@med @med, he set himself up for a massive golden parachute after convincing GE board members to approve a 16% base pay, stock, and other benefits increase in August 2025. While employees not subject to RIF received 1% or 2% increases (which wouldn’t cover COLA increases), they had to cover the workload of their colleagues who were let go without relief in quantity, quality, or timeline. They were not paid more for this extra work and were told to be grateful for their jobs or leave. Everyone had to do more with less, except GM. Geoff prioritized himself over a lasting Medtronic legacy and rewarding employees who dedicated their lives to the company. Caring about employees has been a core value of Medtronic since Earl. Somehow, this person was appointed to lead the company and is driving it to the ground while he profits. It’s shocking that the board appointed him in 2020. He now has more influence with the board by filling many seats with his GE buddies who share his values.
I’ll admit he has had to make some difficult decisions and I imagine the diabetes spinoff has not been easy. Diabetes, patient centric model has always been different from the rest of Medtronic’s customer base and genuinely required Unique skill sets, tools, and resources that the greater Medtronic didn’t offer. Diabetes could’ve been diverted respectfully instead he’s put them through he-l for years, likely either due to sheer incompetence to the narcissistic, take no prisoners approach of making their lives he-l to get employees to leave on their own and avoid the expenses of severance. The Northridge employees deserved so much better treatment than what they received.
Under his leadership, MDT, the world’s largest dedicated medical device manufacturing company, is late to the robotics game and may never catch up. Despite claiming to be a bold tech innovator, he’s proven to be a slow and late adopter of mature technology. This failure alone should’ve led to his termination, but the board lacked the courage.
GM’s moral compass is broken. I’d normally never criticize a leader in a forum like this but GM is not a leader. He’s a narcissist and his need to be in control and always have the last word is frightening. GM touts himself as being pragmatic. He may have been at some point in his career, but not at Medtronic. If someone doesn’t agree with him and challenges his thinking even in the most respectful manner, not only does GM ensure their employment is terminated, he makes their exit is as painful as possible. Zero integrity. He believes people are commodities instead of a company’s biggest asset. He lacks transparency and is blatantly deceitful.
In five short years, he destroyed the highly desired culture of a prestigious organization that took over 50 years to build. GM believed it was weakness, not a strength, to have such a high percentage of career employees even when those careers demonstrated a history of high-performance and ever increasing roles and responsibilities. He sees legacy as an obstacle and hindrance to his strategy. In a few cases, this may have been true, but many career employees have been through numerous leaders and have helped new leadership get strategies implemented successfully, especially when the legacy employee understood why the change was necessary and the benefit it would bring. These employees spent their life building a career they deserve to be very proud of. They deserved their dream of retiring from Medtronic instead so many became subject of the cycle of never-ending re-orgs and RIF, cutting their mid to late 50s when it’s even more difficult to find an equivalent position at another company. They are quietly, if ever, recognized for their decades of contributions to Medtronic success. GM made sure to get them out as quickly and as cutthroat as possible.
Knowing the board had appointed someone with so little integrity and compassion for people is sickening. The culture and commitment to the people and mission is what made this company so special, now it’s just like every other company driven by the almighty dollars related to stock price and executive compensation. GM played his game, beautifully conning even the board with his massive compensation increase last year. He will laugh all the way to the bank while stomping on all the bodies left behind him and burning down so many great qualities of the remnants of a great company he left behind him.
Hopefully the board, with encouragement from Elliot, will finally see the light and get the courage to do the right thing. It will be expensive to get rid of GM but worth it.