No one would ever accuse Nancy Cooper of avoiding challenges–not after accepting the job of CFO at CA Inc. The Islandia, N.Y.-based enterprise management software company, formerly known as Computer Associates, has been in on-and-off crisis mode for almost four years following a massive $2.2 billion accounting fraud investigation beginning in 2003. Then, after it looked like it was getting on track with a new management team, led by CEO John Swainson, it was forced to restate financials in early 2006. That led to the resignation of CFO Robert Davis. None of that seems to deter Cooper, who has been at CA for six months. "My job is to make the company perform as well as I can, as soon as I can, at the highest level of integrity," she says.

Of course, Cooper comes with credentials that will help her. Most recently the CFO of healthcare information provider IMS Health Inc., she spent 22 years at IBM Corp., with her last position as CFO of IBM's global industries unit. It was there that she met Swainson, then IBM's vice president of worldwide sales for the software group.

Despite its relatively new ERP system, Cooper's first assignment is to overhaul processes. "It's not just systems–processes are equally important," says Cooper. "Do you get the close done quickly? Do you have a good forecasting process?"