A 43-year-old GE executive is set to take over the top spot.
Lorenzo Simonelli, a 43-yearold GE executive, may soon lead one of Houston’s seminal oil and gas companies, if GE succeeds in its $32 billion bid for Baker Hughes next year.
Once the deal closes, Simonelli would replace Martin Craighead as chief executive of the world’s No. 2 oil field services providers, the companies said Monday. He would be taking the reins of a company still smarting from the worst oil downturn in a generation.
It’s a big change for an American company that sells drill bits to wildcatters. His lexicon includes things like “the digital age” and “intelligent ecosystems.” His sales pitch revolves around bringing digital technologies into the oil patch, a transition that GE has pushed for years.
“Every industry and company that is not bringing software to the core of their business will be disrupted,” Simonelli told a crowd of investors at GE’s annual meeting this year.
Simonelli may seem unlike many of the executives Texas oil companies are used to dealing with, but he has won accolades within his company. GE CEO Jeff Immelt once praised him for building the company’s North American rail business into a global transportation company, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In 2009, when Simonelli was 36, Fortune noted he was the youngest executive to ever run a division within the company. According to media accounts, some have speculated his rise to the rank of president and CEO of the $16.5 billion GE Oil & Gas, previously one of the company’s
fastest-growing units, is a sign the company is grooming him to one day replace Immelt.
“I’m fortunate that I’ve been given the opportunity within GE to grow with exciting assignments and also move around and get the experience in multiple businesses,” Simonelli said in an interview at Baker Hughes offices on Monday, shortly after announcing the deal.
Born in Italy and educated in the United Kingdom, Simonelli has spent 22 years navigating the sprawling corporate world of the industrial conglomerate, moving from the GE transportation and manufacturing businesses to its oil and gas segment.
Just in the United States, his career has taken him to roles in Ohio, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Chicago. He’s based in London now, but he joked he spends 70 percent of his time on airplanes and that he’s looking forward to getting acquainted with Houston.
When he joined GE more than two decades ago, the company had recently acquired Nuovo Pignone, an Italian company that marked GE’s entrance into the oil and gas industry.
“It’s a core industry that GE is in. We’ve been investing significantly, and this is a further testament to our investment,” he said of the Baker Hughes deal.