Growing up in his native Argentina, Juan Rajlin, assistant treasurer at General Motors, lived through his share of economic crises. That experience led him to study macroeconomics at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires.

After working in treasury at Royal Dutch Shell in Argentina for two years, he decided to study finance and international business at Columbia University, where he earned an M.B.A. He then joined GM, serving in several roles in the treasurer's office in New York, then as treasurer in Europe. The strategic efforts Rajlin led included establishing a restructuring plan for operations on the continent, managing M&A activities for Opel/Vauxhall and Saab, and coordinating financing by several European governments.

Since assuming his current post in 2010, Rajlin, 36, has been transforming GM's treasury operations by upgrading systems and reorganizing the global treasury group. He also completed $1.5 billion in capital market transactions last year and was involved in the $3.5-billion acquisition of AmeriCredit, GM's new captive finance company.