After a bit less than three years with an investment banker as its head of corporate business development, General Electric Co. now has a longtime company lawyer, Pamela Daley, in that role.

Daley succeeded Robert Jeffe, who was most recently senior vice president for strategic projects at the acquisitive conglomerate and who announced in late November he would return to Wall Street as chairman of the corporate finance advisory group for Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. Jeffe was recruited from Credit Suisse First Boston by GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt in 2001. He brought a fresh perspective to corporate-level business development at GE, which is also known for strong business development teams within its business units. Jeffe was on board for some big deals, including GE's acquisitions of Amersham plc and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, as well as the IPO of Genworth Financial Inc.

Daley, who reports to Immelt, must know dealmaking at GE about as well as anyone could. She spent the previous 13 years as the company's vice president and senior counsel for transactions (a job now held by Briggs Tobin) before moving into her current role as vice president of corporate business development. A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, she joined GE in 1989 as tax counsel.

Though Immelt has sworn off major deals for a while, GE has maintained a steady pace of sizable transactions. In November alone the company announced nearly $3 billion worth of industrial deals, as well as a financial services transaction worth nearly $4.5 billion. - Kenneth Klee

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