2022.07.22
GE Unveils New Brand Names For Three Planned Future Public Companies
Last fall, GE announced plans to become three independent and publicly traded businesses focusing on healthcare, energy, and aviation. Today the company unveiled their names.
Channeling its 130 years of
innovation, all three — each a leader in its industry — will retain the
familiar GE name and the company’s famous Monogram logo, which dates back to
Thomas Edison. But their new names also reflect a new beginning.
GE’s healthcare business will
become GE HealthCare, and GE’s existing portfolio of energy businesses,
including Renewable Energy, Power, Digital, and Energy Financial Services, will
sit together under the brand name GE Vernova. GE Aerospace will be the name of
GE’s aviation business.
H. Lawrence Culp Jr., chairman
and CEO of GE, and CEO of GE Aerospace, said, “Today marks a key milestone in
GE’s plan to become three independent, laser-focused companies. Leveraging GE’s
multi-billion-dollar global brand gives us a competitive advantage in our end
markets, allowing these businesses to win in the future. Built on a foundation
of lean and innovation, these brands will continue our mission of building a
world that works and provide our customers with an important reminder of the
strengths they value in GE.”
GE spent six months to arrive
at the new names. The company operates in 170 global markets, and its brand
value stands at nearly $20 billion.[*]
There’s a good reason. GE’s
healthcare technology helps clinicians carry out more than 2 billion patient
exams per year; its energy systems generate one-third of the world’s
electricity; and a plane powered by engineering from GE and its partners takes
off every two seconds somewhere in the world.
GE HealthCare is set to be the
first to leave the GE fold, in early 2023. It will focus on precision health to
improve patient outcomes and address critical patient and clinical challenges.
Building on more than 100 years of innovation, the GE HealthCare name and
Monogram “will serve as an enduring badge of quality, safety, trust, and
innovation,” GE said in a press release. The color of GE HealthCare will be
“compassion purple,” to “reflect more humanity and warmth and achieve greater
distinction,” GE said.
In early 2024, GE plans to take
public its portfolio of energy businesses as GE Vernova. This energy portfolio,
which includes gas turbines, onshore and offshore wind turbines, grid
technology, and software, is already helping customers around the world
decarbonize and bring online more reliable, affordable, and sustainable
electricity. GE explained that the new name is a “combination of ‘ver,’ derived
from ‘verde’ and ‘verdant,’ to signal the greens and blues of Earth, and
‘nova,’ from the Latin ‘novus,’ or ‘new,’ reflecting a new and innovative era
of lower-carbon energy that GE Vernova will help deliver. These attributes also
are reflected in GE Vernova’s new ‘evergreen’ brand color.”
Following the planned
spin-offs, GE will focus on aviation. GE said that the name for the business,
GE Aerospace, sets forth “a confident vision to compete and advance in the
field of aerospace and defense for future generations.” The GE Monogram, new
name, and new “atmosphere blue” brand color — representing the upper limits of
the atmosphere —maintain the brand’s strong standing in the aviation sector.
Following the planned
separations,[†] GE Aerospace would also own the GE trademark and would provide
long-term licenses to the other companies.
Linda Boff, GE’s chief
marketing officer, said that through “thousands of conversations” with
customers and other stakeholders, “it became clear that the GE name and our
century-plus-old Monogram represent a legacy of innovation, symbol of trust by
global customers, pride for our team, and a talent magnet for future leaders.”
Said Boff: “We’re proud these
future businesses will be able to build on GE’s DNA of innovation.”
[*] According to Interbrand
Best Global Brands 2021.
[†] These plans may be subject to the outcome of legally mandated consultation in some parts of the world.