About

Bruce McAlister’s 19-year career with GE has seen him take full advantage of the myriad opportunities within the vast and highly diverse company: ‘I joined GE in London supporting GE Aviation, which saw me take enlarged regional roles, eventually culminating in being general counsel international. In 2014, I was asked to take the role of general counsel MENAT for GE Global Growth, which at the time provided an integrated legal and compliance service to support all of GE’s businesses. Finally, I was succeeded to my current role of general counsel Global Growth, which is a global role supporting GE’s activities in the emerging and developed regions outside of the US’. He therefore has a number of particularly rewarding – both for himself and the company – moments to look back on. ‘Among highlights’, he says, ‘the acquisition of Avio Aero, an Italian company with worldwide facilities in the Aerospace industry, with an acquisition value of US$5.3bn required extensive negotiation working to an exceptionally tight time-scale. The Dubai Airshow of 2014 also ranks highly, with the largest sales orders ever achieved totalling US$20bn; this was the culmination of my experience working on a highly competitive commercial transaction with GE’s premier Aviation customers. Finally, I led GE’s re-entry into Iran, following the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), working through all the regulatory requirements to ensure that there was a strict compliance programme in place, removing all US touchpoints to enable GE to establish a presence, and conduct business in Iran. The experience went full circle, as I was then tasked with unwinding all of GE’s activities in Iran, following the US withdrawal from the JCPOA agreement in 2018’. He has also had the opportunity to engage in philanthropy since being in the Middle East, helping talented young lawyers to get their career break: ‘On my arrival in MENAT, I found that there was a pool of highly competent and qualified female students, who had undergone legal studies in Europe and the US, who were unable to secure positions in law firms in the region. I established a legal fellows one year training programme, which provided initial in-house training to the female students, who were then able to continue their legal training with this added experience in law firms’.