John Rice, vice chairman, General Electric (GE) and president and CEO, GE Technology Infrastructure, describes operating a company in the current economy as “the biggest challenge” of his career. Although GE, a diversified technology, media and financial services company with 2008 earnings of $18 billion, carries a sizable amount of cash on its balance sheet, the tightening of the credit markets has forced GE’s leaders to “run the place differently,” says Rice. “Companies are thinking about safety and security. Big or small, you have to control your own destiny.”

Rice addressed the current economy, its effect on GE, and the overall trends influencing GE’s leadership during a recent “Business for Breakfast” forum sponsored by Emory University's Goizueta Business School and moderated by Goizueta Dean Larry Benveniste.

Although recent signs point to an improving economy, Rice, who has been with GE since 1978, predicts that most companies will “play it very close to the vest” for the next 18 months—GE included. “We’re not worried about going out of business,” Rice tells the group, “but we are faced with uncertain times.”

GE’s leaders are seeking chances to “consolidate and combine” to maximize efficiency and cut costs, but the company’s $5 billion research & development budget is off limits. “Now is not a time to take your foot off the accelerator,” Rice explains. In an industry where product development can take years, GE executives have to be mindful of the long-term effects of its present day decisions. The company’s R&D budget for 2010—also $5 billion—reflects that philosophy.

According to Rice, there are two things GE must do to stay true to its business ideals; first and foremost, continue to test and develop new and better products, and secondly, to grow as a global company. In 2008, more than half of GE’s revenue came from outside the U.S., and maintaining and beefing up its global presence isn’t without complications. GE operates in over 120 countries, each with rules and regulations of its own. “Over the last two or three years, governments have been a bigger factor,” Rice notes. “It’s not just defense departments—that’s a small piece. It’s influence when they invest in infrastructure.”

To capture and grow its business globally, GE works hard to understand how a country’s government influences overall decision-making in that particular country. “We need to find out how to play their game,” he adds, matter-of-factly. This isn’t only in the case of dictatorial type governments or large, centralized governments. While Rice spends a significant amount of time traveling around the world and meeting with top government officials, Washington, D.C. is a frequent stop. He’s there twice a month and adds, “You can’t just show up and ask for something.”

Indeed GE extends the same effort in social citizenry. The company has created several programs aimed at developing local resources—both here and abroad. According to its website, GE’s “citizenship framework” is to “make money, make it ethically and make a difference.” GE is an active participant in the climate change dialogue (via investment and its “ecomagination” program), has donated products to people displaced by the Darfur Crisis, helped to strengthen the rule of law in Asia, and continues to invest in community-based solutions that bridge gaps in healthcare access.

When one of the forum attendees asked Rice about operating in countries without rule of law and intellectual property protection, Rice explained that companies can’t “wait until they have a perfect answer” before entering a market. “The downside of not playing is worse than playing and putting some of your projects at risk,” he says, adding that GE has been present in China for over a decade. “Some would say, ‘rule of law in Beijing is not the same as rule of law in the U.S.,’ but if you’re a global player like us, you’ve got to go. Know what you’re risking and protect it as best you can, but go.”

Rice is convinced that solving big social problems—global warming, hunger, poverty, access to healthcare—“are not going to be solved without big companies,” he says. “There are two billion people [on the planet] and the distance between the haves and the have-nots cannot continue to increase because governments won’t stay in power if they don’t pay attention.” Before cell phones and Internet access, citizens didn’t know their lives could be different. These days, even in some of the world’s poorest areas, citizens have access to all kinds of information. “Now there’s pressure to get this fixed,” adds Rice.

As an example, Rice talked briefly about recent incidents in Nigera. Africa’s top oil producer, Nigeria exports more than a million barrels of oil a day to the United States, but the Niger Delta region, where much of the oil comes from, remains one of the poorest, least developed regions of the country. Militant groups in Niger Delta want a greater share of Nigeria’s oil wealth and have attacked area oil rigs to get the government’s attention. “People see oil up to $100 a barrel and their lives aren’t changing,” explains Rice. “They’re not standing for it anymore.”

As countries look to boost their infrastructure—providing electrical power, water, and so forth—and improve the lives of their citizens, it creates business opportunities for companies like GE. Rice believes this trend will continue for quite some time and that as a result GE’s infrastructure businesses— GE Healthcare, GE Aviation, GE Transportation, GE Enterprise Solutions, GE Oil and Gas, GE GE Power & Water and GE Energy—will perform solidly in the long term.

In America, GE is watching the U.S. government’s healthcare debate carefully and is doing what it can to move forward while it waits for solid signals from policy makers. GE Healthcare pulled in approximately $17 billion in 2008 and Rice believes GE has “a role to play in the debate in terms of technologies and healthcare.” While the company might make more money producing highly technological equipment with bigger price tags, the social piece can’t be ignored—even when stakeholders clamor for GE’s financial success.

For two decades, Rice explains, the company built ultra-sophisticated technological equipment for the healthcare industry. The technology was successful, but only a handful of people benefited from it and its hefty price tag contributed in part, admits Rice, to the increase in healthcare costs. In an effort to effect greater change and lower costs, the company launched its “healthymagination” strategy to, in part, begin developing lower priced, less sophisticated equipment that could be used by more people. One result of this effort was the production of a portable laptop and ultrasound transducer that is capable of performing ultrasounds in areas where there is no power. “This is technology we wouldn’t have thought about 10 years ago,” notes Rice. “We have to be part of the solution.”

When asked about tackling tough leadership decisions in the face of shareholder demands, Rice explains that the pressure for a company to post good numbers isn’t unlike a politician trying to remain popular. Oftentimes, necessary but tough decisions are put on hold by politicians as the costs of those decisions are immediate while the beneficial effects won’t manifest themselves until the politician is out of office. Since such solutions take longer than the political lives of the politicians that push for them, it’s not uncommon to find politicians more apt to make decisions that produce positive effects in the short term. “Business leaders have to balance the short term and long term,” Rice says, “and it’s hard.”

This year, GE ranked number 5 in the Fortune 500, number 9 in Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies, and number 23 in the Financial Times Global 500. The company has more than 300,000 employees worldwide and a market cap, as of August 2009, of nearly $148 billion.