If there's one lesson Cristina Gallo-Aquino has learned throughout her career, it's the importance of nurturing relationships with supervisors, colleagues, and staff. In fact, she credits good relationships with helping her arrive quickly at her current position as controller and vice president at $5.1 billion Ryder System at age 37.

“Because of my willingness to go the extra mile and help out everybody, whether I considered it in my job description or not,” Gallo-Aquino says, “I built very good relationships, and all these other people within other departments realized the value I was bringing to the position.”

As Gallo-Aquino's responsibilities, and her team, have grown, she has come up with creative ways to keep good vibes alive. Team members pass around small stuffed animals (dubbed “interns”) as a reward for “going the extra mile” for a colleague. Before the toy is passed on to a next deserving colleague, team members jot down a note describing a lesson the “intern” learned while it stayed on their desk and place it in the toy's box. Every quarter, the notes are read aloud at a staff meeting.”