Bill Ruh is the chief executive officer for GE Digital as well as the senior vice president and chief digital officer (CDO) for GE. GE Digital, a $6B business of GE, provides premier digital software solutions and services through Predix, GE’s cloud-based platform for the Industrial Internet. GE Digital supports customers globally with a broad range of Industrial Internet applications, from asset performance management, operations optimization, and brilliant manufacturing to platform as a service, cloud, and cyber security. As the CDO, Ruh is responsible for global IT as well as creating GE’s Digital Thread, a next-generation system for streamlining design, manufacturing, and support processes.
Ruh joined GE in 2011 to establish its Industrial Internet strategy and to lead the convergence of the physical and digital worlds within GE globally. In this role, he focused on building out advanced software and analytics capabilities, as well as driving the global strategy, operations, and portfolio of software services across all of GE’s businesses. During his tenure, Ruh has led the charge to develop the first cloud-based platform for the industrial world. He also played an instrumental role in establishing the Industrial Internet Consortium by bringing together government, academic, and industry leaders for setting the standards, best practices, and processes for the Industrial Internet.
Prior to joining GE, Ruh was a vice president at Cisco, where he held global responsibility for developing advanced services and solutions. A 30-year veteran of the software and internet industries, Ruh has held executive management positions at Software AG, The Advisory Board, The MITRE Corporation, and Concept 5 Technologies. Ruh is an accomplished author and a frequent speaker on such topics as emerging business models, cloud computing, analytics, the industrial internet and digital transformation. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from California State University, Fullerton.
