Gregory Geswein, SVP and CFO, Diebold Inc.

Taking on the computer nerds is no sweat to Geswein, who led the way in Diebold's global technology overhaul.

David Shedlarz, EVP and CFO, Pfizer Inc.

Shedlarz and Pfizer set the pace for rigorous corporate governance before it was the trend.

Keith Sherin, SVP Finance and CFO, General Electric Co.

Sherin's partnership with CEO Jeffrey Immelt is considered the model for effective corporate structure and culture.

James Sawyer, SVP and CFO, Praxair Inc.

Sales and earnings at this global specialty gas producer are flying high after the company, under Sawyer's skillful financial leadership, weathered currency swings and the economic downturn.

Carol Tom?, EVP and CFO, Home Depot Inc.

Tom? makes her finance organization march to the same tune as the company's business strategy. When she streamlined financial reporting and management at Home Depot stores, it was with the goal of improving the customer experience.

Robert Wayman, EVP and CFO, Hewlett-Packard Co.

A three-decade veteran at H-P, Wayman–along with his taut financial organization–has been playing a pivotal role in the integration of Compaq and in keeping the company solid in a scrappy marketplace.

STRATEGIC TREASURERS AND CONTROLLERS

Money maven and numbers crunchers who are making finance a bottom-line positive

Philip Ameen, VP and Controller, General Electric Co.

If there is such a thing as a household name among controllers, it would be Ameen's. Besides his extensive responsibilities for GE's internal accounting and external reporting, he works with every task force created to improve accounting.

Kathy Cassidy, VP and Treasurer, General Electric Co.

A working capital management maven, Cassidy is considered a strong leader who keeps the juice flowing in a highly centralized office.

Brian Casey, VP and Treasurer, ArvinMeritor Inc.

Casey is known as a pioneer for his use of technology that reaches across multiple A/R and A/P systems to improve cash flow forecasting.

Melinda Ellsworth, VP, Treasurer and Investor Relations, HNI Corp.

Ellsworth specializes in long-term planning initiatives and improving the furniture maker's working capital position.

David Holland, Treasurer, Cisco Systems Inc.

Holland made treasury strategic long before any of the experts were advising treasurers to make that their next challenge.

John P. Jessup, VP Finance and Treasurer, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co.

Jessup has a big job, but the single global treasury system that he helped put in place at DuPont will make the work easier.

Jennifer Sandefur, Managing Director and Treasurer, Countrywide Financial Corp.

Sandefur juggles investors and bankers with equal adroitness and grace.

Susan K. Carter, VP finance and Chief Accounting Officer, Cummins Inc.

Formerly CFO of a Honeywell Inc. unit, Carter has been a leader at Cummins, directing its Sarbanes-Oxley 404 compliance and beefing up accounting procedures and policies.

CORPORATE CLIMBERS

Scaling the peaks of their industries

Dina Dublon, EVP and CFO, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

While she was already CFO of JPMorgan Chase, Dublon still had to beat out tough competition from high-flying Heidi Miller, Bank One's CFO and a former CFO of Citigroup, to become the CFO of the combined JPMorgan/Bank One.

Evan Greenberg, President and CEO, ACE ltd.

He has become just another titan of insurance in the Greenberg family.

Darren Jackson, EVP Finance and CFO, Best Buy Co.

Under 40 and an overachiever, Jackson helped retailer Best Buy keep profits rolling despite the advent of $40 DVD players.

Sanjiv Khattri, EVP and CFO, General Motors Acceptance Corp.

Khattri's leading role in GM's historic $17.9 billion bond offering in 2003 was rewarded this year when the 39-year-old was named CFO of the automaker's $22.6 billion finance unit.

Charles Noski, VP and CFO, Northrop Grumman Corp.

Noski is tackling the integration of Northrop's recent spate of acquisitions. If he succeeds, the CEO job may eventually beckon.

Dennis Powell, SVP and CFO, Cisco Systems Inc.

Cisco is a company with a highly evolved reporting system, a single P&L and a one-day close. In many ways, the buck starts and stops with Powell.

Mary Winston, CFO, Scholastic Corp.

She has climbed from treasurer to controller to CFO in a matter of two years. What's next?

MAKEOVER ARTISTS

Executives who get the overhaul right the first time

John Devine, Vice Chairman and CFO, and Walter Borst, Treasurer, General Motors Corp.

The finance team orchestrated the auto maker's bold strategy for fixing its previously bleak pension underfunding problem.

David FitzPatrick, EVP and CFO, Tyco International Ltd.

Bringing Tyco back from the brink last year was his first trick. Keeping earnings momentum into the next may be his encore.

Robert P. Kelly, Senior EVP and CFO, Wachovia Corp.

Kelly was the First Union CFO who successfully tackled the melding of very different cultures as his bank merged with Wachovia.

Wayne Pace, EVP and CFO, Time Warner Inc.

At Time Warner, debt is down, growth is up, and even AOL is looking better these days. Pace has played a critical part in getting the company back on track.

Kimberly Patmore, EVP and CFO, First Data Corp.

With Patmore's help, First Data set cash registers ringing with a string of acquisitions and alliances that have created a fearsome electronic payments powerhouse.

Matthew Paull, EVP and CFO, McDonald's Corp.

The company may have reached its salad days, but under Paull it's enjoying a financial rebound with all the fixings.

Lawrence Zimmerman, SVP and CFO, Xerox Corp.

With head count way down and earnings on the mend, Xerox's "Add Toner" button isn't flashing anymore, thanks in large part to Zimmerman's leadership.

PERENNIALS

Voices that count until they hang up their stirrups

Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

CEOs, beware. In recent months, Buffett's cause celebre has been excessively compensated chief executives.

Alan Greenspan, Chairman, Federal Reserve Board

Through Democratic and Republican administrations, he remains the man with his finger on the rate switch.

THE CRUSADERS

Policymakers with a mission

William Donaldson, Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission

Despite vehement opposition from the business community, Donaldson seems determined to give shareholders a better proxy weapon to allow them more of a voice in board elections.

William McDonough, Chairman, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board

Willing to wag his finger in the face of overpaid CEOs, the new accounting czar has gotten off to a strong start when it comes to auditing reform.

John Reed, Chairman, New York Stock Exchange

Reed has rebuilt a more independent NYSE board and pushed to raise the exchange's corporate governance standards and transparency. He's a bargain at any price, much less $1.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California

The new governor wasn't afraid to do some heavy lifting when it came to reforming his state's vexatious workers compensation system.

Eliot Spitzer, New York State Attorney General

The man no business executive wants to get a call from these days, he is the regulator with the hardest-working broom when it comes to the corporate cleanup.

John Thain, CEO, New York Stock Exchange

The new CEO is bravely walking a fine line, as he pushes for greater technology at the NYSE without scaring the hell out of the specialist community.

TOP COPS

Enforcers of the new corporate governance

Ann Combs, Assistant Secretary, Employment Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Department of Labor

She has displayed a steady hand amid turbulent times for plan sponsors, most recently during the mutual funds scandal.

Stephen Cutler, Director of Enforcement, Securities And Exchange Commission

Despite being upstaged more than once by Eliot Spitzer, Cutler's crew at the SEC continues to crack down hard on corporate malfeasance.

R. Hewitt Pate, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, U.S. Department of Justice

He is one person not likely to receive a Christmas card from Larry Ellison this year.

THE BEAN-COUNTING POLICE

Policymakers calling the tune for the future of accounting

Douglas Carmichael, Chief Auditor and Director of Professional Standards, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board

His work will define the details of how companies are to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley.

Robert Herz, Chairman, Financial Accounting Standards Board

Herz and the FASB seem to have triumphed on stock options accounting.

Jim Leisenring, Member, International Accounting Standards Board

He's a mover and shaker on global accounting convergence–and a pipeline for U.S. views.

Donald Nicolaisen, Chief Accountant, Securities and Exchange Commission

As the SEC's liaison to accounting standard setters, Nicolaisen will play a key role in international accounting convergence.

RELENTLESS REFORMERS

Insiders and outsiders who are taking on top U.S. managements

Richard Breeden, Court-appointed Monitor, MCI Inc.

Breeden marked his comeback with a far-reaching WorldCom corporate governance report that challenged regulators to get even tougher. Now, he's much in demand as an advisor.

John C. Bogle, Founder, The Vanguard Group

He was right about mutual funds. If only we had listened.

Sean Harrigan, President of the Board of Administration, California Public Employees' Retirement System (CALPERS)

Harrigan has sounded the alarm on issues ranging from investor access to proxy statements, to restructuring health care and reforming the New York Stock Exchange.

Jamie Heard, Vice Chairman, Institutional Shareholder Services

His organization and voice as a governance expert carry clout in proxy fights.

Alan Hevesi, New York State Comptroller

Battling for his state's pension fund, Hevesi scored big by negotiating a $2.65 billion settlement with Citigroup for its involvement with WorldCom.

Nell Minow, Editor and Co-founder, The Corporate Library

An unwavering and articulate advocate for more director independence, she kept the heat on the NYSE board over the Richard Grasso pay scandal.

Sarah Teslik, Executive Director, Council of Institutional Investors

Teslik and her group have also called for structural change at the NYSE. The group produces an annual list of underperforming companies.

Jerome York, Chief Executive, Harwinton Capital Corp.

A frequent recruit to the boards of companies trying to dig out, York's most recent patient is Tyco.

WASHINGTON WARRIORS

Representatives and lobbyists pushing priorities

Ron Gebhardtsbauer, Senior Pension Fellow, American Academy of Actuaries

He's a rare commodity: a big-picture thinker on retirement issues.

Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)

The outspoken bipartisan duo have allied themselves with the Financial Accounting Standards Board in the fight to force companies to include the "cost" of stock options on their balance sheets.

Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio)

After shaking up finance departments nationwide with his Democratic Senate colleague, Paul Sarbanes, Oxley has moved on to reforming mutual funds, strengthening the SEC and considering optional federal chartering of insurers.

Jeff Peck, Partner, Johnson Madigan Peck Boland Dover & Stewart

As chief lobbyist for the International Employee Stock Options Coalition, Peck is making a lot of noise but so far not gaining much ground.

Reps. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.)

Who says Democrats and Republicans can't work together when they have to? This mixed couple delivered the much needed pension rate relief that lifted the threat of sizable pension contributions off the backs of struggling plan sponsors.

Leigh Ann Pusey, SVP, Government Affairs, American Insurance Association

Pusey has been at the forefront of insurance issues like optional federal chartering and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act.

Dallas Salisbury, President and CEO, Employee Benefit Research Institute

His organization provides the numbers that are grist for the plethora of debates currently raging in the benefits area, particularly those around retirement issues.

ARTISTS OF THE DEAL

The names that count in the next wave of M&A and IPOs

David Bonderman, Founding Partner, Texas Pacific Group

Bonderman turned heads recently when his firm raised $5.3 billion from investors, bringing his war chest to more than $13 billion.

Sergey Brin/Larry Page, Founders, Google Inc.

First, they remade Web searches. Now, they're after the IPO market.

Jamie Dimon, Soon-to-be President and Chief Operating Officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Look out, Sandy, Jamie's back in town.

Tom Gahan, Head of Corporate Finance for the Americas, Deutsche Bank

Gahan is spearheading Deutsche Bank's aggressive corporate finance effort in the U.S.

Lee Meddin, Deputy Treasurer and Global Head of Structured Finance, International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group

A former investment banker, Meddin has made his mark by helping to foster capital markets in emerging countries, including Colombia, Korea and Chile.

Gary Parr, Deputy Chairman, Lazard LLC

Since arriving from Morgan Stanley, Parr has ramped up Lazard's M&A advisory business, including landing it the role of Bank One's adviser on its sale to JPMorgan Chase.

David Rubenstein, Founder and Managing Director, The Carlyle Group

Rubenstein rounds up the bucks for Carlyle, a private equity firm that takes being well connected to new heights.

PRACTICAL THEORETICIANS

Academics who have taken their teachings to the marketplace

Charles Elson, Chair, the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, University of Delaware

He is a leading voice and advisor on corporate governance and serves on four boards.

Mark Rubinstein, Professor of Applied Investment Analysis, Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley

Rubinstein is a distinguished academic in the field of risk management whose method for pricing stock options–the binomial method–has just won the FASB's seal of approval.

Ren? Stulz, The Everett D. Reese Chair, Banking and Monetary Economics, Fisher college of business, Ohio State University

An internationally recognized scholar, consultant and risk management guru, Stulz serves as president of the American Finance Association and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Rakesh Khurana, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior, Harvard Business School

Khurana has been making a name with studies on how executives think and behave, which he turned into a book on why it is irrational to demand charismatic CEOs.

BUSINESS INTELLIGENTS

The go-to geeks in the next wave of technology

Michael Duffy, President and CEO, OpenPages Inc. and Tim Welu, CEO, Paisley Consulting Inc.

In the ongoing task of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, these tech leaders are expected to stand out.

Larry Ellison, CEO, Oracle Corp.

He's ramping up Oracle's efforts to dominate the ERP space and leading the charge to get customers to rationalize their technology.

John Joyce, SVP and Group Executive, IBM Global Business Services

After more than four years as IBM's CFO, Joyce has been named to head business services as the competition for outsourcing business heats up.

Renee Lorton, SVP and general manager, PeopleSoft Financial Management

Lorton is the expert on the role of software solutions in corporate compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley's Section 404.

Kevin Marcus, President, Corporate Group, Thomson Financial

With the recent acquisition of TradeWeb, Marcus and Thomson are fearlessly taking on Bloomberg in a fight for the treasurer's desktop.

Jeffrey Rodek, Chairman and CEO, Hyperion Solutions Corp.

Rodek and Hyperion face big opportunities, as well as some challenges, as Sarbanes-Oxley and other developments boost demand for business intelligence solutions.

Jim Hagemann Snabe, Chief Operating Officer and SVP of SAP's Business Solution Group Financial and Public Service

Snabe and SAP can't rest on their laurels amid consolidation in the ERP industry.

HEDGE TRIMMERS

Bright lights in the galvanized world of risk management

John Charman, President and CEO, Axis Capital Holdings Ltd.

Charman is a leader among the companies that brought new capacity into the property and casualty insurance market in the wake of 9/11, paving the way for the moderation in rates that has occurred in recent months.

Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, Chairman and CEO, American International Group Inc.

From terrorism coverage to tort reform issues, Greenberg continues to set the pace for innovation in the insurance industry.

Lord Peter Levene, Chairman, Lloyd's of London

The new head of Lloyd's is pushing insurers to make money on underwriting rather than investment, a shift in thinking that could temper the cyclical nature of insurance markets around the globe.

Daragh Porter, Treasurer, Ashland Inc.

She's implementing enterprise risk management from the ground up.

Paul Robillard, Treasurer, Hydro-Qu?bec

With the help of Canadian risk academician Simon Lalancette, Robillard and his team have put currency, interest rate and commodity exposures in a single risk portfolio and compute a net position they can hedge.

Stephen Wilder, VP, Risk Management, The Walt Disney Co.

Wilder is considered an innovator for his creative use of insurance programs to structure risk transfer.

Gordon Woo, Catastrophist, Risk Management Solutions

Woo uses advanced mathematic techniques to model terrorism risk.

THE FLOW MASTERS

Vendors who keep the corporate cash moving

Frank Bisignano, CEO of Citigroup Global Transaction Services, Citigroup

Bisignano restructured the way the bank deals with its customers to give corporations a single point of contact for all their banking needs.

Ranjana Clark, EVP and Head of Treasury Services, Wachovia corp.

Wachovia's treasury services division, under Clark's leadership, made a bold move this year to outsource the company's retail lockbox processing while still maintaining primary responsibility for sales and customer service.

Ken Dummitt, President, SunGard Treasury Systems

He's the thought leader behind the 800-pound gorilla in the treasury workstation space.

Lori Hricik, head of cash management, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Hricik is currently leading the integration of JPMorgan's and Bank One's treasury services businesses, which will create the largest cash management provider globally.

Daniel P. Riley, President, Bank of America Global Treasury Services

Since taking command of global treasury in 1996, Riley has kept the division's revenues and profits growing by leaps and bounds.

Sanjiv Sanghvi, EVP, Treasury Management unit, Wells Fargo & Co.

Sanghvi led the way in simplifying the complexity of treasury tasks for customers by providing straight-through processing of payment files.

Philip Weisberg, CEO, FXall

The platform he heads has increased its share of the rapidly growing online trading of foreign exchange.

DISTANT VOICES

Financial hands from across the ponds that will reshape U.S. policy

Toshihiko Fukui, Governor, Bank of Japan

As he starts his second year as BOJ head, Fukui is getting good reviews for his wrestle with deflation.

Mario Monti, Competition Commissioner, European Union

In spite of U.S. criticisms, Monti and his team held Microsoft's feet to the fire, claiming the software giant had abused its position in the Windows operating system market.

Jin Renqing, Minister of Finance, China

The minister is not willing to play politics with China's monetary policy and took a strong stand against revaluing the renminbi.

Sir David Tweedie, Chairman, International Accounting Standards Board

Tweedie is the leading European voice in the effort to reconcile international accounting standards.