Philip D. Reed (1899–1989) was president and chief executive officer of General Electric Company from 1940–1942 and 1945-1959.
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Reed was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; he graduated from North Division High School there, and then went to the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1917, but quit in his freshman year to join the Army at the outbreak of the World War. Due to an appendectomy, he was unable to join the American Expeditionary Force; when the Armistice with Germany came he was in artillery training at Fort Monroe.
Reed was mustered out and returned to Wisconsin to complete his degree in electrical engineering.
Reed joined GE in 1927, and became President and CEO in 1940. He resigned that $120,000-a-year post during the Second World War to work for the War Production Board and later with the U.S. Mission for Economic Affairs, eventually succeeding Averell Harriman as head of the USMEA office in London when Harriman was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union.[1] He resumed his GE office in 1945. Reed retired from GE in 1959 after 32 years of service.