Nancy Cooper, EVP and CFO, CA Inc.
Called in to restore integrity to the financials of the company formerly known as Computer Associates, Cooper is bringing a single-minded focus to systems and processes.

Gary Crittenden, CFO, Citigroup
Crittenden already showed his prowess as CFO of American Express Co., but at Citi he will need to be a point man as the bank continues its transformation into a 21st century model global financial services company.

Jeffrey N. Edwards, SVP and CFO, Merrill Lynch & Co.
Edwards led a $6 billion share buyback and helped combine Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and Blackrock to create one of the largest asset management companies in the world with $1 trillion in assets.

Wim Elfrink, SVP of Customer Advocacy and Chief Globalization Officer, Cisco Systems Inc.
Cisco's man in Bangalore, India, Elfrink leads a new breed of executives committed to transforming their companies into truly global businesses, reaching out to customers, partners and offshore facilities around the world. His clout is undisputed. He reports directly to CEO John Chambers.

Gary Ellis, SVP and CFO, Medtronic Inc.
Ellis is one of the few CFOs with experience as both a controller and treasurer. He now has responsibility for the conventional CFO turf, as well as one of the newer process management areas being assigned to strategic CFOs–supply chain management.

David Goulden, EVP and CFO, EMC Corp.
It has been a busy time for Goulden, who is one of the prime movers behind EMC's decision to sell 10% of VMware, its wholly owned subsidiary, in an initial public offering. Goulden has also restructured EMC's capitalization through a debt offering to finance the company's $2.2 billion acquisition of RSA Security and used EMC's strong cash flow to repurchase 35 million shares.

Wang Guoliang, CFO, PetroChina
On the cutting edge of China's campaign to gain access to Western marketplace liquidity and commerce, Guoliang is leading the effort to bring China's poster child of good governance into Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

Michael E. Lehman, EVP of Corporate Resources and CFO, Sun Microsystems Inc.
Lehman, who came out of retirement to help Sun recover its glory, has instituted the company's One Touch supply chain effort, shipping products directly to customers from Sun's contract manufacturers and cutting logistics costs by 20%. He has also reduced headcount and restructured real estate, downsizing Sun's campuses to two from three and saving $250 million.

Cathie Lesjak, EVP and CFO, Hewlett-Packard Co.
Lesjak created a best-practices treasury at HP and is now taking on her next challenge at the computer giant, which seems to be making all the right moves lately–including promoting Lesjak.

Patricia McKay, EVP and CFO, Office Depot Inc.
McKay has presided over an impressive turnaround at Office Depot. In addition to a 38% jump in earnings per share in 2006 and a 300-basis point increase in return on invested capital, McKay has reduced working capital by 11%.

Brian P. McKeon, EVP and CFO, Iron Mountain Inc.
A relative newcomer to Iron Mountain, McKeon is expected to work the same kind of magic as he did at his previous assignments for Timberland Co. and PepsiCo Inc. At Timberland, he was an expansion expert, implementing a global treasury and adding new brands, including SmartWool; at PepsiCo, he played a key role in the splitoff of its bottling and concentrate businesses in North America.

Biggs C. Porter, CFO, Tenet Healthcare Corp.
Porter was brought in to revamp Tenet's financial reporting and controls after skillfully navigating Raytheon Co. through an accounting crisis of
its own.

George Reyes, SVP and CFO, Google Inc.
Reyes is building a robust finance organization at the relatively young Google, which is expected to help the dot-com maintain its financial momentum.

David B. Wyshner, EVP, CFO and Treasurer, Avis Budget Group
Wyshner led a stellar treasury at Cendant Corp., and he's now transforming the financial strategies and practices at Cendant spinoff Avis, with much of his old Cendant team as backup.

TREASURERS The stars of working capital and cash flow

Christopher Ballinger, VP of Treasury, Toyota Motor Corp.
In his best practices treasury, Ballinger is a master of simple solutions for complex problems. Among his many accomplishments: He configured an innovative tool to improve communication and coordination between treasury and GMAB lenders, lowering costs and enhancing revenues.

Brent Callinicos, VP and Treasurer, Google Inc.
After perfecting a best-practices treasury at Microsoft Corp., Callinicos is now off to create the same kind of top-flight organization at Google.

Jennifer Ceran, VP and Treasurer, eBay Inc.
Ceran is a regular on lists of forward-thinking treasurers for her work on ERM and with eBay business units like PayPal. This year, she showed her prowess in more traditional treasurer turf with masterful timing on a $2 billion share buyback. She also thinks ahead: Anticipating a trip to the credit market, she is doing early spadework with both the rating agencies and senior management.

Richard Grannis, SVP and Treasurer, Qualcomm Inc.
Considered a thought leader by his fellow treasurers, Grannis has undertaken a corporate cash investment framework initiative, which has substantially increased the returns on Qualcomm's investment portfolio with more than $11 billion in assets.

Mary Jo Green, SVP and Treasurer, Sony Corp. of America
Always pushing the envelope on efficiency, Green has used consolidation and the clout of the $27 billion North American division to extract significant cost savings from her operation's banking and card operations.

Jesse Greene, VP and Treasurer, IBM Corp.
Greene is still among the few treasurers with fingers in all the appropriate pies, when it comes to working capital management and real visibility into cash flow. He was an early advocate of putting accounts payable and accounts receivable in the hands of the treasurer.

Christopher Hayward, Global Treasurer, Merrill Lynch & Co.
Hayward has leveraged his 10-plus years in risk management to bring treasury new tools and techniques, such as stress testing and scenario/sensitivity analysis, to drive improvements in liquidity risk management and the development of a disciplined capital management framework. Along with treasury, Hayward is responsible for Investor Relations.

Martina Hund-Mejean, SVP and Treasurer,
Tyco International Ltd.
Hund-Mejean was pivotal in the transformation of Tyco from felon to governance example and is now taking the lead in the conglomerate's impending breakup into three units.

Bernie Jacob, Treasurer, Prudential Financial Inc.
In 11 months as Prudential's treasurer, Jacob is
already showing his mettle by structuring bank deals in-house and building upon predecessor Chuck Chaplin's visionary strategy of business-
unit partnering.

Ravi Jacob, VP of Finance and Treasurer, Intel Corp.
After building up a best-practices treasury at home, Jacob has spearheaded Intel's expansion into India, China and other emerging Asian markets.

Dennis Ling, SVP and Treasurer, Saks Inc.
The former Avon treasurer is now rebuilding Saks' treasury from the ground up as operations move from Birmingham, Ala. to New York City. Ling also has left a national footprint because of his work on the Credit Rating Reform Act of 2006 as the chairman of Financial Executives International's committee on corporate finance. His priority: building safeguards to prevent credit rating agencies from using their power over companies to push their consulting businesses.

Paolo Tonucci, Treasurer, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
Tonucci has overseen the growth of Lehman's capital base, which has doubled over the past two years, as well as having been the moving force behind the company's inaugural issuances in other markets such as Canada, Australia and Switzerland. He has also overseen the issuance of innovative capital structures such as ECAPS (enhanced capital advantaged preferred securities) and MCAPS (mandatory capital advantaged preferred securities).

John J. Tus, VP and Treasurer, Honeywell International Inc.
Tus is leading the company's global allocation of capital to maximize cash returns initiative and is working to optimize Honeywell's capital structure, by minimizing the company's global cost of capital. Tus plans to achieve this goal by accessing capital markets throughout the world to reduce blended after-tax cost of debt and equity.

Robert Warren, VP and Treasurer, Diebold Inc.
Like IBM's Greene, Warren has responsibility for many non-traditional functions for treasury, including tax. Warren's job description encompasses so much he sounds more like a CFO than treasurer.

John Weisenseel, SVP and Treasurer, The McGraw-Hill Cos.
Weisenseel earned his stripes at Barnes & Noble Inc, but he is the finance point man on McGraw-Hill's move into Asia and its efforts to coordinate its pension obligations worldwide.

George Zinn, VP and Treasurer, Microsoft Corp.
Zinn continues the Callinicos legacy of best practices Microsoft style, but has been pumping up the volume with a centralization project in treasury and Microsoft's championing of SWIFT for corporates.

CONTROLLERS CONTROL FREAKS WITH A GLOBAL PLAN

Joan Lordi Amble, SVP and Comptroller, American Express Co.
Amble brings an auditor's eye to the table as controller, which is not that unusual, but her background working for the Financial Accounting Standards Board on rules affecting financial instruments makes her one of the few executives to be able to claim a more intimate understanding of complex rules, such as FAS 133 or 158.

Thomas A. Bartlett, SVP and Controller, Verizon Communications Inc.
Bartlett brings a depth of top-level management experience and a new perspective to the controller's job after stints as president of two Verizon units.

Brad Cerepak, VP and Controller, American Standard Companies Inc.
Cerepak is leading the planning and execution of American Standard's split into three businesses. The aim is to help investors understand the company better, but it is unlikely anyone is complaining–the $11 billion company has had a great five-year ride.

Brian Hart, Controller, U.S. Snackfoods, Mars Inc.
While treasurers sometimes play in the controller's space in order to get the visibility to predict cash flow or manage working capital, Hart is one of the rare controllers who does the treasurer's job on making cash flow predictions and managing working capital.

Kathy Waller, VP and Chief of Internal Audit, Coca-Cola Co.
Waller came into her role in the midst of Coke's Sarbanes-Oxley implementation and made it through the audit unscratched. Since then, she has streamlined the process, reducing controls by 20%. Now, Waller is designing Coke's continuous control monitoring, streamlining the process that checks for anomalies and provides constant updates
on operations.

Paul C. Wirth, Global Controller and Principal Accounting Officer, Morgan Stanley
Wirth is a great example of the motto "think global, act local." As part of the effort to run finance as a business, Wirth has standardized and automated similar functions across the global finance organization, while setting up a legal entity control focus. He has also established a cross-functional merger integration group to simplify strategic bolt-on acquisitions.

Globalization When boundaries no longer matter

Lazaro Campos, CEO, SWIFT
Under Campos, SWIFT opened its electronic payment system to non-financial companies, bringing banking costs down and efficiency up.

Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
While it may put a damper on Western investment,
Chavez's anti-U.S., anti-globalization rant and his threat to seize his country's banks is rallying crowds in South America and internationally.

Connie D. McDaniel, VP of Global Finance Transformation, Coca-Cola Co.
McDaniel, Coke's controller, is leading the creation of a finance function that will take a global view to drive efficient processes.

Werner Steinmueller, Head of Global Transaction Banking, Deutsche Bank
Under Steinmueller's leadership, Deutsche Bank's Global Transaction Banking business is following a growth trajectory across Europe, Asia and the U.S. by capitalizing on the bank's commitment to investing in the latest technology and leveraging new initiatives, such as SEPA.

John Thain, Director and CEO, NYSE Euronext
The NYSE goes global. Capitalized at $28.5 billion, the merged NYSE Euronext is the first transatlantic exchange and already the biggest bourse globally. Next stop: Asia.

Jean-Claude Trichet, President, European Central Bank
With the euro at record levels against the dollar, Trichet hopes creation of a Single European Payments Area (SEPA) will further pump up the currency by eliminating barriers to cross-border trading.

Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor, People's Bank of China
With $1.1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves–enough to buy out Citigroup–the Chinese central bank has the clout to have an impact on markets.

RETIREMENT AND BENEFITS trailblazing life as a less hedgeable financial risk

Zvi Bodie, Norman and Adele Barron Professor of Management, Boston University
Bodie, a maverick in pension investing, is challenging conventional wisdom about the virtues of investing in equities for the long run, pushing for investment in inflation-protected securities and annuities.

Nancy Everett, Chief Investment Officer, General Motors Corp. Asset Management
Everett led the restructuring of the GM pension fund, moving $24 billion into bonds out of equities and offering up a lower-risk model for the 21st century pension fund.

Paula K. Fryland, EVP and Manager of the National Healthcare Group, PNC Bank
The public face of PNC's healthcare services, Fryland is responsible for delivering a full range of banking services to national healthcare clients, including treasury management services and traditional corporate banking products. PNC technology lets hospitals have an electronic connection without creating it themselves.

Jerome S. Golden, President of the Income Management Strategies Division, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.
What Golden and his team have come to realize is that the problem facing retirees–and there will be many of them soon–is not just whether they have saved enough, but determining the rate at which they should be tapping that savings–a dilemma that MassMutual's new retirement management account is addressing.

Blake R. Grossman, CEO, Barclays Global Investors
Grossman has helped transform the asset management industry by applying science and technology to the investment process, growing BGI to $1,800 billion in assets under management as the world's largest asset manager from $746 billion in 2002. BGI is responsible for managing more than half of the top 200 pension funds in the U.S.

Eve Guernsey, CEO, JPMorgan Asset Management Americas
Guernsey takes an unconventional approach to the retirement market that stresses how participants really behave and encourages companies not to segregate retirement risk. To that end, Guernsey and her team have developed innovative and unique risk modeling that puts retirement risk into the same language as other financial risks.

Jim Morris, SVP of Institutional Solutions, SEI Global Institutional Group
Morris changed the pension reform landscape by linking broader corporate financial objectives with pension program development through what is considered to be the industry's first fully integrated global pension solution. No more independent silos and accountability problems.

Cynthia E. Murray, EVP of Transaction Banking, LaSalle Bank Corp.
Murray is the moving force behind LaSalle Bank's launch of its innovative consumer-directed healthcare platform, pushing the boundaries in which traditional treasury management banking serves its clients.

William F. Quinn, Chairman and CEO, American Beacon Funds
Quinn maintained the DB plan at American Air–an accomplishment in itself. He was into liability-driven investing long before LDI became an acronym.

Mark A. Schmid, VP of Trust Investment and Chief Investment Officer, The Boeing Co.
Schmid developed a unique strategic allocation plan to lower the risk profile for Boeing's $48 billion pension and retiree healthcare investment portfolio. The allocations are: 28% publicly traded equities, 45% long duration bonds and 27% alternative investment products.

Jay Vivian, Assistant Treasurer and Managing Director of Retirement Funds, IBM Corp.
Vivian has shaped IBM's innovative defined benefit and defined contribution plans, allowing the company to be an early leader in adopting distribution options, such as annuities.

RISK MANAGEMENT ELEVATING RISK TO ROCKET SCIENCE

Amy W. Brinkley, Global Risk Executive, Bank of America Corp.
BofA has one of the top risk management programs among all the big banks, and much of that is thanks to Brinkley. She has been able to instill a risk-based approach down into the organization and has pushed ERM across the spectrum of businesses. Unlike most CROs who come up with quant background, Brinkley spent her time on the credit and operations side, giving her a very business-like approach to risk.

Lance J. Ewing, VP of Risk Management, Harrah's Entertainment Inc.
Well-known in risk circles as a savvy negotiator of innovative insurance packages, Ewing has had to confront climate change head on because of Harrah's extensive operations in the Southeastern U.S.

Christina Kite, VP of Workplace Resources and Enterprise Risk Management, Cisco Systems Inc.
Her fans say she is destined for greatness. Kite uses an innovative strategy for ERM, making it more about opportunity than protection. Kite's role at Cisco is the essence of integrated GRC meeting ERM, working in risk transfer and the development of Cisco's playbook on the environment and social responsibility.

Joanna Makomaski, Manager of Risk Management, Enbridge Energy Distribution Inc.
An expert on international standards at Canada's largest natural gas utility, Makomaski wants to take some of the risk out of ERM with a newly developed system that shows potential favorable outcomes and opportunities, as well as traditional losses.

Larry Rittenberg, Chairman of COSO and Professor of Accounting at the University of Wisconsin
Rittenberg has been instrumental in directing COSO to provide more robust guidance regarding the application of the COSO framework.

David Rusate, Deputy Treasurer of Foreign Exchange and Commodities, General Electric Co.
Rusate runs a dynamic program that hedges against Mother Nature and the volatility of natural gas prices. It can be adapted to hedge other commodities.

Prodyot Samanta, Director and Risk Management Specialist with Financial Institutions Ratings, Standard & Poor's Corp.
It's a flip of the coin that puts Samanta on the list over his S&P risk management team partner David Ingram. Together, the two are forcing the hand of non-financial companies to push forward in ERM by developing and incorporating new criteria for enterprise risk management in their credit ratings.

Spencer Schwartz, SVP and Group Head of ERM and Business Continuity, MasterCard International
Schwartz led the monumental effort to institutionalize ERM throughout MasterCard, and by sharing that experience, he provided best practices to
other companies.

Nicholas Stern, Former Chief Economist of the World Bank and Advisor to the U.K. Treasury
Outspoken on the looming dangers of global warming, Stern transformed the debate with a 700-page report concluding that the cost of doing nothing about environmental risks is far greater than taking steps to solve the problems. It was the basis for Tony Blair's proposals for major Europeanmissions cutbacks.

Brian Storms, chairman and CEO, Marsh Inc.
Storms has committed Marsh to play a leadership role in the global warming/sustainable development discussion. He was a prime mover behind the Sustainable Governance Forum at Yale that advises board members and companies.

Beaumont W. Vance, Senior Enterprise Risk Manager, Sun Microsystems Inc.
Vance has become a respected spokesman for what it takes to do effective ERM, and has done extensive work in quantification that could help others consider taking the plunge.

GOVERNANCE AND COMPLIANCE SAVING THE PLANET AND THE CORPORATION

Lee Dittmar, Principal, Deloitte Touche
Co-leader of the firm's Sarbanes-Oxley practice, Dittmar cautioned against the SOX hysteria, asserting that the pain would ease over time, as it has, and that it could benefit business in the long run.

John Hagerty, VP of Research, AMR Corp.
Compliance guru Hagerty is a leading thinker in the exploding business intelligence and performance management markets, spending in which he predicts could approach $24 billion this year in North America alone.

Scott Mitchell, President and CEO, Open Compliance and Ethics Group
Mitchell was fundamental in delivering OCEG's much-anticipated internal audit guidance draft, which helps steer corporations through thorny compliance and ethics issues.

Herman Mulder, Senior Adviser, United Nations Global Compact Office
After pioneering the groundbreaking Equator Principles- used by banks to voluntarily assess and manage social and environmental risk- Mulder, a 27-year veteran with ABN Amro, left the bank to advise the U.N. on sustainable development.

Michael Rasmussen, VP of Governance, Risk and Compliance Research, Forrester Research Inc.
Rasmussen's work is helping to create the framework to pull governance, business ethics, risk and compliance out of their silos and into an integrated discipline.

Ralph V. Whitworth, Founder, Relational Investors LLC
Outspoken on corporate governance, this activist shareholder helped topple Home Depot Inc. chairman and CEO Robert Nardelli over runaway executive pay and is now sparring with Sprint Nextel Corp.

BANKERS REDEFINING THEIR ROLE AND WATCHING THEIR BACKS

Ellen Alemany, CEO, RBS America
In March, Royal Bank of Scotland tapped the 30-year veteran banker Alemany–formerly the CEO of Citigroup's Global Transaction Services–to beef up its U.S. operations ahead of its recently launched bid to buy ABN-Amro. If RBS prevails in its bid and lands LaSalle Bank, Alemany will have expanded cross-selling opportunities between the retail bank and RBS' increasingly active capital markets business in the U.S.

Deborah Ball, EVP and Head of Wells Fargo Wholesale Internet Solutions, Wells Fargo & Co.
Ball is all about customer relations and service as she leads a 650-member team dedicated to solving treasury management inquiries and assisting with product enrollment and changes. She is converting Wells Fargo into the back office for many corporate clients.

Gregory J. Cicero, SVP, Mellon Financial Corp.
Cicero, who oversees Mellon's working capital solutions group, has been instrumental in expanding Mellon's middle-market penetration in cash management services through the department's private label outsourcing division.

Michael Cohrs, Head of Global Banking, Deutsche Bank AG
Cohrs is building on the momentum of previous successful quarters to increase productivity across all global banking businesses and take a global, client-centric approach that seeks to deliver the entire suite of the bank's products and services to its client base.

David F. Conroy, Managing Director and Global Head of Supply Chain Services and Trade Sales, Citigroup Inc.
Conroy is one of the leading lights in the corporate drive toward supply-chain efficiency and better working capital management. At Citi, where strong trade and cash management operations give it a leg up in the supply-chain space, Conroy has been charged with developing new market strategies and solutions aimed at bringing real process improvements to the sometimes Byzantine world of international trade.

Paul Galant, CEO and Managing Director of Global Transaction Services, Citigroup Inc.
The visionary behind Citigroup's award-winning global account management system TreasuryVision, Galant now heads up Citi's fastest growing business, which includes cash management, trade services and finance, and securities and funds services. If Citi never sleeps, neither does Galant: He's making Citi into an entrepreneur, developing products and services through strategic acquisitions and potentially transformative alliances with best-in-class vendors.

Heidi Miller, CEO, Treasury and Securities Service, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Miller's TSS has been firing on all cylinders. Besides increasing assets under custody by 30% to $13.9 trillion and liability balances by 22% last year, Miller introduced unique products for automating healthcare claims reimbursement and simplifying e-payments. She is also building up fund services, foreign exchange and the wholesale card business, while creating through acquisition middle and back office operations for hedge funds.

Paul Simpson, SVP and Treasury Services business executive responsible for trade, e-payables and card solutions, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Simpson is the visionary behind Chase's flurry of tech acquisitions including Vastera, the trade and supply-chain management vendor; FisaCure, a healthcare data-capture provider; and more recently Xign, the financial settlement leader. Once viewed as ancillary activities, these are now at the heart of what corporate clients expect from their banks.

REGULATORS BRINGING SOME ORDER TO REGULATION

Robert H. Attmore, Chairman, Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB)
Attmore and the GASB are pushing for transparency in state and municipal pension plans that could lead to an underfunding gap in excess of $1 trillion.

Timothy F. Geithner, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
With a deluge of money flowing into hedge funds, Geithner is the point man in a campaign to make sure banks can handle the shock of a hedge fund blowup.

Henry M. Paulson Jr., Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Treasury
The chief aim of the ex-Goldman Sachs CEO is preventing any further erosion in the primacy of U.S. capital markets abroad.

Thomas Ray, Chief Auditor and Director of Professional Standards, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
Ray is leading the board's effort to redefine Auditing Standard 2–the principal rule guiding practices in Section 404 internal controls audits. Considered to be open and honest, it's hard to see how he survives in Washington.

John W. White, Director of the Division of Corporation Finance, Securities and Exchange Commission
White has been the point man in SEC efforts to provide better guidance for the problematic Section 404, eliminate the IFRS-GAAP reconciliation requirements and move companies to an XBRL format for filings.

POLITICIANS TAKING ON THE REALLY BIG ISSUES–FOR ONCE

Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), Minority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
The congressman pushed through the historic Pension Protection Act, which is revitalizing defined benefit plans and turbo-charging 401(k)s.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), Chairman, Senate Banking Committee
The senator is leading the fight to extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) and make Sarbanes-Oxley more management-friendly.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Chairman, House Finance Committee
Frank was not necessarily a congressman companies dealt with much before he became chairman of a powerful committee, but now his calls to cap executive compensation and regulate hedge funds may have teeth.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee
Miller, who held the first hearings on 401(k) fee
disclosure, is shining a spotlight on an opaque fee structure.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California
Ahnold may be the only brandname Republican not running for president, but he is tackling the two big issues of this decade and probably the next:global warming and healthcare.

TECHNOLOGY LEARNING TO COMPETE AND COOPERATE TO THE SAME END

Amit Chatterjee, SVP of Risk and Compliance Management, SAP AG
Chatterjee is at the forefront of SAP's spectacular drive over the last year into integrated GRC through acquisition and alliances with such powerhouses as Cisco Systems Inc.

Mike Duffy, President and CEO, OpenPages Inc.
Duffy's Open Pages continues to be a standout in the continuing challenge to meet Sarbanes-Oxley criteria and extend best practices-integrated GRC.

Ken Dummitt, President, SunGard AvantGard
After a slightly slow start following the split from its SunGard Availability parent, the treasury workstation provider under the leadership of Dummit has been on a roll–building, mostly through acquisition, the new version of what treasury technology will need to look like in the 21st century. Among its conquests: Integrity, Aceva and XRT.

Wolfgang Koester, CEO, FiREapps
With VC and ex-Microsoft CFO John Connors as its sugar daddy, Koester's FiREapps is leading the charge on an enterprise approach to hedging and financial risk management.

Steve Miranda, SVP for Financial Applications, Oracle Corp.
Miranda heads up Oracle's financial application development efforts, such as human relations and payroll, procurement, CPM and the functional architect group.

Sharon Rowlands, President and CEO of Thomson Financial, The Thomson Corp.
Rowlands has shaken up Thomson Financial, pushing the financial information provider into such hot areas as financial and trading desktop analytics for hedge fund managers. Now, Rowland is leading Thomson's acquisition of the much bigger Reuters Group PLC.

DEALMAKERS coming to a company near you

John Snow, Chairman, Cerberus Capital Management PLC
The former U.S. treasury secretary is the front man for Stephen Feinberg, the extremely low-profile founder of this private equity firm that just made a big splash with a $7.4 billion purchase of the Chrysler portion of DaimlerChrysler.

Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO, The Blackstone Group
Blackstone's planned $4 billion IPO broadens its reach and sets the bar for the rest of high-flying private equity. But given private equity's dogma of cashing in at the top, could it foreshadow the high watermark for private equity at least in this cycle–or is it just Round Two?