President Obama introduced his Economic Recovery Advisory Board Friday morning. Chaired by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, the group is intended to give the president independent, real-world advice about the economy. As we've come to expect from this president, the board is packed
with big names -- in this case, from academe, investing, labor, and the corporate world.
Interesting to note that the only banker comes from the U.S. unit of a Swiss bank (Robert Wolf, chairman of UBS Group Americas). But, this being the Corporate Dealmaker site, let's focus on those corporate names: Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric Co.; Jim Owens, CEO of Caterpillar Inc.; and Chuck Phillips, president of Oracle Corp.
(pictured from left to right)A few quick thoughts about this trio. First, Immelt and Owens run companies that have felt the effects of the slowdown pretty keenly. GE, of course, has had to scale back the financial business that has accounted for so much of its profits and may be losing its battle to protect its
AAA rating. Owens, meanwhile went in less than a year from an extremely bullish outlook for Cat to the
major layoffs announced last week.
Another point worth noting is how global these businesses are -- a fact that will no doubt improve the advice their CEOs give, considering the global nature of this economic crisis.
Finally there's the way their corporate interests match up with the Obama agenda. GE is committed to green power and like Cat surely loves the idea of infrastructure spending in the stimulus package. As for Oracle, it's looking forward to the digitization of healthcare records, as Chuck Phillips mentions in this
recent Q&A in Information Week.
Oh, and all three do a lot of deals. -
Kenneth Klee
Join Corporate Dealmaker's LinkedIn forum
Juergen Lasowski
And the winners are...
