Rick Arpin says "Wall Street," Oliver Stone's 1987 movie, led to his career in finance. "When I was in high school, I saw the movie "Wall Street," and I thought I would be an investment banker," says Arpin, now corporate controller for MGM Resorts International. "But in college, I had an accounting instructor who inspired me to look into accounting. I ended up with a dual major in finance and accounting. And from there, the clearest career path was through public accounting, so I became a CPA and went on to work at Arthur Andersen."

After a stint at Arthur Andersen, Arpin joined MGM Resorts in 2002. He is responsible for external reporting and accounting policies at the $5.9 billion gaming company and also oversees more than 200 employees in its finance shared services center. Arpin, 38, has participated on the teams for deals such as MGM Resorts' $8 billion acquisition of Mandalay Resort Group and its $750 million sale of Treasure Island. He has a B.S. in accounting and finance from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

What's been your biggest challenge? The recession. I think anyone who works in any industry affected by the events of the past two years–which is most of us–would have to say that it was getting through the financial crisis beginning in late '08. [MGM] faced significant financial challenges: we were trying to build a large resort here in Las Vegas, CityCenter, which faced challenges just getting constructed. So a big part of the corporate finance team's effort was raising the financing to see that through. We were able to make some financial magic and raise funds when we needed to, and get our lenders to cooperate with us and survive that period.