Jack Welch was born in Salem, Massachusetts. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Massachusetts and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois.

He began his career with the General Electric Company in 1960 and in 1981 became the company's eighth Chairman & CEO. In his 20 years as CEO of GE, he transformed the company from a bureaucratic behemoth to a dynamic and revered powerhouse. During his tenure, GE market value grew from $13 billion to $400 billion. In the process, Welch's management innovations have made him the most influential CEO of his era.

Upon his retirement from GE in 2001, Jack Welch wrote his #1 New York Times and international best-selling autobiography, JACK: Straight From The Gut. He has also spent much of his time traveling around the world, speaking to people at every level of an organization, answering their questions on dozens of wide-ranging topics. These sessions were the inspiration for his second international #1 best-selling book, Winning.

In 2000, he was named Manager of the Century by Fortune magazine. In 2005, he was voted Most Admired CEO of the past 20 years by Chief Executive magazine readers and the World's Greatest Leader of Today in a Fast Company magazine survey.

Jack Welch is currently the head of Jack Welch, LLC, where he serves as an advisor to a small group of Fortune 500 business CEO's and speaks to business people and students around the world. He currently teaches a leadership course at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

He and his wife Suzy write a weekly column for Business Week magazine and a global weekly syndicated column appearing in over 50 countries answering questions about business, company, or career challenges. In 2006, they published these columns in a book called Winning: The Answers.