“2009 was not a great year to be doing an IPO,” Gomez concedes with a laugh. “But we and our advisers were pretty confident we could execute the deal, and we did it. It was very well received by investors.”

In fact, rather than selling 100% of CareFusion for $5 billion, Cardinal Health ended up selling 80% of the new company's shares and holding onto 20%. Since the deal was completed, shares of both CareFusion and Cardinal have risen by 30%.

Gomez says the key to working with the rating agencies was providing “good transparency” in explaining the company's financial strategy. “I walked them all through the key elements of our strategy in terms of the ratings we aspired to, in terms of total returns,” he says. “We had set two- and three-year targets, and we met them.”

By July 2010, Standard & Poor's had boosted its outlook on Cardinal Health's BBB+ rating from stable to positive, after Moody's did the same two months earlier. In July 2011, S&P upped its long-term debt rating from BBB+ to A-, and earlier this year Moody's raised the company's long-term debt rating to Baa2 from Baa3.

Looking ahead, Gomez says the big challenge will be dealing with the significant changes facing the healthcare industry as the American population ages, the nation struggles with maintaining affordable healthcare, and companies like Cardinal Health work to deal with the new healthcare law reform.

“The Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act was a step in the right direction towards more clarity,” Gomez says. “Of course, it will take some time for it all to settle down.”

See Treasury & Risk's 2012 100 Most Influential People in Finance list here.

See a slideshow of the finance pros on this year's list here, and complete coverage of the list here.