The Operator
Execution, delivery and performance, gets the hard thing done.
Phebe Novakovic reads as The Operator because her transformation of General Dynamics has been an exercise in relentless discipline. Since taking the helm in 2013 she has divested underperforming units, tightened margins, and focused the portfolio with a decisiveness that dramatically improved shareholder returns.
“So cyber is embedded in almost every single one of our programs, including the main battle tank. The upgrades that we make and the continual improvements that we make to upgrade the technology in, for example, that platform all includes cyber protection of multiple layers.”
“I had to stop over for four years at the Pentagon and then to General Dynamics. And I went there because I remember thinking very distinctly in these seminal times in your life when you have perhaps a bit of epiphanies, I sat at my desk one afternoon thinking, I can't afford to put my children through college.”
“So, if you think about the complexity of modern weapons systems, it is not unusual for some of them to have early on in the production or the development some cost overruns, but it's incumbent upon us as a defense industry is that once we understand the technology and then how to build it and how to build it effectively, it's continued to…”
“So, I think there are more opportunities for women that there certainly were in the late 70s when I entered the workplace, and that is throughout the food chain.”
The David Rubenstein Show: “Phebe Novakovic”
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