Jack Welch to Publish Business Book with HarperCollins

Posted on March 19, 2004

HarperCollins Publishers announced that it has acquired world rights to publish Winning, a business how-to book by Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric. Winning, which Welch will write with Suzy Wetlaufer, the former editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review, will be published simultaneously in hardcover and audio formats by HarperCollins in the U.S., U.K, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India in early 2005. Foreign language editions will follow. The deal was negotiated by Friedman and Helen Rees of The Helen Rees Agency. Leah Spiro, Senior Editor at HarperBusiness, will serve as editor of the book.

"We are thrilled to be publishing what will surely be one of the most valuable business books of our time," said Jane Friedman, President and CEO of HarperCollins Publishers worldwide. "Winning will be the primer on business. It will allow readers to see the business world through Jack Welch's eyes. Without a doubt, Winning is the book that Jack was born to write."

Since his retirement, Welch has traveled around the world, speaking with more than 200,000 managers, executives, and working people, and consulting for several major corporations. While the good old days of the long 90's boom are over, the people he has encountered want to compete fairly and cleanly. And they want to win, for the sake of their country, their companies, their communities and their families. This is why Welch, together with Wetlaufer, decided to write this book.

"Winning is a book for the people in business who sweat, get their nails dirty, hire, fire, make hard decisions, and pay the price when those decisions are wrong," said Welch. "I see this book as a handbook for people in the trenches, turning their companies and the economy around, not just today, but for years to come. I think it will be useful for people just starting their careers or their own businesses to seasoned managers running multi-billion dollar enterprises. I've learned an enormous amount about what works and what doesn't work throughout my career and I'm very excited about sharing it in Winning."

Jack Welch was chairman and CEO of the General Electric Company from 1981 to 2001. During his tenure, GE was consistently voted the most admired company in the world, and its market capitalization increased by $400 billion. After retiring from GE, Mr. Welch published his autobiography, Jack - Straight from the Gut, a #1 New York Times bestseller. On January 20, 2004, the Financial Times named him one of the three most admired business leaders in the world today.

Suzy Wetlaufer is the former editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review, where she worked from 1995 to 2002. She is the author of numerous articles about leadership, managing change, and corporate culture, and the editor of several books on related topics. Before joining the Review, Ms. Wetlaufer was a management consultant with Bain & Co. and a newspaper journalist. She graduated from Harvard College in 1981 and from Harvard Business School in 1988 as a Baker Scholar.