Julie Connors jumped from the role of adviser as a partner in the enterprise risk management practice at Deloitte to executing strategy as chief risk officer and senior vice president of audit for advertising's $6 billion Interpublic Group, the holding company for agencies including McCann Erickson.

"As a service provider, you think you know everything about a particular industry that you've been working in for years, but you still learn so much when you're looking at things from a different perspective," Connors says. "I miss being part of the revenue stream because there's such a rush when you sell new business. But at the same time, it's been very rewarding to execute strategy."

Since joining Interpublic in February, Connors, 39, has restructured the risk management group's responsibilities and is working with the business units to increase the efficiency of risk management operations.