I’ve been extremely fortunate to have such an inspiring mentor and thoughtful collaborator in Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter - the lead on our co-published Harvard Business School research. Throughout her tenured career, Prof. Kanter has examined the transformational corporate strategies of major American companies — including IBM, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Ford Motor Company, and AT&T.

That lens shaped our approach to the January 2025 case, “GE Appliances – Energizing Change.” The project began with a simple lesson in leadership: What would it take for GE Appliances’ CEO, Kevin Nolan, to lead transformative change? The company had weathered internal turbulence, but following its acquisition by Haier in 2016, Nolan was repositioning the business into an agile, innovative, tech-forward competitor — rivaling its younger but forceful peers in Whirlpool, Electrolux, LG, and Samsung.

At the same time, Nolan was exploring climate-focused innovations to make both GE Appliances — and by extension, the home — more energy-efficient. The residential sector comprised as much as 20% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and Nolan was intent on igniting the appliance industry to play a larger role in climate action.

Between 2016 and 2024, Nolan spun the legacy company from top-five into undoubted-first in the fiercely contested appliance sector. Looking to the years ahead, he was focused on reimagining the sustainable home. Water heaters comprised roughly 18% of home energy use, laundry appliances roughly 5%, and HVAC systems accounted for over 40%.

Nolan was set on bringing new and more sustainable products to market — such as a 2-in-1 laundry machine and a heat-pump-powered water heater. But these products had to be competitive in complex sales cycles to gain real market traction. At the same time, GE Appliances was exploring sustainability’s intersection with the connected smart home, complete with seamless user interaction that aligned home solar, EV chargers, smart grid electricity management, and intelligent energy storage systems Together, these efforts reflected a bold vision: to position GE Appliances not just as a market leader, but as a catalyst for sustainable innovation in the American home.