Jay Ireland

Jay Ireland is the former President and CEO of GE Africa (appointed in 2011) located in Nairobi, Kenya where he led GE’s operations on the sub-continent across power generation, healthcare, transportation, oil & gas, and aviation. He was a GE Officer and a member of GE’s Corporate Executive Council. Prior to his GE Africa appointment, Mr. Ireland led GE Asset Management (GEAM), a global investment firm with about US$120 billion in assets under management. Before heading GEAM, Mr. Ireland was President of NBC Universal Television Stations and Network Operations where he had overall executive responsibility for NBC Universal’s 10 television stations, the Telemundo network and its 16 Spanish language television stations. Prior to joining NBC in 1999, he had been the CFO of GE Plastics. He started his career with General Electric in 1980 in its Financial Management Program after three years as a US Army Officer. Mr. Ireland is the Chair of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa. He is also Co-Chair of the US Africa Business Centre – launched in 2015 to lead the U.S. business community’s engagement with Africa’s regional economic communities, the private sector, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Mr. Ireland is a member of the African Development Bank’s special panel on accelerating the implementation of its 10-year strategy. He is also a member of the Board of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and a Trustee of St. Lawrence University where he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1977. A frequent public speaker, Mr. Ireland won the Africa investor Magazine’s ‘International Business Leader of the Year’ award in 2012 and 2013.