Determining what role finance should play in creating value was essential, Cooper says. “In a technology company, the business model is changing rapidly, and we have to enable that. So we can create value by providing strategic information as the business model evolves.”

After assembling the right senior leaders, Cooper focused on developing team members according to their skills and the company's needs. “We set up a new, formal training program and a finance excellence council,” she says. “The council is like a self-improvement group made up of VPs, senior directors and directors, who look at what would create excellence in the organization. We then break out into teams to make it happen.”

This became a viral and highly effective driver of change, Cooper says. “It is very important when you want to transform that you have deep involvement of the leaders beneath you.”

The finance team at CA Technologies now has what Cooper describes as “bench strength.”

“If I was taken out of the picture tomorrow, we would be A-OK,” she says. “And that wasn't the case five years ago.”

Cooper clearly thrives on overcoming adversity. “The crisis was an exhilarating time,” she says. “CA was non-investment-grade with $1 billion of debt coming due at the time. By 2009, we were one of the few companies to be upgraded to investment grade.”

CA, which had $4.35 billion in 2010 revenue, initially struggled to refinance its debt. But under Cooper's management, CA improved its financial strength to the point where the major rating agencies lifted it to the next tier. Suddenly investors could not get enough of CA paper.

“We refinanced the existing debt, put out a new bond, and we have been upgraded many times since,” Cooper says. “We were counter-cyclical.”

See the complete coverage of Treasury & Risk's 2011 Women in Finance list here.