Since July 2016, Bruce McAlister has been general counsel for the Global Growth Organization business at global industrial conglomerate General Electric (GE) and is responsible for the provision of all legal, regulatory and compliance services connected to GE’s operating businesses in the energy, oil and gas, aviation, healthcare and transportation sectors.

With a comprehensive and cross-border remit – consisting of all emerging and developed regions excluding the United States – McAlister leads a multi-disciplinary global team consisting of approximately 200 attorneys, compliance professionals and contract managers. McAlister highlights involvement in several important transactions in the African continent, including ‘GE’s sale of gas and distributed power products and services to Egypt on an emergency basis valued at $2bn, the sale of GE Water business in Algeria to Suez, the restructuring of GE’s Power current joint venture in Libya and the sale by GE Transportation of its rail locomotives to the Egyptian National Railways Company valued at $600m’.

He also recently led GE Aviation’s legal team in the acquisition of Avio’s aerospace business in a cross-border transaction valued at $5.8bn. McAlister first joined GE in 2000 and has held various roles supporting GE’s Aviation division, located in London. In February 2014, McAlister expanded his geographical remit after taking leadership of Global Growth Organizations’ MENAT (Middle East, North Africa and Turkey) – an opportunity he described as a ‘highlight of his career’ – and in doing so was responsible for the creation of a centre of excellence, which resulted in one team providing shared services for all the GE businesses in the region. McAlister’s nous and commercial expertise has been displayed in a number of deals including corporate acquisitions, disposals and joint ventures in developed and emerging markets.

He has led complex cross-border transactions, contentious issues, negotiations with regulars, and overseeing a compliance organization charged with the implementation, maintenance and investigation of GE’s corporate compliance and ethics policy. In assuming his current, globally-focused role, McAlister is responsible for expanding this model to all regions. He has also been charged with leading GE’s re-entry into Iran, thereby being entrusted to opening up a populous and potentially lucrative market. McAlister performs his role from a base in Abu Dhabi and in doing so reports into GE’s vice chairman, John Rice. The regions McAlister presides over contribute $70bn in revenues per annum for GE, and his legal advice provides a platform from which such success can be directly attributed to.

He explains that: ‘A general counsel operating in Africa is faced with a myriad of challenges from ensuring the safety and security of our employees, to dealing with sophisticated cyber threats against “the crown jewels” of the company’s IT infrastructure. These skillsets have required me to become familiar and happy to operate in the digitised environment. At the same time, requiring me as general counsel to devise turnkey solutions for the delivery of legal and compliance services with the financial sectors such as export agencies and banking institutions together with devising an ethics and compliance programme that will ensure that the company operates compliantly in this challenging region’.