of talents, that that's just the recipe for success. And it's always served me well. It hasn't let me down yet. Um, we've had some bumps on the road on many times where this always led us to the best outcome. So I think it's a combination of those two things.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's a very good advice. It's not about you, by the way. It relieves a little bit the pressure sometimes, and it's actually good to think about the purpose of what you're doing and not yourself, how you would show up. Very, um, good advice, I think. So as you don't want to talk too much about yourself, let's talk about G.E. vernova. So it was built for energy transition, but of course it has a long industrial legacy as part of ge. So, uh, tell us a little bit. How does the transformation look like from the inside? How is it to transform a company that has such a long legacy, history? What did you have to change first, structurally, culturally? How did you approach that?

Speaker A: Yeah, it was very hard, and I hope you, you know, that hope, and we're proud of where we are today. As I sit here in 2026, you know, with a lot of humility, knowing a lot of challenges ahead, but it's a privilege to be in a position to serve these challenges. Definitely. Probably the, you know, of the many hard things I've done, probably the hardest is going through this transformation. And so good to be, uh, you know, coming out on the other side of it. I'll just share a little bit of a personal anecdote. I will bring it back to me a little bit, just for a second. When I joined ge, I was at a law firm, a big, very large, you know, AML 10 law firm, helping lead their, their global international practice. Kind of seen as a leader in the space by my peers and all that kind of stuff. And I took kind of a contrarian approach as, as things, you know, many people's eyes couldn't be going any better for me there. A lot of people looked up to me as like a model for how they wanted to build their own practices. And so I did a contrarian thing, kind of leaving the equity partnership when I was at kind of peak point of that career to come join GE and go in house and. And a lot of people, like, really question that, like, what are you doing? What are you thinking? You know, why are you doing that? And the situation was made a little More kind of harder by the fact. I joined GE General Electric in March of 2017. And the time I signed up, the time I was going to the interview, it was still the old ge. It was like this huge American, you know, leader company, you know, among the most important companies in the world. And that was a big motivating factor, the impact we could have. The day I showed up for work on that Monday morning was unlike any other first day on a job I've ever seen, because I didn't quite appreciate at the time. But I'm coming to the office, I'm super happy, super perky, thinking, I'm going to meet all these people. Everybody's going to be excited. It's going to be a great first day. And people were looking down at their computers, extremely stressed out, running in the conference room, shutting doors. And, um, even though I didn't know much, I had been around enough to know something was not right. And so they had announced something that morning that I. I don't even remember what it was, but it was the first indication that this was not the GE of the past. And the employees who had been there were able to interpret that in ways I couldn't. And so I went through my. What they call immersion, your orientation over the first couple weeks. And every single lunch and dinner and meeting was basically me counseling employees who were stressed out about how they saw this company as potentially, you know, really falling in on itself. And so I signed up at kind of like this really strange time. And you might imagine some of my former peers were kind of calling me out, like, look at what happened. You know, we told you so and so on. So I was one of 30 leaders who joined that year. And of, uh, those 30, I think I'm the only one still associated with the companies. And so what that means I was a witness to kind of how we had to break things apart and what kind of had to fall apart first, what we kind of had to take apart. I saw the new leadership team come in under Larry Culp. And Larry, who is now, you know, with Scott, created such a great legacy with this separation of these three companies. It was not easy in those early days. Things had to get a lot harder before they got better. And we hit pretty close to bottom. I think the share price was at four or five dollars. People were calling us the next Enron. We, uh, were delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Um, analysts would come out writing our obituaries every day. But I felt like there were really smart people doing really smart Things and with the benefit of time, despite the pressure on me, if that were to play out, that there was so much opportunity to have impact long term. So I was really glad I stuck with it. But I think that just reinforces how hard innovation and transformation could be. I think most people look at this today and say this is like the corporate success story, one of the top of a century. But it was not always a given and it was not always easy. We had to fight for every single minute to do it. But now we've been able to create something bigger. And I hope this becomes a model for others who might be going through similar iterations.

Speaker B: And beyond, uh, spinning off different activities or separating or carving out different activities. What do you think has been the biggest change? Is it like a cultural change? Because GE had such a renowned culture in a way that was almost seen as the role model for many companies for years, Jack Walsh in particular, and all these ideas. So. And then emailed after him. So what is it that you changed beyond the pure capitalistic moves that were made?

Speaker A: You know, what Larry did and then Scott has executed on. It's very simple in a way. Um, and this goes back to kind of like how solving hard things require the simplest solutions. They went back to basics. I think, you know, many people, there's been commentaries, would say that the company had tried to do too many things and things that were not necessarily aligned to the strongest business models. And so Larry focused on what is the core? How do we focus on, uh, not trying to do too many things, but what do we do best at core? And famously ahead of our separation, we were the first company to kind of take over the New York Times for an entire edition, every single ad. And the theme of that day was focus. That what we were going to do is we were going to bring back focus to these three companies. So you have a purpose built company focused on electrification and decarbonization, a purpose built company focused on aerospace, a purpose built company focused on healthcare, and lots of other things that kind of went away in the meantime. So when I got to know Larry, I was just watching. He was willing to be patient. As I said, things got a lot harder before they got better. He didn't just walk in, flip a switch, and things turned around. He had a plan, but it took a long time to execute that plan. It took many years, but he stuck to his goal of focus, of simplicity, and of really streamlining the businesses. Going back to basics, lean methodology, and kind of jettisoning the rest that were not critical to that impact and that's proven to be a successful model. So I learned so much from that. And now Scott executes on that every single day as we're this purpose built company, still a complex company focused on, as you said, electrification so that people can thrive and we can help the planet decarbonize.

Speaker B: And so you spoke about your first day. May I ask you what your days typically look like today?

Speaker A: It's a mixed blessing. I'm the kind of person who's my worst nightmare would be to be bored. That's my biggest fear is like getting bored. And so I have no lack of boredom. And um, we have quite busy days, but that's, that's a positive thing. So I'm based in Washington D.C. you can probably tell that from the sign behind me. And so I do a number of things and part of that is lead our global government affairs team in addition to sustainability. And so I have leadership obligations to Scott and to the board and to our leadership team on the company. I've served as a bit of an ambassador. Our external stakeholders and I also lead our sustainability programs. And so life is not boring these days and every day is unpredictable. I'm not someone who can kind of wake up at 5am, look at my calendar and say, oh, I have a feeling how this day is going to go. My day is really spent kind of juggling time because as much as I have to get commitments done during the day, I know on any given day being here, um, we're directly across the street from the White House, by the way. We're kitty corner to it that at any given time in the course of the day, I'm going to get pulled into meetings and developments and things like that that are entirely unpredictable. And it's a bit chaotic. But I feel good about it because frankly, it means we're relevant. And I'd always like to take the phone calls. I always like to be responsive to people because what's the alternative? The alternative is we're not helping, we're not serving, we're not working with folks. So I'll never complain. I see it as an honor and a privilege that we are serving, we're serving again our markets, we're serving this administration, we're serving global administrations because if we can help them succeed, everybody succeeds. So I'll never complain about the work life balance. There's not much of that these days. Um, but to me that's a positive. It fits my personality well is the reality of the situation, but it also just is a reinforcement to Me that we're having an impact. People see us as relevant, and we're finding a way that we can help bring solutions to the table for a very diverse group of stakeholders all around the world.

Speaker B: Wonderful. So, uh, you know, you mentioned the White House, and I like to get to this topic of aligning sustainability innovation policies. So you sit in a way where all these things meet, right? Sustainability, innovation, policy. And these forces don't always align, as we know. So, uh, can you tell us what's the hardest part of making them? Just one thing, right? When climate goals and commercial goals clash, how do you keep progress moving? When what you understand from the policies of the administration clash with your strategy or plans, how do you make this work? How do you deal with this on a day to day basis and then impact 70, uh, 5,000 people and all your vendors and your ecosystem and try to navigate all these contradictory goals at times?

Speaker A: Well, Pierre, you used kind of the most important word in your question, which is align. And that's exactly how I think about it, because I'm going to go back to my optimistic attitude, but I think I'm right on this too. I actually think there's much more alignment on these topics than a lot of people give credit for. And frankly, my job, I think, is to translate that. It's not to change people's mind, but it's to show that you don't have to be. If you're in favor of this, doesn't mean you have to be against that. And if you're in favor of that other thing doesn't mean you have to be against this. And to be fair, this is not picking on the Trump administration. I think every political administration I've ever worked with is guilty of all of that. They're in favor of this, they're against that, they're favor of this one, they're against that. I don't think that's ever a good thing. So what I try to do is show that alignment, connect the dots. So I'll give you a very specific example. The Trump administration is very focused on increasing supply of electrons on the grid. We can help them do that. We're the company headquartered in the US that makes all the equipment that puts electrons on the grid. So we're very proud to share with them that last year we put. I'm sorry, in 2024, we put 31 gigawatts of power onto the grid. That's about the size of the state of Virginia, the data center capital of the world. And they'll say that's great, you know, do more, please. That's not enough, but thank you. 31 gigawatts is good. We want you to do more. So they love the electrification story. We did it with gas turbines, we did it with nuclear, uh, we did it with wind. We energized 71 gigawatts of grid transformers and so on. But then where I can kind of take it to the next level is, I want to let you know something. By the way, we put that 31 gigawatts of capacity on the grid, but the carbon intensity of that capacity is 20% below the carbon intensity of the grid itself. So the more we're making these investments at scale, which you're totally in favor of and we're totally in favor of, the more we can drive benefits for decarbonization, the more we can improve the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. So part of my goal in these conversations is to show it's okay, like, you don't have to be against something. We can actually, like, help your messaging. Like, you could, you could be in favor of both. And there's a number of Republicans on Capitol Hill that's called the Conservative Climate Caucus. Like, they're completely on board with that. They, they get that. I can't say that I've, I've quite persuaded the Trump administration yet. I'm still going to keep having these conversations, but I think that's how we approach it. It's not about saying that this is bad for your goals. It's like, we're on board with your goals. We're going to help you succeed for your goals. And. But we can also align your goals in a way that you get to drive other benefits from this. So that's the way we try to share. That's part of my job, is to message it. But I don't think there's as much inherent tension of these issues as sometimes people say. I try to just level set and explain why all of this is important.

Speaker B: If you had to summarize the position of the current US Administration, I think it's important for our audience to understand that, especially because we have a global audience and sometimes there are pretty far from the details of, uh, how things are done and how things work in D.C. how would you summarize the current administration's position when it comes to energy transition?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think I'm not their spokesperson, but I maybe share with you kind of the words that I hear in meetings and the words I hear from the president. I think the first thing they would say is they would probably slap us on their wrist a little bit for using the word energy transition. I think they would challenge that first and foremost. And just as a fundamental. They'll debate the transition point. That's something, again, we have to. Whether it's the Biden administration, the Trump administration, it's important for us to be empathetic. Right. And that's part of our jobs, is we're going into meetings, we're not changing our messages, we're not changing who we are. But it also be kind of reckless for us to not be sensitive to the audience. And so we do work on semantics and things like that. So that's one thing that we've kind of adjusting.

Speaker B: That's another way of saying energy transition, then.

Speaker A: Yes, and I get the point, and I think what their views would be is that they think the world needs a lot of electricity, that they think the US Needs a lot of electricity. And they see this as Secretary Wright, for example, our energy secretary, has called it the Manhattan Project of a generation, that increasingly they see electricity not only important for just supporting the grid, but is the core to economic development, as the core to competitiveness, is the core to the AI space race. And so if you look at the pyramid of economic development policies, electrification's at the very foundation of it. So they want, and it's not only just about putting electrons on the grid. They tie that to U.S. jobs, to U.S. manufacturing, to trades, more welders, more electricians and things like that, and on shoring of manufacturing. So it's really a story about electrifying for competitiveness, more jobs in manufacturing, more domestication. And then you don't just stop there because we've had these global discussions. Some people could say, well, this is a very US Centric policy. To some extent, it is more a US Centric policy. But the President's also been very clear that as he goes off and makes trade deals and Secretary Lutnick makes trade deals around the world, that he wants U.S. energy technology to be front and center in those. So he does want to kind of lift up energy access for allies and people he's making deals with. That's the international part of the job. We typically join him on these missions, and we help to make sure that we're enabling countries who are working out trade agreements to have, you know, access to electrification technology, which is not just good for the US but it's good for those countries as well. So that's been a big part of the last year.

Speaker B: So you mentioned the AI speed space race do you think this is, uh, an incredible opportunity for your company that will make it more successful than it has ever been? Or are, ah, there some risks there, like over investment? Is it hard to even decide how much and how you do your capital allocation in this context? Because so much uncertainty or maybe overspending? How do you approach that, this, uh, uncertainty around this massive opportunity that may be super big, maybe also dangerous in a way?

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think all of those considerations, it's fair to say, are top of mind for our leadership, they're top of mind for our board. And it's no surprise that all of that gets deliberated probably day to day here in terms of how can we make sure we're serving the needs in the markets, but how can we also make sure we're creating a very sustainable business? Because we've all, you know, people running this company, we're all old enough that we've been through many cycles of this, and we know that this is perhaps different, this is what we're calling a super cycle. But we have an obligation to our investors and so on to make sure we're investing in sustainable ways. So we think through all of that very deliberatively at all levels of the company, all the way up to our board. But what I will say is, as much as we are here to serve AI, when this company was created, AI was not really kind of the driving force it's become over the last couple years. I'm glad we're able to help serve it. But we created this company based on a purpose, that the world needed more electricity. And fundamentally that electricity is the lifeblood of prosperity. And you have 700 million people in the world who can't turn on a light bulb. You have many, many more people who don't have access to affordable, reliable, sustainable electricity. And whether it's AI in the United States, industrialization, just growing access, um, we take a global view, we take the long term view, and we take a big picture view. And we go back to kind of the root and the core. AI has been added as a fundamental driver of electrification. But those other fundamental drivers are there. If you look at the IEA reports, they talk about a doubling of electrification by 2040. Only some of that, a small sliver of that is AI, which is a lot of it's in the United States. So we try to take this very holistic view at the same time and make sure we're serving all of those purposes.

Speaker B: And how do you see the differences between the different regions of the world today? In terms of policies, strong beliefs that they may have in energy transition or not. Do you see as many differences as it looks like reading the press, or do you feel like, in fact there is a lot of convergence?

Speaker A: In reality, I see more convergence. We can always talk about nuance, region to region, country to country. And I live in the nuance. I'm happy to get into that. But if we go back to 2024, the year President Trump was elected, well, 25% of the world's population went to the polls that year and then even more early into 2025. And so looking at these global patterns, what I saw, um, and I have a global team that I'm extremely proud of, What I saw is everybody who was elected, whether they were Conservative or Liberal, 2024, 2025, was elected on some kind of economic and energy platform that basically people felt that, uh, costs and access to electricity were, were not within reach. And so they were changing governments to put people in who were more pragmatic, I'd say, than where we'd been in the years prior. So the whole world, I believe at this moment is shifting towards kind of pragmatism, towards energy. I think climate is still top of mind in many parts of the world. There's different reasons for that. Europe, I think, is sincerely concerned about the impacts of climate change. Other parts of the world are concerned about it, but they also see climate change as an innovation play and, and opportunity, kind of reinvent their, their economies around. So there's different motivating factors. So I'd say climate is, remains a top issue.

Speaker B: Which economies, by the way, would do that? Like China, like, where do you see countries seeing it as an innovation platform, which I guess is a great term for.

Speaker A: I think that the, uh, part of the world that comes to mind the most for me is the Middle East. I think you would also argue Southeast Asia. But if you look at both the UAE, which hosted COP28, and if you look at Saudi Arabia, which has Vision 2030 plan, probably the most ambitious climate change plan on the planet, you have the Middle east kind of fundamentally reinventing their economies away from fossil fuels to be part of the clean energy ecosystem. And they're very unapologetic about it, um, this is a do or die for them as they communicate it. So I think that's kind of a leading example to me of just how much the world is changing.

Speaker B: And we're seeing this at BMI as well, right? A lot of demand for our sustainability content and certifications. And of course we talk about this a lot with, um, people in the Middle east running projects. It's very top of mind.

Speaker A: Agreed. Thank you.

Speaker B: You also teach international environment law, Right. And so how do you see regulation evolve in the next few years? What do you think is going to happen in the next. When I say a few years, it's maybe 10 to 20 years, given the escalation of climate events and maybe more pressure on also the AI side to produce more electricity. So how do you see regulation happen?

Speaker A: Thank you. I have some views on this. Having been an environmental lawyer for a long time now, I don't practice law anymore. I'm pretty proud of that. But having said that, I do teach at law schools and I get pulled into a lot of law lectures, which I'm very thankful for. So I do have some strong views on this. And my views were quite controversial when I first started sharing them a few years ago. I gave some. I don't know what to say, famous or infamous lectures. I wrote some articles on this, but now I think, to be fair, they've been more kind of mainstream. But my. The whole premise I had going back to 2020, when I first started socializing these ideas, is as, uh, someone who's been a lifelong environmental regulator, that environmental regulations are becoming less relevant and the world is transitioning to a place where, where we're moving from the sticks to the carrots. And we're seeing a huge realignment between the public sector and the private sector. For most of my career, we sat at opposite, uh, ends of the table. We could never agree on anything. Now there's an embracing of both sides. I go back to the Biden administration and they passed the Inflation Reduction Act. It's the country's first climate change law. It was all about incentivizing the public sector through carrots and not sticks. And I give them a lot of credit for kind of changing the mindset on that, which is kind of fundamentally a Republican concept. And here you had all the Democrats supporting it, and then the Republicans supported. I kind of called that out. It wasn't a very popular thing on LinkedIn, but I thought it was fair. And so I actually believe that we are. And this is why I share with my students my lectures that environmental regulations are not going to go away. There's still going to be a need to kind of enforce for conventional air pollution and water contamination and things like that. But we are definitely shifting to away from preventing things, blocking things, controlling things, regulating things, and more towards incentivizing things. And I'm completely on Board. With that, we can get into all the reasons and you could read the articles, but there's a lot of reasons. Companies are accountable for that. But if we're going to really make progress at scale, let's be honest, time is working against us. That's the biggest thing that weighs on me, is that the progress on these topics are not moving with the urgency that's warranted. And if we think about how quickly government works, I don't know that anyone would think if we look at the US system, the EU system, that government can really move at the pace of the private sector. So empowering the private sector to take the lead on these topics and moving at the scale, at the pace that it typically does to me is very positive. And part of my goal and my hope is I can help continue to steer that so that we can show and build that credibility that we're in a new era where the private sector can lead on these topics versus regulations.

Speaker B: Yeah, actually we're members of the Global Compact and once a year we have this lunch at the United nations during the UN General Assembly Week. And it's always the same blame game between CEOs and governments about who should do what. Right. So government saying, you private sector need to take action, you need to be more accountable. And then CEOs are complaining about regulations or lack thereof. And so do you see a lot of that blame game still happening or do you feel now that the real forces of the economy, which are indeed the private sector and companies are really developing strong sustainability strategies or sustainability based strategies that will transform their business models and make them more successful down the road?

Speaker A: Anyway, I certainly feel like we are moving in that direction again. Uh, I think it's regional. We talked about Saudi Arabia. One of the things that struck me is having been there not too long ago, I was actually there with the President. They talked about how getting a project built in eight months was a long time for you them, like building a project eight months. In the US you wouldn't even be submitting your permit in eight months. And in Europe, it's even in a worse situation. So that's just not sustainable. Especially if we believe my premise, which is the more we invest at scale, the more we're driving decarbonization outcomes, um, the more we're driving sustainability outcomes. Everybody should be in favor. And this is why I'm so excited, because I've been doing this for 30 years, don't have a lot to point to in terms of how I move the needle forward in terms of Having an impact on the planet. I may not have a lot of impact on the planet, but I feel like the next generation, the people who come on, come online today, come on board Today, they have 30 years ahead of them now where they get to implement these projects. And these projects are going to move the needle and they're going to solve for this. And that's why I think companies, to your point, are increasingly, you know, understand the significance of the role they play. And I will tell you, when I talk to our investors, when I talk to our employees, when I talk to our customers, they're holding us fully accountable for all of these alignment to sustainability, for all alignment to decarbonize. There's been no pullback, there's been no change in those messages. Maybe publicly people are a little more muted right now, and that's fine, everything goes through cycles. But privately, investors, customers, employees are holding us fully accountable for all of our commitments.

Speaker B: If you had to advise a project professional, so someone managing leading projects in terms of where are the opportunities that are the most compelling, that can be the most fulfilling, even the best for their careers in terms of energy transition, climate change, in which area would you suggest that they should go? Or at least the areas that they should explore?

Speaker A: You know, what's been very interesting in the last 24 months is we've seen such a, uh, return to focus on nuclear and even conventional gas power and things like that. And I think that's a really positive thing. There was a few years ago, it was 2021, I gave a presentation in Silicon Valley and someone asked me a question about nuclear. And people were aghast to understand, to even perceive that someone would consider a career in nuclear. And now I'm just humbled by some of the best minds coming out of universities and careers wanting to join our nuclear team. And that's going to be something that's going to keep people very busy. But not just people with PhDs and graduate degrees and bachelor's degrees. I'm talking about also welders and electricians and plumbers and things like that. These trades that are going to bring very sophisticated value to these technologies. It used to be when I took mentoring calls two years ago, nine out of 10 calls were about wind energy and renewables. I love wind energy. I love renewables. But now, as I take these mentoring calls, at least half the calls are about gas power and how can I sign up to be part of your gas power business? And I think that's wonderful. Our gas turbine technology is among these are the Most complicated machines on the planet, um, operating the tolerances of a human hair. And then you take that. How do you make them more efficient? How do you decarbonize them? How do you pull the carbon out of it? You're solving for the laws of physics. And so it's been so reassuring to me again, last 18 months or so, that the talent coming in here is taking a much broader view of just presumptively saying, all I want to do is renewables. There's still some of that, and that's fine, we'll find a good home for them. But willing to look at these broader opportunities. And it goes back to what I said about Larry Culp. This is back to basics. This is what the world needs right now. We need to build the foundation. Our, uh, grid is pretty strained. We need to build the foundation and then we can do some really fun and clever and creative things. But let's build that foundation. Lots of interesting work to be done there.

Speaker B: All right, Roger, I'd like to move a little bit to another topic, which is enterprise agility, which of course PMI has a lot of interest in. And we are actually working on a, uh, new manifesto for enterprise agility. And I was thinking in your business, in your line of business, where you're dealing with geopolitics regulation, like huge capital investments, and at the same time the pressure of climate change, right, and the needs of AI, so, like a lot of market forces that also push you to act, how do you lead through that kind of uncertainty and, uh, uncertainty and at the same time move fast, right. When everything takes a long time, you need stability in the regulations, you need to invest a lot of money. So how do you manage to still be agile? If you are agile, or maybe you don't believe in agility at all and you think it's a bad idea. So tell us more about that.

Speaker A: I think it's such a thoughtful question because agility is critical, Right. I think of, um, nimbleness is how I think of my life sometimes, is I have to be incredibly nimble and moving around. But in being nimble, I have to still think of the long term view, play the long game and not constantly rethink what we think is the right answer. And if I could share an example here, because this was maybe one of the toughest things. Scott and I went through this together. It's actually how we got to know each other. Our CEO, myself, before COVID you know, back in the last decade, late in the last decade, the EU was considering something called The EU taxonomy. And the EU taxonomy was proposed to phase out both gas power and nuclear power for the European Union. And meanwhile, the Biden administration was looking at doing very similar things, particularly for gas power, a little more agnostic on nuclear, although it actually came out super positive. So this was a real test. And I went to Scott and said, look, maybe we can sell gas turbines places outside in Europe. I'm not particularly concerned about that, but I'm concerned about the precedent this will set. If Europe were to say, gas and nuclear is no longer part of a green taxonomy, that's going to have consequences. And it's not even about our markets. Like, I just think that's the wrong answer. I think of all the opportunities that both gas and nuclear lead to prosperity, lead to lifting people up and also lowering the carbon intensity of power. And Scott agreed, of course. And we actually spent a lot of time thinking, what is the right answer? Like, what is really best for the planet? What's really best? What's the best solution? And we were under intense pressure, uh, from all angles, whether it was from the European Union, whether from the Biden administration, whether from investors. This doesn't seem like a popular thing to do right now. Maybe you should get out of the gas business, get out of the nuclear business. But Scott and I think we knew in our heart of hearts, despite the pressure, this was the right answer for the planet. This is what people needed. And so we had to be nimble in managing these different audiences and these different stakeholders and. And positioning things. But we stayed resilient to our North Star, and we were ultimately able to successfully navigate that. Now, I think people would look at us today in 2026 and say that would not have been a good thing to either walk away from gas, to walk away from nuclear, for the company to do it, for Europe to do it. And so I think of that a lot, like, as long as we go through a process where we can feel confident that we've done our homework, we've tried to find the right answer, there would be days and months and years and quarters where we will face intense pressure, but we have to rise above it. And that's my point about being. Your point about being agile. My point about being nimble is we'll have to adjust day to day, week to week, month to month, but stay focused on that North Star and be unapologetic about. This is a word Scott and I used a lot like, we were not popular when we were out there touting gas in Brussels and things like that. But we're like, we are unapologetic. I typed that word in the documents because we sincerely believe this was the right answer, not just for a company, but for the planet. And that's what we continue to hold to. And being kind of unapologetic in the positions that we vetted as the strategically correct ones.

Speaker B: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I like your reference to the North Star or the Guiding Star as a way to avoid the pitfall of agility, which sounds like you're changing course all the time. You're still following the same course. It's just the way you get there that may evolve.

Speaker A: Npr, just another quick example. Just like our entire sustainability programming, when we came out with our framework, some people would have critiqued us for saying, perhaps you could be more aggressive on it. And now today, some of people could critique us for saying, perhaps you should be less aggressive. Well, we go back to the same. We developed a framework based on what we thought was the right framework, based on credibility, based on impact and so on. Now we're seeing companies kind of like a ping pong match. Swing far, one direction, swing farther. We haven't changed anything. If anything, we've only gotten stronger because we started with what we thought was the right view, the house view to begin with, and made it more resilient, more durable, as opposed to just kind of having to respond to whatever trends are out there at the moment. So we're pretty proud of that, that we've, we've stuck to our guns on all those topics.

Speaker B: Do you practice risk management at Vernova? Like, do you have a formal way of assessing risk and also response strategies?

Speaker A: We do, and it arises in a couple ways. First, we have a chief risk officer. He's looking across the board at, you know, black swan type risks, things that are coming around the corner. I kind of feed into that as well. You know, given some of my crystal ball lens I get from talking to a lot of people and traveling around the world. So we're thinking corporate wise, what could be some of the big risks? We disclose a lot of that in our sustainability reporting, but mostly our businesses are held accountable for that. We have, uh, uh, rhythms every quarter where the businesses present through operating reviews with the leadership team as well as the board, which of course engages in risk analysis. So we really look to the businesses to identify the risk they're seeing, how they're mitigating against them. Some of those could be internal. We're just having trouble with the reliability of a project or getting something out the Door. Some of that could be external in terms of macro policies and things that could impact them, or customer feedback or competitors and so on. So we spend. And I'll be in our headquarters in two weeks. We spend, uh, a lot of our time in those types of discussions individually with the businesses and across the corporation.

Speaker B: And does it affect your capital allocation?

Speaker A: Typically, yes. I think I'd say very deliberatively, both the risk and the opportunity side, um,

Speaker B: which is two sides of the same thing as we teach at bmi.

Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you. See, I'm learning from you, and I'd love to hear more about that, because I think we have a bit of an optimistic attitude, and we focus on the risks, we take them seriously, but we look for the opportunities, and so the capital.

Speaker B: Well, Roger, you know, you gave the best possible example. Saying you can see sustainability as a set of regulations or thinking of it as an innovation platform.

Speaker A: Right, Exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah. Two sides of the same thing.

Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you. And I love to hear in that context. And I think then it's fair to say, yes, uh, the capital allocation discussions are very closely tied to opportunities, of course, considering risk, but not just, as I said earlier, like, it's not enough just to deliver what we're delivering today. Like, that's just expected. That's our foundation. We're thinking the 2045 at this point. Scott's planning all the way. I'm sorry, 2035, I should say. Scott's planning very deliberately through the next decade. And that's a lot of risk and opportunity analysis for capital allocation.

Speaker B: That's awesome. I wanted to come back for a second before we conclude, um, on the discussion we had about getting thousands of people aligned. So what have you learned that actually changes behavior at scale? How do you do that? How do you handle resistance from legacy mindsets? How do you get this done? Um, this alignment of thousands of people, what is really critical for that?

Speaker A: Well, what has worked for us, and I'm not sure it could work for every company, has been the sense of purpose. And it sounds a little corny, but it's really true and sincere here. So we have 75,000 employees, more than 100 countries, and they run the full gamut of experiences, from PhD engineers to finance experts, communication leaders, business leaders, people like me who don't quite fit into any box or anything like that, numerous geographic diversities, numerous cultural diversities, educational diversity, and hourly workers in our factories who we're extremely proud of all over the world. And so how do you kind of get everyone on the Same culture and with the same sense of mission. And that comes down to our purpose, which we're very proud of. I think that's a real differentiator for us. Why we always started with our purpose. And I would. It's why I work at this company. It's why I work here versus anywhere else. It's our purpose. If I didn't believe in it, I wouldn't be here. I think a lot of people feel that way, and it's enabled us to recruit, I think, be competitive for recruiting some of the world's best talent, who. This is a big priority for Scott, rather than people go, you know, have a pessimistic view of the future and then go work for a company that's not going to contribute. The solution, come work for us and actually be part of the solution that Scott's messaging on that is really resonating. So it comes down to the sense of purpose. I think ours is extremely well defined. You know, we're humble in how we approach it. We haven't succeeded for it yet, but at least we know what we're shooting for. And I think that's the differentiator. And I would struggle with some companies who I think may be very popular companies, very successful financially. But what's really driving people to work for them? Is it a sense of purpose, which is a little unclear, or is it just the fact that they've been a strong performer in the stock market? I think you get two different types of people motivated to work in those environments.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, as you said before, it's not either or. It can sometimes be both at the same time. So to close this discussion, Roger, you know, we have a lot of transformation leaders listening. Uh, people managing programs, projects in all sorts of industries. Many of them are interested in contributing to a better world. Right. A more sustainable world. Call it the way you want. Is there one piece of advice or one move that you'd encourage them to make?

Speaker A: Well, I think, first of all, I'm very thankful for people who see that bigger purpose. And I think, particularly for generations, younger generations, we're recruiting. That's become mandatory. It's become, uh, essential. And I think the advice I'd share is to adopt the service mindset. You know, as we talked about earlier, take yourself, take your ego out of the equation and think about how do you serve teams, how do you serve people, how do you serve your communities? How do you serve the planet in ways that you can contribute? Not everybody is going to be in the energy space Electrification, space, decarbonization space. But you know, all of my colleagues at different companies, they find that purpose and then they look to serve. So I think if you can adopt that service mentality, one, it's the right thing to do, let's be crystal clear. Like, that alone is the reason for doing it, I believe. But I do also believe the rest will come, that you will have the best performing team, you'll have the best input into how to succeed. And just like we talked about at the beginning, when you're tackling the hardest problems, you're going to be set up the most for success because you're just going to have the best infrastructure, the best network, the best people behind you. And I think that's the part that sometimes we overlook that this is not about gas turbines or new small modular reactors. It's really about people. And the more we spend our days focused, I think, on relationships and building people up and creating those networks and bringing odd bedfellows together, which has been a big hallmark of my career, I think the more you're setting both yourself and your bigger purpose up for success, that's been the thing that's kind of been the truism for me.

Speaker B: Roger, thank you very much for being with us.

Speaker A: Pierre, thank you again for the honor and the privilege. And thank you for all your leading. I've learned a lot from you already and, and um, I hope we can follow up in the future and find ways to serve you as well.

Speaker B: Me too. Actually, Roger, it would be really very good if we could maybe even have you on stage at one of our global events or like, uh, one of our U.S. events. I think people would, uh, you know, appreciate learning how a large company like GE has been transforming. And also, you know, all your ideas around sustainability or expertise in that space is also really, really of high demand right now among the professionals in our community. It comes second after AI, Right. Because AI generates so much anxiety, short term anxiety, that is even more. But by the way, the combination of AI and sustainability and energy transition is also a very interesting topic, I think.

Speaker A: Well, I know that others will be going through transformation that I have and that we have. I hope maybe there's some things we learned that can make it a little smooth. I wouldn't change the thing. To be clear, I loved every minute of it. Well, that's maybe a little bit of an overstatement, but hopefully there's some things we can share. We learn to make it a little easier for the next folks to go through it.

Speaker B: Awesome. Thank you, Roger.

Speaker A: Thank you, Pierre.