Eaton’s CEO Deftly Defies the Death of the Conglomerate
With breakups all the rage, Craig Arnold has carefully positioned his company’s portfolio into the fastest-growing markets.
Eaton CEO Craig Arnold gets the industrial mix right.
Photographer: Roger Mastroianni/Getty Images
The demise of the conglomerate is a theme spurred by the recent breakup of iconic industrial companies such as the split-up of General Electric Co. into three parts, the dismantling of United Technologies Corp. with RTX Corp. absorbing its aerospace business, and the spinoff of 3M Co.’s health-care business. Proponents of the demise of multi-industrial behemoths contend that investors would rather choose among more pure-play companies, allowing them to assemble their own investment portfolios from these smaller industry specialists.
Eaton Corp. and its low-profile chief executive officer, Craig Arnold, defy this school of thought. Arnold, a GE alumnus, has sculpted Eaton’s portfolio to align it with the mega trends of the electrification and digitization of everything. The company is also hitched to the energy transformation, green economy and push for infrastructure renewal.