A rising GE exec enters the spotlight

When Medtronic Inc. announced its long-awaited pick for chairman and chief executive early Wednesday, employees and followers of the company collectively exhaled. Finally. The wait had dragged on nearly five months.

The next question: Omar ... who?

As head of GE Healthcare Systems, Omar Ishrak has been running a business that is nearly as large as Fridley-based Medtronic in terms of revenue. But because the $12 billion operation is part of a $150 billion conglomerate, he hasn't had the visibility that comes with leading a major, publicly traded company.

Most Wall Street analysts following Medtronic weren't immediately familiar with Ishrak's track record, other than that General Electric has long been a breeding ground for top CEOs.

"GE Healthcare Systems is clearly a defensible pool of talent," wrote Morgan Stanley analyst David Lewis in a report titled "The Eagle Has Landed."

Medtronic did not make Ishrak available for interviews, and a spokesman could not say when he would make his first public appearance as the medical technology giant's top executive. He takes over June 13.

Ishrak, 55, is an electrical engineer and received bachelor of science and doctorate degrees from the University of London's King's College. He spent 16 years at GE, rising through the executive ranks to lead the health care division.

Personality-wise, Lewis wrote that "multiple industry sources suggest he is charismatic and a very capable leader who may be able to embrace, change or direct culture."

YouTube videos of Ishrak show an executive who is comfortable in front of a camera. In several videos, he discusses the scourge of chronic disease, as well as the impending health care needs of aging baby boomers.

In a book called "The Talent Masters: Why Smart People Put People Before Numbers," authors Ram Charan and Bill Conaty devote most of a chapter to Ishrak's career at GE.

The tome describes Ishrak's initiation into GE's famously "institutionalized and close-knit culture," when he joined the conglomerate from a small ultrasound company in 1995. The goal, it says, "was to GE-ize Omar" through coaching, mentoring and educating him in all things GE.

The narrative describes how GE's legendary CEO Jack Welch frequently draped his arm across Ishrak's shoulders and declared, "Meet my friend, Omar." Welch also made it a point to elicit Ishrak's opinions in meetings.

Still, it's Ishrak's personality that emerges from the pages: "He was both a technologist and a businessman -- a techie who could speak in non-techie terms -- and he had a winning personality."