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2) Indra Nooyi
Chairman and Chief Executive
Indra Nooyi wants to prove that PepsiCo can make its portfolio of snacks and beverages healthier and minimize its impact on the environment, all while continuing to deliver the same healthy profit growth it has been known for in recent years.
Ms. Nooyi, 52, has devoted considerable time in her first year as chairman and CEO to crafting and preaching a vision that calls for the Purchase, N.Y., company to become a corporate leader on both of those fronts, as well as to foster a workplace environment that offers employees "a career, not just a job," she told a group of business leaders in Miami in September.
Her drive to make PepsiCo "known around the world as a good company" has deep roots in her childhood in India, she said. Around the family dinner table in Madras, India, Ms. Nooyi's mother used to challenge her and her sister to describe what they would do to "change the world" if they were elected prime minister, or to another post.
Then her mother would evaluate the answers to determine which of her daughters to support. "I can't tell you how hard my sister and I competed to earn her vote!" Ms. Nooyi recalled.
She wants PepsiCo to derive 50% of U.S. revenue by 2010 from health-oriented products or healthier varieties of its "indulgent" treats. Sales of those products currently make up a percentage of revenue in the "mid- 40s" range.
The veteran deal maker also hasn't shied from acquisitions. The company is pursuing multiple smaller acquisitions, ranging from $5 million to $2 billion in value, to fill geographical and portfolio gaps.
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3) Neelie Kroes
His destination: A small restaurant in southern Holland, near the home of European Union antitrust chief Neelie Kroes. During dinner and in subsequent negotiations, Mrs. Kroes and Mr. Ballmer hammered out the terms of Microsoft's surrender.
The court ruling firmly established Mrs. Kroes as the most influential antitrust regulator in the world. But back in 2004, Mrs. Kroes' nomination to one of the EU's top jobs was greeted with skepticism. A former Dutch transport minister, she wasn't a big name among Europe's political elite. Plus, she had retired to the more tranquil and remunerative pastime of serving on corporate boards -- not exactly an experience conducive to being tough on business.
But Mrs. Kroes, 66, has set an aggressive course. She has shown a particular devotion to stamping out cartels -- this year levying heavy fines on makers of beer, elevators and zippers. She was a key force behind an EU proposal to open up the region's monopoly-ridden energy markets.
Transatlantic fireworks could ensue. After a top U.S. antitrust official slammed the Microsoft ruling, Mrs. Kroes shot back that such criticism of a court by a foreign government was "totally unacceptable."
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4) Zoe Cruz
The debt-market roller coaster took Zoe Cruz for a ride this year. Now, the Morgan Stanley MS -0.67 % co-president is acting as a leading voice in the effort to calm the financial markets, a role that it appears she may need to play for some time while also seeing her own company through a difficult stretch.
The 52-year-old Ms. Cruz was one of several top Wall Street executives who participated in a mid-August conference call organized by the Federal Reserve to help soothe investors worried about the fallout from the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market. The markets are still jittery, though, and Morgan Stanley hasn't escaped unscathed.
In the first nine months of the firm's fiscal year, through Aug. 31, Morgan Stanley earned $1 billion by correctly betting on a downturn in the price of subprime-mortgage assets. But the same bet went awry in the fourth quarter, costing the firm $3.7 billion pretax in its first two months and leaving another $6 billion in exposure.
While the full extent of the damage remains to be seen, Ms. Cruz appears to have the support of Chief Executive John Mack. The biggest reason: institutional securities, the firm's biggest business which she oversees, saw its revenue grow 65% to $21.6 billion between 2004, the year before she was named co-president, and 2006. And her former fixed-income division has "carried the firm" in the past four years, one colleague says.
--Randall L. Smith
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5) Sheila Bair
FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORP.
The chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. caught many in Washington and the banking industry by surprise earlier this year when she urged lenders to quickly team up with Wall Street firms and modify hundreds of thousands of subprime adjustable-rate mortgages before markets worsened and foreclosures snowballed.
Now, after many of Sheila Bair's predictions have materialized, the White House appointee has a captive audience.
"There's a lot of money at stake," Ms. Bair, 53, said at an investor conference last month. "It's hurting housing. It's tightening credit conditions. It's affecting the U.S. and global economies. And worse yet, millions of peoples' homes are on the line."
Ms. Bair has suggested that lenders begin modifying thousands of loans to bring borrowers with expensive ARMs into more affordable fixed-rate products. Her suggestion, first seen as drastic, could attract more attention soon as more than one million subprime ARMs are expected to reset into higher payments by the end of next year.
Meanwhile, the number of new homeowners entering the foreclosure process has set records for the last three quarters.
Separately, inaction by the Senate could force Ms. Bair to decide by the end of January whether retailers like Home Depot Inc. HD 0.58 % should be allowed to own federally insured banks. She placed a 12-month moratorium on applications for such arrangements on Jan. 31, 2007. The House passed a bill this year prohibiting retailers and some other firms from owning banks.
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6) Clara Furse
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE
The first female head of the London Stock Exchange in its 300-year history, Clara Furse has become famous for saying "no" -- batting away takeover approaches by some of the world's largest stock exchanges. Now, she'll play an important role in shaping the way stocks and other financial instruments are traded in an increasingly unified Europe.
Among the challenges she'll face: how to maintain a dominant position for the London exchange amid sweeping European financial-market reforms that went into effect this month, which make it easier for upstarts to compete with established exchanges.
To Ms. Furse's advantage, the London exchange is used to the competition. It has never enjoyed some of the protections, such as a monopoly on trading in shares of local companies, that the reforms are aimed at removing.
Ms. Furse, 50, has always played a good defense, but critics have accused her of not making the sort of long-term strategic moves that saw rivals like NYSE Group and Frankfurt's Deutsche Börse build trans-Atlantic exchanges with diversified securities businesses.
This year, the London exchange partly answered such criticisms when it bought Italian markets operator Borsa Italiana. Eventual tie-ups with Spain's Bolsas y Mercados Espanoles SA and NYSE Euronext, which now owns the New York Stock Exchange and Europe's Euronext stock exchange, also are seen as possibilities.
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7) Anne Mulcahy
Chairman and Chief Executive
The $1.5 billion takeover in May of Global Imaging Systems, one of the nation's biggest chains of office-machine dealers, gave Xerox access to a host of small and midsize business customers it hadn't reached, because Global previously only sold products made by Xerox's Japanese rivals.
Ms. Mulcahy has joked that leading Xerox to acquire such an indirect sales channel was "unlikely" given her background as a saleswoman in a company that historically emphasized the primacy of direct sales.
The acquisition immediately boosted revenue growth. Sales climbed 12% in the third quarter of this year, compared with a 1.2% increase for all of 2006. And it helped answer the question of whether Ms. Mulcahy had a next act after she helped engineer Xerox's recovery from a near financial collapse in 2001.
She also has expanded Xerox's business beyond traditional copiers and printers into the computer systems used by customers to manage documents. After radically paring back Xerox's debt, she has leveraged the company's financial strength in the past 18 months to buy three smaller companies that make software for managing legal evidence, mortgage originations and personalized mailings.
Ms. Mulcahy, 54 years old, has said she doesn't have any plans for retirement. But this year, the Xerox board named an heir apparent, long-time lieutenant Ursula Burns, to replace Ms. Mulcahy as president.
--William M. Bulkeley
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8) Patricia Woertz
As chief executive of Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. ADM 1.96 % , Patricia Woertz is leading one of the world's largest agriculture companies at a time when agriculture and energy markets are increasingly intertwined -- and increasingly volatile.
Grain prices have reached record highs and oil prices are flirting with $100 a barrel. At first blush, this could seem daunting, but Ms. Woertz sees opportunity.
The high oil prices mean the world is more conscious about energy security, Ms. Woertz says. That translates into greater demand for corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel -- both key products that ADM makes. And while the higher grain prices have cut into biofuel's profitability, it has prompted farmers to plant more acreage, which means more grain to handle and ship across the Corn Belt and overseas.
But with more mouths to feed as the population grows, there are growing worries about the long-term sustainability of farming for fuel instead of food. Ms. Woertz envisions expanding ADM's biofuels production beyond corn and beans. Already, she has signed a deal with oil company ConocoPhillips COP 0.40 % to develop "biocrude" from non-food feedstocks like wood or switchgrass.
Riffing off the growing number of environmentally conscious consumers, Ms. Woertz also is developing more "green" products, including industrial chemicals that come from living plants instead of fossil fuels.
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9) Margaret C. "Meg" Whitman
President and Chief Executive
As Meg Whitman approaches her 10-year anniversary as chief executive of eBay Inc., EBAY -0.54 % she shows little interest in stepping down. That's partly because she's in the midst of overseeing a reinvention of the global electronic-commerce company.
"You have to be willing to take risks," Ms. Whitman said during an interview at a conference in October.
Earlier in her tenure, the 51-year-old had famously said that no sitting CEO should stay longer than a decade, an anniversary she will reach next March. A year ago, she began retracting that statement, saying she had no plans to leave and regretted making those comments.
The San Jose, Calif., company has branched into online payments, Web ticketing services, comparison shopping and Internet phone calls as its growth has slowed.
The gambles to diversify the company's business have come at a cost, though. Ebay took a $1.4 billion write-down in October for the 2005 acquisition of Internet-calling firm Skype, which eBay bought for $2.6 billion. The deal failed to meet expectations. Ms. Whitman has acknowledged she was "disappointed" by Skype's performance, but she says the service has outdistanced competitors, making it stronger.
She's also leading an overhaul of eBay's flagship auction marketplace, including improved search features introduced this year, to revive growth prospects.
"I'm very optimistic," she said in another recent interview. "We're doing all the right things."
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10) Irene Rosenfeld
As chief executive officer of Kraft Foods Inc., the world's second-largest food company, Irene Rosenfeld oversees a full pantry of products -- some would say too full.
Ms. Rosenfeld, 54 years old, has said she will sell brands that aren't contributing to Kraft's growth. But she sees value in the company's vast portfolio of products, which includes Oreo cookies and Philadelphia cream cheese. She says she wants to fix underperforming brands and leverage the company's heft to create new convenience foods for busy consumers.
She has already done that with the new Oscar Mayer Deli Creations microwave sandwiches, which contain Oscar Mayer meats, Kraft cheese, A.1. steak sauce and Grey Poupon mustard, and with Fresh Creations salads, made from Oscar Mayer meat, Kraft cheese and salad dressing and Planters nuts. Ms. Rosenfeld also is setting her sights overseas, with the recent deal to buy Groupe Danone's global biscuit business.
She has managed to avoid a showdown with activist investor Nelson Peltz, whose hedge fund owns more than 2% of Kraft, by nominating two new independent directors to the Kraft board. Mr. Peltz, who had been calling on Kraft to sell underperforming brands, supported the company's choice of directors and agreed not to wage a battle for his own board seats.
Investors will be watching to see how Ms. Rosenfeld brings innovation to mainstay brands like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and Jell-O, and how she changes the way her sales force works with retail customers as she implements a new strategy of putting one sales representative in charge of each supermarket.
"I am proud of the progress we are making," Ms. Rosenfeld says. "But I also know we won't get where we need to be overnight."
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11) Mary Sammons
Chairman and Chief Executive
"In a 16-month time period, we're going to digest one of the biggest acquisitions in our space," she says, referring to Rite Aid's purchase of 1,800 Brooks and Eckerd drug stores in June from Canada's Jean Coutu Group Inc. for $3.4 billion.
Ms. Sammons is overseeing the integration of the stores, including remodeling, converting information systems and training employees.The acquisition helps Rite Aid, now with more than 5,000 stores, narrow the gap with CVS Caremark Corp. and Walgreen Co., each of which has more than 6,000 stores.
Already this year, Rite Aid has overhauled distribution centers and set up pilot stores that helped executives pinpoint rough patches in the integration process. The chain has found greater cost-cutting opportunities than it expected.
But Rite Aid faces fierce industry competition and a weak holiday outlook for retailers, which has prompted new promotional plans.
Ms. Sammons joined Rite Aid in 1999, at a time when mismanagement had left the retailer in disarray. The negotiations she undertook with suppliers and employee relations helped the chain recover, and she was promoted to chief executive in 2003.
The 61-year-old Ms. Sammons is grooming new leaders, including recent hires from Target Corp. and H.E. Butt Grocery Co. The team is working on Rite Aid's long-term mission to go beyond filling prescriptions by offering more health-care services.
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12) Susan Arnold
President, Global Business Units
PROCTER & GAMBLE
This year Susan Arnold yet again made history at consumer-products titan Procter & Gamble Co. PG 0.08 % , becoming the first woman to lead all of the company's business units. It's a post that carries much of the responsibility for proving to investors that P&G still has opportunities to grow, despite its massive size and its dominance of its product categories.
Ms. Arnold, 53 years old, will oversee more than 300 brands, which in total generate about $70 billion in annual sales, including powerhouses Pampers diapers, Tide laundry detergent, Crest toothpaste and Olay skin-care products.
Prior to her current role, she led P&G's beauty and health units, where she was charged with executing the vision of Chief Executive A.G. Lafley to concentrate on fast-growing, high-margin businesses. Today, she remains focused on that task.
Ms. Arnold became the highest-ranking woman in P&G's 170-year-history when she was named a vice chairman three years ago, so every step she takes up the ladder is historic. As always, how far she goes will depend greatly on how she performs in her current position. But she is considered among those in the running to succeed Mr. Lafley as CEO.
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13) Amy Woods Brinkley
Global Risk Executive
BANK OF AMERICA
If Amy Woods Brinkley can't explain a financial transaction to her mother, she has always believed she should give it an even more thorough review than usual.
But Ms. Brinkley, who manages risk at Bank of America Corp. BAC -0.38 % , the largest U.S. bank by market value, says that test has gotten harder to pass as markets have grown increasingly complex -- as illustrated by the way an esoteric product, subprime mortgages, has sparked a global credit crunch.
Ms. Brinkley, 51, expects it will take as much as a year to restore order and liquidity to the financial system. In the meantime, she has called for stress tests of financial models, retooled lending and trading limits based on new conditions and beefed up an already-busy meeting schedule to bolster internal communication.
"It's very important to operate with a confident humility," Ms. Brinkley says. "I certainly don't mean meekness. In many cases, you have to be extremely bold." But she says you must understand "what you know and what you don't know," and pull in people to fill gaps.
Ms. Brinkley says she holds herself "completely accountable" for all company results -- good and bad. Analysts and investors criticized her unit for not staving off a $1.45 billion quarterly loss in the bank's trading account. But the unit was also closely involved in Bank of America's widely applauded decision to invest $2 billion in troubled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp.
* * *
14) Ann Livermore
Executive Vice President
Since 2004, the 49-year-old Ms. Livermore has run H-P's technology-solutions group, a $34 billion empire that encompasses servers, software, storage and services. As information technology becomes more complex and crucial to companies, her job is arguably one of the most challenging at the Palo Alto, Calif., tech giant. It has become even more so as IT budgets face uncertainty amid a U.S. credit crunch.
Server unit shipments world-wide grew only 2.7% in the second quarter, according to Gartner Inc., though H-P topped the list of vendors, expanding its market share to 31.5% from 27.6% a year earlier, thanks in part to sales of its ProLiant Blade servers. In September, the company launched a new blade server system called "Shorty," along with specialized services for small and midsize businesses.
Ms. Livermore's group also has been on an acquisition spree, buying up higher-margin software and services companies. In H-P's fiscal third quarter ended July 31, software sales rose 74%, while services sales climbed 8%.
A Greensboro, N.C., native, Ms. Livermore attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on scholarship. She later earned an M.B.A. at Stanford University.
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15) Ursula M. Burns
President and Chief Operating Officer
In April, she was named president and chief operating officer of the copier and printer giant, cementing her position as heir apparent when CEO Anne Mulcahy steps down. Although Ms. Mulcahy, at 54, is well short of normal retirement age, the board was concerned that Ms. Burns might look elsewhere unless her future at Xerox were secured.
Ms. Burns, by most measures the highest-ranking African-American woman in corporate America, has spent her entire career at Xerox, starting as an intern in the engineering department. Ms. Burns had risen to vice president, manufacturing, when Xerox hit a financial crisis in 2000. Over the next three years, she played a key role in cutting $2.5 billion out of Xerox's cost structure.
Even though Xerox has emerged from its financial crisis, the 49-year-old Ms. Burns is trying to keep the company focused on constant improvement. "I believe there's a tendency to take your foot off the pedal when things are good," she said in a recent speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In a search for faster growth, Ms. Burns has turned up the heat on new product introductions.
In recent months, Xerox has unveiled a solid-ink printer that produces color pages at the price of black-and-white ones, and copier-quality paper that is as cheap as newsprint. Still in the labs: erasable paper that holds a printed image for a day and then fades, permitting reuse.
--William M. Bulkeley
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16) Patricia Russo
It's been a tough year for Patricia Russo. The 54-year-old has been at the helm of the Paris-based telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent SA since it was formed in a $13 billion trans-Atlantic merger in late 2006.
She successfully cut costs by laying off workers, streamlining operations and phasing out overlapping products. But it didn't translate into higher profits.
Ms. Russo found herself having to issue three profit warnings as the wireless business cratered, leading some analysts and investors to call for her ouster. Alcatel-Lucent's share price fell some 40%.
It looks like Ms. Russo, who has survived other periods of wrenching corporate change and adversity as chief operating officer at Eastman Kodak Co. and head of Lucent, has bought herself some time with a new turnaround plan unveiled Oct. 31. She announced €400 million ($587 million) in additional cost cuts, 4,000 more layoffs, and tightened her management team to seven people from 21. Four potential rivals for the top job have left the firm in the past year, including the chief financial officer.
Ms. Russo acknowledged in an interview the road to success would be long. She eschewed quick fixes in the turnaround plan, rejecting calls for Alcatel-Lucent to sell off some underperforming wireless assets, saying they were key to the firm's future technology leadership. "I could have done a lot of things to make next year better in the short-term but part of my job is to ensure a sustainable good future for the company," she said. "I tried to come up with the best plan for our long-term success."
She was philosophical about criticism: "Pressure comes with the job. Someone else could come in here and have a different view of what to do, but I think this is the path we should be on. Now it is our job to execute."
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17) Susan Decker
The rising star of Susan Decker has shot straight up over the past year.
Ms. Decker, 45, became president of Yahoo Inc. YHOO -0.88 % in June, when Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel as the company's chief executive. That followed her promotion last year to head up a key operating group. Prior to that, she had been Yahoo's chief financial officer.
Ms. Decker's ascent comes amid turmoil at the Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet company, which has been eclipsed by rival Google Inc., faced criticism for a lack of management focus and grappled with new competition for online ad sales. Ms. Decker has, among other things, helped lead efforts to expand where Yahoo sells online advertising, through pacts with eBay Inc., EBAY -0.54 % newspapers and some acquisitions.
A highly regarded CFO, Ms. Decker is now being tested on her skills as an operations manager. "Her challenge is to really figure out strategically how to make Yahoo grow and be more competitive with Google and Microsoft over the long term," says one person close to the company. A Yahoo spokeswoman says Ms. Decker was unavailable to comment.
If Ms. Decker thrives in her new role, she could well be awarded the top job at Yahoo before long. "If Sue shows she can really be a great CEO, I think Jerry [Yang] would move up to chairman," says the person close to the company.
--Kevin J. Delaney
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18) Safra Catz
President and Chief Financial Officer
The 45-year-old Ms. Catz, Oracle's president and chief financial officer, is known for being private. She rarely gives interviews and reveals little about her personal life.
But behind the scenes, she's been largely responsible for building Oracle's playbook for acquiring and integrating smaller software companies. Oracle has acquired close to 40 companies in the past three years, as the software industry has undergone a massive consolidation, and it is still on the prowl.
Ms. Catz's latest challenge is Oracle's proposed acquisition of BEA Systems Inc., the software maker that Oracle last month offered to buy for $6.7 billion. BEA rejected the bid, but industry analysts expect Oracle to keep pursuing the company, and no other bidders have turned up yet. If Oracle eventually acquires BEA, Ms. Catz would likely play a key role in the integration.
"Safra is the one who puts the acquisitions together," says Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. "She has an indispensable role within the company, and she doesn't get much credit for it."
Ms. Catz joined Oracle in 1999 as senior vice president, and her responsibilities quickly expanded; that same year she became executive vice president. In 2004, she became one of two co-presidents, and the following year she was named CFO.
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19) Sheryl Sandberg
Vice President, Global Online Sales and Operations
While Google Inc. is known for its search engine, online advertising is the core of its business. Sheryl Sandberg leads the unit that sells ads to 99% of Google's advertisers.
Ms. Sandberg, 38, arrived at Google in November 2001, following stints as the chief of staff for the U.S. Treasury Department, a management consultant for McKinsey & Co. and an economist at the World Bank. She set up Google's Global Online Sales and Operations unit, which handles the Web-based systems that small and midsize businesses use to buy Google ads. She also helped found the company's philanthropic arm and organized a program that provides free advertising to nonprofits.
Today, Ms. Sandberg's ad-sales team oversees the majority of the company's revenue, according to outside estimates. Google's sales are expected to top $15 billion this year.
This month, Ms. Sandberg returns to Google from a maternity leave. Some challenges are waiting for her. Google has begun offering ads in different media, such as print, radio and television. Her team is helping figure out how to make the ad-buying process as simple as possible for advertisers.
But Ms. Sandberg says her team's central challenge is the same as ever: managing the fast pace of growth in advertisers, revenue and staff. "The important thing is to build your organization for the organization you need, not the organization you have," she says.
--Kevin J. Delaney
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20) Andrea Jung
Chairman and Chief Executive
The coming year could provide vindication for Andrea Jung, as evidence mounts that the $500 million turnaround effort she launched at Avon Products Inc. AVP -1.67 % two years ago is starting to bear fruit.
After trimming employee and management ranks, eliminating clutter from Avon catalogs, almost tripling advertising spending and boosting the company's international presence, Ms. Jung is finally delivering results. Last month, Avon reported a 61% rise in quarterly profit to $139.1 million. Sales-representative ranks are expanding, and the stock has gained more than 20% so far this year.
Now, Ms. Jung, 49, must prove she can sustain the progress. Eight years into her tenure as Avon's CEO, Ms. Jung increasingly devotes her time to traveling around the world, communicating her restructuring plan directly to Avon's global sales force.
As the company's chief motivator, Ms. Jung needs to drive Avon's five million sales representatives -- the company has nearly 700,000 in China alone -- to execute her vision. She also must demonstrate to Wall Street that the company's 121-year-old business model, selling affordable beauty wares door-to-door, is still viable in an increasingly competitive beauty industry.
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21) Charlene Begley
President and CEO, GE Enterprise Solutions
Challenges are nothing new for Charlene Begley, a senior vice president at General Electric Co. GE -0.34 % and head of GE's newly configured enterprise solutions unit. The 41-year-old Ms. Begley is one of seven business leaders at GE who report directly to Chairman and Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt.
Hired into GE's famed financial-management program in 1988 after graduating from the University of Vermont, Ms. Begley became GE's youngest corporate officer a decade later, at the age of 32. She took her first major operating post in 2001 as head of GE's factory-automation division and then ran the rail business.
More recently, she headed GE's storied plastics unit, which faced stiff competition and rising raw-material costs. Earlier this year, she helped orchestrate GE's sale of the unit to Saudi Arabia's Saudi Basic Industries Corp. for $11.6 billion.
As head of enterprise solutions, she now leads five until recently unsung businesses -- security, sensing and inspection technology, power-systems controls, equipment services and factory automation -- that together posted $11.6 billion in sales in 2006. Mr. Immelt has referred to them as cash businesses, meaning he wants to improve operations and boost profits without making big investments. In the new incarnation, his staff says he sees them as growth businesses. Sales at the unit grew 3% in the third quarter to $2.66 billion from $2.6 billion a year earlier; operating profit, however, jumped 21% to $287 million, from $238 million.
Ms. Begley will pay particular attention to security, which makes airport screening devices and systems for monitoring building security. Mr. Immelt was ready to break up the business earlier this year, before Ms. Begley took it over, but the deal collapsed.
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22) Melinda Gates
THE BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION
A cartoon in a recent philanthropy journal features two women in office cubicles, envisioning what heaven looks like. "Do you ever imagine the heavens opening up," says one, "and there she is: Melinda Gates?"
Calling Mrs. Gates a goddess may be over the top. But the 43-year-old wife of software tycoon Bill Gates and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the focus of many a nonprofit agency's prayers. She helps control the purse strings of the $37.6 billion charity, focused on fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Mrs. Gates, a mother of three, holds an M.B.A. from Duke and was a Microsoft executive before she married the company's founder. Now that the couple's youngest child is in school, Mrs. Gates is increasing her time speaking and traveling for the foundation. This year, her work took her and Mr. Gates to Vietnam to study immunization practices.
In January, she delivered remarks at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, urging world leaders to provide health and financial services to the poor as a matter of equity. On Oct. 17, Mrs. Gates signaled the foundation's intent to step up its fight against malaria. Her speech heralded a new push to not merely control malaria in developing nations but to wipe it out, as the U.S. and Europe did years ago.
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23) Hu Xiaolian
PEOPLE'S BANK OF CHINA
STATE ADMINISTRATION OF FOREIGN EXCHANGE
As the overseer of what are now the world's largest foreign-exchange reserves, Hu Xiaolian is having to overcome the special challenges of size.
Steadily boosted by huge export receipts, China's official holdings of foreign currencies are on track to hit $1.5 trillion by the end of this year. That makes the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which Ms. Hu has headed since 2005, one of the world's biggest money managers. Its assets are on a par with Fidelity Investments.
The main difference: Ms. Hu isn't aiming to beat the stock market but to preserve the value of the funds that support China's financial system.
Though China's reserve holdings are secret, most are believed to be in U.S. dollar bonds and other ultra-safe investments. So the greenback's steady slide this year has cut into the value of China's reserves. But its dollar holdings are so large that if China started selling, it would push down the value even further.
Dealing with increased international scrutiny is another challenge for the 49-year-old Ms. Hu. An articulate English speaker and career central banker, she has been taking on a bigger role in the nation's financial diplomacy. She represented China at April's meeting of the International Monetary Fund, and wrote an article in the September issue of an IMF magazine. Her message: China may be a giant, but it's a cautious one.
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24) Diane Greene
A veteran Silicon Valley executive, Diane Greene started VMware Inc. VMW 0.23 % in 1998 with her husband. At first, the pitch was simple. Buy our $99 software, the company said, and your computer can use Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and its free rival, Linux, at the same time.
But Ms. Greene, VMware's CEO, saw that the same technology could be used in corporate data centers, which contain thousands of computer servers that are often idle. The company's software lets tasks that originally required separate computers be consolidated onto one -- saving money and energy. And if a computer breaks, VMware can resume its work on another server as if nothing happened.
EMC Corp. EMC -0.16 % , a big player in data centers, bought VMware for $613 million in 2003. The move was a coup -- VMware's sales have gone up eightfold since then, to $354 million in the third quarter. In August, EMC sold 10% of VMware to the public. The company now trades at a market capitalization of about $30 billion, making it one of the biggest software companies in the U.S.
Ms. Greene, 52, isn't done innovating. VMware is leading the push for companies to use virtualization software to consolidate big racks of servers. And the company is leaping into a new market with software that lets Mac users run Windows.
Ms. Greene, a mechanical engineer turned computer scientist, deflects inquiries about herself and says her company is more worth watching than she is. "I've really never felt disadvantaged being a woman," she says. But "tenaciousness and perseverance -- there's no substitute for it."
--Keith J. Winstein
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25) Ellen Kullman
Executive Vice President
Ms. Kullman is executive vice president of two of DuPont's five divisions and a licensing program for a couple of drugs discovered by DuPont. In the first nine months of this year, her units generated 70% of the company's income before taxes and minority interests. She also heads marketing and sales, safety and sustainability, and risk management for the whole company.
Ms. Kullman says her employees help her manage all her responsibilities successfully. A big part of her job is developing people and assigning them to the right job, she adds. "It's a good thing that I have great teams of people to work with," she says.
After running DuPont's profitable safety-and-protection unit for four years, Ms. Kullman took on the additional roles in June of last year. "She's done a fantastic job, but clearly she has some challenges ahead," says Hassan Ahmed, who follows DuPont and the chemical industry for HSBC Securities Inc.
One of her new divisions, coatings and color technologies, is vulnerable to the slump in the U.S. housing market, as well as lackluster business at car manufacturers. Also, the price of raw materials used to make chemicals has shot up, and companies are having trouble passing on the increases to customers.
Ms. Kullman already has a few ideas about how to confront these challenges. Among her goals for next year: improve business in fast-growing areas, such as Eastern Europe and Latin America, and get more innovative with DuPont's products. "In industry today, you need a lot of creativity to stay out there in front," she says.
* * *
26) Cynthia Carroll
As the first female and non-South African to head mining giant Anglo American PLC, Cynthia Carroll has breathed new life into a company renowned for old-school stuffiness.
Ms. Carroll, a 51-year-old American geologist, was hired in March and assigned with closing the gap on Anglo's rivals like BHP Billiton. Before she came, Anglo was long viewed as a possible takeover target. Since her arrival, its shares have risen some 25%.
Some investors at first wondered whether she was right for the job. She had never run a big company and had little mining experience, having spent most of her career with Canadian aluminum producer Alcan Inc.
But she quickly silenced the naysayers, pledging to instill a "performance-oriented" culture, strip out a layer of senior management and improve safety.
She pushed ahead with a big restructuring, designed to turn Anglo from a sprawling conglomerate into a focused mining company, and spent $3 billion on new iron ore and copper projects. At the same time she charmed investors by expanding Anglo's share-buyback program and pledging to cut costs. In August, the company reported record first half earnings of $3.1 billion, up 22% from the year-earlier period. "She has picked Anglo up by the scruff of the neck and dragged it into the 21st century," says one institutional investor.
* * *
27) Amy Pascal
SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT
As co-head of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Amy Pascal has had a pretty good run this year. The studio's franchise picture, "Spider-Man 3" took in nearly $900 million at the world-wide box office. Other hits included the teen-themed summer comedy "Superbad" and the action-horror movie "Ghostrider."
For the sixth consecutive year, Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures has grossed more than $1 billion at the domestic box office. In 2006, under Ms. Pascal's watch as chairman of the motion-picture group, a position that put her in charge of movie production, the Culver City, Calif., studio posted a record-breaking year, raking in $1.7 billion at the box office.
Ms. Pascal has bounced around the Hollywood studios throughout her career. In September of last year she was promoted to co-chairman, responsible for all aspects of the studio's business, including marketing, domestic and international distribution and home entertainment, a job she shares with Michael Lynton. In the mid-1980s she worked as a production executive at Twentieth Century Fox before arriving at Columbia Pictures (which would later be bought by Sony) in 1987 for a seven-year run in production. She left for a two-year stint as president of production at Turner Pictures before returning to Columbia in 1996 as president.
Next year could be a challenging one for all of Hollywood, depending on the impact of the screenwriters' strike, which began on Nov. 5. Sony's planned slate -- orchestrated largely by Ms. Pascal -- includes "Angels & Demons," the sequel to last year's "Da Vinci Code," as well as the next installment in the popular James Bond franchise and comedies from producer-director Judd Apatow.
* * *
28) Angela Ahrendts
One reason American-born Angela Ahrendts took the top job at Burberry Group PLC was the brand's British heritage, from the trench coats it invented for British soldiers in World War I to its ad campaigns with U.K. model Kate Moss.
Now one of Ms. Ahrendts' main goals is to expand the British label's presence in the U.S. heartland.
Since taking over as chief executive in 2006, she has opened Burberry stores in Kansas City, Mo., Charlotte, N.C., and other cities far from the radar screens of European fashion houses. Burberry's bulging U.S. store network is part of a bigger effort by Ms. Ahrendts, a native of Indiana, to shift sales from department stores to the company's own retail stores.
Ms. Ahrendts faces an additional challenge: maintaining sales growth as the global economy cools and Wall Street bankers, big buyers of Burberry's conservative suits and classic coats, cut back on spending. She is working to prepare Burberry, which started as an outerwear maker in 1870, for rainy days ahead: She is turning it into more of a luxury brand by cutting back on the overall number of styles to emphasize highly fashionable items, and by boosting the price range of accessories, hoping that buyers of high-priced handbags are immune to economic hardship. One of this season's offerings, the patent "Beaton" bag, costs $1,975.
The 47-year-old Ms. Ahrendts is also on a major efficiency drive to improve Burberry's back-office infrastructure. The project, which includes information technology upgrades, is supposed to improve Burberry's bottom line by $40 million this financial year.
* * *
29) Lorraine Bolsinger
A vice president at General Electric, GE -0.34 % Lorraine Bolsinger heads up the conglomerate's "Ecomagination" program, a broad initiative introduced by Chairman Jeffrey Immelt more than two years ago to market GE's environmentally friendly products, such as wind turbines and fuel-efficient airplane engines, and reshape the company's approach to global-warming issues.
The 48-year-old Ms. Bolsinger joined GE in 1981 after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a biomechanical engineering degree. She has worked in sales and services for GE's energy and aviation businesses, including overseeing a chunk of GE's aircraft-engine service business.
Ms. Bolsinger was running marketing at GE's aviation business in September 2005 when Mr. Immelt asked her to make his new program "part of the fabric" of the company. That gave her a mandate -- "white space," one manager called it -- but no authority over the business leaders who would have to help drive the initiative.
Since then, she has made "Ecomagination" part of the mantra of even the most reluctant employees and customers -- and helped boost profit at the same time. GE is expected to sell $14 billion of environmentally friendly products this year, up from $12 billion in 2006. Mr. Immelt expects sales of such products to reach $20 billion by 2010.
Ms. Bolsinger has created a system to track sales of GE products labeled "Ecomagination," and she weighs in on difficult calls such as whether GE's financial arm should invest in a coal-fired power plant.
Her career options are numerous, one GE insider says, ranging from running a business to being GE's next chief marketing officer.
* * *
30) Melanie Healey
Group President, Feminine and Health Care
PROCTER & GAMBLE
Over the past year, P&G has increasingly emphasized that in order to maintain its sales-and-profit growth rate, it must become a major player in health care. It now falls to Ms. Healey to determine exactly how to do that.
P&G has made missteps in health care before. Early last year, it essentially abandoned its years-long quest in pharmaceutical-drug development. Meanwhile, its existing prescription drugs -- including osteoporosis treatment Actonel and gastrointestinal drug Asacol -- face mounting competition. Today, P&G mainly focuses on over-the-counter products, including Vicks, Metamucil and Pepto-Bismol.
In addition to managing P&G's health-care businesses, Ms. Healey, 46, also oversees its feminine-care businesses, including Always and Tampax. Her success leading that unit -- where she posted record volume, sales and profits -- propelled her to her current group-president role.
Ms. Healey previously held posts at S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, bringing a rare outsider's perspective to P&G, where many employees have spent their entire careers, particularly at the executive level. A native of Brazil, Ms. Healey's rise demonstrates how P&G is trying to increase the international nature of its leadership as it expands globally.
* * *
31) Wei Sun Christianson
China Chief Executive
As Morgan Stanley's MS -0.67 % China chief, Wei Sun Christianson's mandate is to broaden the bank's business to offer Chinese clients a full suite of services -- including investment banking, private equity, asset management and derivatives trading.
Morgan Stanley was granted a license to offer yuan-denominated corporate lending services through its wholly-owned subsidiary now known as Morgan Stanley Bank International (China).
But to grow the business further, Ms. Christianson says she must keep finding joint-venture partners in China -- and obtaining licenses from the Chinese regulators.
Getting those licenses will depend more on the government's willingness to further open up the market to foreign banks than on any one banker's personal clout. "We have done a lot of ground work to prepare ourselves," she says, "and you just wait for the market to open up."
Despite the limitations, Morgan Stanley's China-based revenues are soaring, she says, thanks to a booming domestic stock market.
Ms. Christianson, who grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution, has spent most of her career at Morgan Stanley, where she is seen as CEO John Mack's loyalist. She followed Mr. Mack to Credit Suisse First Boston in 2002, left soon after he was ousted in 2004 and reunited with him at Morgan after spending 14 months at Citigroup Inc.
* * *
32) Frances Aldrich Sevilla-Sacasa
U.S. TRUST, BANK OF AMERICA WEALTH MANAGEMENT
Last spring, Frances Aldrich Sevilla-Sacasa was named president of the combined private-banking arms of U.S. Trust and Bank of America BAC -0.38 % after a culture clash led to the exodus of several top executives, including her boss.
Investors and clients questioned whether the marriage of retail-banking behemoth Bank of America and white-shoe private bank U.S. Trust would take. But Ms. Sevilla-Sacasa, who came from the U.S. Trust side, says it isn't a question of one culture or the other. "We really are creating a new firm," she says.
The private bank operates on Bank of America's computer system, but is adopting many of U.S. Trust's financial-planning techniques and some features from its customer statements. In a break from past acquisitions, Bank of America kept the storied U.S. Trust name. "The question we always asked ourselves was, 'What is the impact to the client?,'" Ms. Sevilla-Sacasa says.
Ms. Sevilla-Sacasa, 51, plans to maintain a busy travel schedule next year in an effort to meet face-to-face with many of the unit's 4,600 employees and wealthy clients, who have a minimum of $3 million in investable assets. Her priority: preaching the "breadth and depth" of the new entity and keeping employees and clients in the loop. Despite the bumpy start, she says client and employee attrition has been less than forecast. "This is really a people business," she says. "We're in the business of serving clients. The fact that we have the most complete set of solutions and deepest intellectual capital, that's very nice. But if you don't have the top talent, you're not going to capitalize."
* * *
33) Delphine Arnault Gancia
Member of the Board
LVMH MOËT HENNESSY LOUIS VUITTON
After years of grooming by her father, luxury-goods titan Bernard Arnault, Delphine Arnault Gancia had her coming-out as a full-fledged executive -- and heir apparent -- at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton this year.
The 32-year-old publicly represented the family by attending the fall fashion shows of many of the group's brands, including Pucci in Milan and Celine in Paris.
Mr. Arnault first thrust his only daughter into the spotlight by appointing her to LVMH's board in 2003. Since then, she has taken on the task of jazzing up some of the smaller fashion houses lost within the world's biggest luxury-goods group. In July, she joined the board of Pucci, a niche brand known for its psychedelic prints that's trying to establish a wider following. She also sits on the board of Spanish leather-goods brand Loewe, where she heads product strategy. She helped recruit a new designer to the label earlier this year in another attempt to revive the label.
The rising profile of Ms. Gancia -- the eldest of Mr. Arnault's five children -- has insiders betting on her to take the reins from her 58-year-old father when he is expected to retire in several years. Though Mr. Arnault is flanked by many senior managers who run the group's biggest brands, such as Louis Vuitton, people close to LVMH's largest shareholder say he is leaning toward a family successor.
* * *
34) Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Earlier this year, Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi flew to Washington to meet with lawmakers, government officials and opinion makers -- and help repair the UAE's reputation.
The trouble began last year. Dubai, one of seven emirates that make up the UAE, had met strong resistance to its bid to buy a British port operator with a handful of U.S. assets. Congress, amid a midterm election, raised national-security concerns and forced Dubai to divest its U.S. port holdings.
After the new Congress settled in, Ms. Al Qasimi wanted to straighten things out. "We realized something went wrong," she said in an interview. "We wanted to know what happened. I wanted to tell [U.S. officials], if you haven't seen the UAE, I'm the UAE."
The timing couldn't have been better. Just a few months later, UAE Inc. went on a high-profile buying spree. A Dubai investment group went after upscale retailer Barneys New York. In September, Dubai Borse engineered a complex deal to partner with stock exchanges in Europe and the Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., agreeing to take an almost 20% stake in the American icon. The same day, an Abu Dhabi investment fund agreed to buy a big stake in American private-equity group Carlyle Group.
In a region where women often play bit roles in the business and political scene, Ms. Al Qasimi, 49, has become the UAE's biggest public lobbyist and one of the Mideast's highest-profile movers and shakers. Amid an oil-fueled boom, the Persian Gulf in particular is playing an outsize role in the global economy. "The Gulf is mandating respect now in the way they do deals," she says.
A member of one of the UAE's royal families, Ms. Al Qasimi graduated from California State University, Chico. Instead of a cushy public-sector job, she joined a software-engineering firm when she returned home. After running the information-systems department of Dubai Ports Authority and a business-to-business online marketplace, she was tapped as the UAE's first female cabinet member in 2004.
* * *
35) Maureen Mahoney
LATHAM & WATKINS
After Joseph Nacchio, the former Qwest Communications International Inc. chief executive, was convicted in April on insider-trading charges, he turned to Maureen Mahoney to lead his appeal. It was the latest in a long line of high-impact appeals for Ms. Mahoney, a partner at Latham & Watkins LLP.
Perhaps her most celebrated win came in a 2003 case before the Supreme Court: She successfully argued that the University of Michigan Law School could use race in admissions decisions. In another high-court case in 2005, she won a reversal of the criminal conviction of accounting firm Arthur Andersen. That same year, her name was bandied about as a possible replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
The next few months should be busy ones for the 53-year-old Ms. Mahoney. Aside from the Nacchio appeal, which she is scheduled to argue on Dec. 18, she will present a patent case at the Supreme Court early next year on behalf of Quanta Computer Inc.
Ms. Mahoney says she focused full-time on appeals in the late 1980s partly to avoid the travel associated with trial work. "I'd always been interested in it, but having two young kids is really what got me to make the move."
The shift was one of few she has made in her career. Apart from a two-year stint as deputy solicitor general, she has spent the past 27 years at Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C. "I've been married for 29 years, had the same secretary for 22 years and had the same housekeeper since our son [now 24 years old] was born," she says. "I like stability."
* * *
36) Hyun Jeong-eun
The person with the best chance to persuade North Korea to open up its economy and the person who could do the most to prolong the dictatorial regime may turn out to be one and the same: Hyun Jeong-eun, chairwoman of Hyundai Group. One of the conglomerate's companies, Hyundai Asan, is the biggest investor in North Korea.
In November, Ms. Hyun met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to finalize details for the company's third project in the North, a mountain resort similar to one it already operates there. Hyundai Asan also runs an industrial park where about a dozen South Korean companies employ North Korean workers.
Hyundai Group hopes its projects are helping to introduce capitalist principles to North Korea, but critics fear that the money Hyundai is paying to North Korea's government reinforces Mr. Kim's hold on power and his abuse of its citizens.
Ms. Hyun, who is 52 years old, took control of Hyundai Group in 2003 under the worst circumstances. Her husband, Chung Mong-hun, who was then its chairman, killed himself while awaiting trial on charges of making illegal payments to North Korea to boost Hyundai Asan's business. His father, Chung Ju-yung, started the Hyundai companies, which included Hyundai Motor Co., and dreamed of building businesses in North Korea, where he was born.
Before taking control of the conglomerate, Ms. Hyun's only professional experience was serving on the boards of charities. Under her leadership, the six companies in the conglomerate -- including a shipping firm, elevator maker and securities firm -- have performed solidly.
* * *
37) Dottie Mattison
Senior Vice President
The world's biggest retailer, fresh on the heels of one of its biggest marketing flops, has entrusted the repair job to Senior Vice President Dottie Mattison.
After introducing higher-priced, higher fashion clothing in 2006, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT -0.60 % saw same-store sales decline at the start of the last holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart shares sank, too. In response, the company this year replaced its top apparel-merchandising executives and shifted all women's clothing-design duties from Bentonville, Ark., to the U.S. fashion capital, New York City.
The 38-year-old Ms. Mattison, who oversees women's apparel, shoes and jewelry, was put in charge of the rebuilding effort. The first order of business for the former chief merchant of Walmart.com and 12-year veteran at Gap Inc. was to remake Wal-Mart's design-and-strategy effort in New York. While the company had a small, trend-watching office there for years, Ms. Mattison insisted on having her office close to leading fashion designers and garment executives in the city.
In the broader picture, she will attempt to create a fashion contender out of a company known best for selling jeans and underwear -- all without alienating its basic-apparel loyalists. Ms. Mattison's predecessor had made inroads, but stocked trendy nightclub wear and skinny-legged jeans that turned off value-loving customers and failed to attract more affluent buyers.
If Ms. Mattison can lift the retail chain out of its fashion quagmire, she may also restore the glitz its shares have lacked in recent years. Fashion is a big money maker for most retailers, delivering gross margins in the 50% range, compared with high-single digits in groceries and the mid-20% range in general merchandise.
* * *
38) Janice Fields
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
She saw a sign there advertising flexible hours for crewmembers, so Ms. Fields filled out an application and got hired for the night shift. She never went to the other interview.
"I kept thinking I was going to do something else," says Ms. Fields, now 52. She wanted to become a lawyer and, when she was younger, a nun.
Almost three decades later, Ms. Fields oversees operations at the Oak Brook, Ill., company's 14,000 U.S. restaurants. Next year, she will implement a big expansion of the company's beverage offering, the largest single menu initiative since the "Golden Arches" introduced breakfast in the 1970s.
The challenge will be making sure new beverages, which may include espresso drinks and smoothies, don't slow down the speed of service or otherwise complicate operations behind the counter.
Ms. Fields spends 85% of her time traveling, mostly to meet with McDonald's franchisees and tour their restaurants.
"My life is a meeting," she says.
* * *
39) Deborah Wahl Meyer
Chief Marketing Officer
When Deborah Wahl Meyer considered taking a high-level marketing job at Chrysler LLC, she made one thing clear to Tom LaSorda, the car maker's vice chairman and president. "I said, 'If you're looking for someone who can do a good TV ad, I'm not your person,' " recalls Ms. Meyer.
The 44-year-old Detroit native is among a string of executives to join Chrysler recently as the struggling auto maker tries to make a comeback.
Ms. Meyer, who spent six years at Toyota Motor Sales and recently worked as vice president of marketing for Toyota's Lexus division, is now in charge of getting Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles noticed by U.S. consumers.
"I get to work with three great brands, which have great history and are poised to reposition themselves," she says.
Chrysler, owned by Cerberus Capital Management LP, has struggled to make its three brands distinctive from one another. Products have overlapped, and some marketing campaigns faded merely weeks after launch. More challenges loom in 2008 as the sales market is expected to be softer than previous forecasts.
Ms. Meyer, who led a Toyota marketing team that launched the Lexus LS flagship sedan and hybrid version priced above $100,000 into the super-rich category, appears ready for the task at hand.
She is a big proponent of microtargeting, which she describes as "getting to the neighborhood level of understanding your customers." That might involve, for instance, throwing community events. At Toyota, Ms. Meyer held "Taste of Lexus" parties featuring gourmet cooking and test drives of Lexus vehicles.
In short, don't expect to see marketing campaigns that hark to Chrysler's past -- but do little to lure consumers into showrooms. "You can rest on the history but you need to be relevant to the present," Ms. Meyer says.
* * *
40) Toni Hoover
Senior Vice President
To save money, Pfizer is shutting down labs in Michigan, France and Japan, and Dr. Hoover has been charged with integrating 1,000 transferred scientists and their research projects into her lab in southeastern Connecticut. "My days are primarily dealing with change-management issues," says the 48-year-old Dr. Hoover.
Pfizer's reorganization follows a round of cost cutting in 2005 and big mergers in 2003 and 2000, and the cumulative effect is "change fatigue" among the employees, says Dr. Hoover. To help them cope, she greets employees who have transferred from closed sites at Monday breakfast meetings and hands out hugs in the hallways. She tells them, "We can't guarantee a job for life, but we can guarantee you a wonderful opportunity."
Dr. Hoover should know. She was tapped to run the Connecticut lab after the position she held as Pfizer's head of development in Michigan was eliminated during the 2005 downsizing. She decided to accept the Connecticut post because of opportunities to move up at Pfizer, she says. Her dream job: running all the science at Pfizer, not just in Connecticut.
* * *
41) Nancy McKinstry
CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board
Amsterdam-based business publisher Wolters Kluwer NV was in bad shape when Nancy McKinstry became chief executive in 2003.
Previous CEOs had ramped up prices and underinvested in technology, boosting short-term profits but driving away customers. In the year she took over, revenue fell 13% to €3.4 billion.
Ms. McKinstry, who was previously president of the company's North America operations, decided on a bold strategy. Wolters Kluwer would reduce the amount of information for lawyers, accountants and health-care workers published on paper -- and move online.
The strategy worked. Revenue began growing again in 2005, and the share price is up about 50% since Ms. McKinstry took over.
Having stabilized the business, the 48-year-old Ms. McKinstry now has to show she can create big-selling products. One she hopes will be lucrative: Provation, a computer program that automatically records video and photographs during surgery to prove to insurers the procedure happened. Another task is to make the company's notoriously independent businesses work more closely so successful products in one country can be adapted for others.
--Aaron O. Patrick
* * *
42) Julia Stewart
Chairman and Chief Executive
After 35 years in the food-service industry, Julia Stewart faces her biggest challenge yet in the coming year.
The 52-year-old chairman and chief executive of IHOP Corp. must revive Applebee's International Inc., the nation's largest sit-down restaurant chain, which her company has agreed to buy.
Taking over Applebee's was a gutsy move considering IHOP had about half the market capitalization of Applebee's when the two companies announced the deal in July. Some people questioned whether Ms. Stewart was doing it out of revenge for not getting the top post at Applebee's when she was an executive there at the beginning of this decade. "I would never spend $2.1 billion of the company's money for me getting some kind of ego charge," Ms. Stewart says.
Many Wall Street analysts point to Ms. Stewart's turnaround of IHOP, where she first worked as a waitress in high school, as proof she can right Applebee's. Ms. Stewart says she's been successful at IHOP because she's held herself accountable and established a clear vision for the brand.
"I don't spend a lot of time on things we can't control," she says. "I can't control world economics...or the price of gas."
Ms. Stewart has a competitive streak that extends beyond the office. For Thanksgiving, she and her husband each cook their own batch of stuffing. Each guest must vote in a blind taste test on which is better. She says she's won the past two years.
* * *
43) Manisha Girotra
Managing Director and Chairperson, India
After working in New York, Hong Kong and London, investment banker Manisha Girotra returned to the country of her birth in 1995.
She wanted to run a business, and felt her understanding of Indian industry would help her stand out. But at first, Ms. Girotra -- a masters graduate of the London and New Delhi schools of economics -- was mistaken in meetings for a secretary.
Not anymore. Ms. Girotra, 38, has shepherded UBS AG UBS -0.81 % 's Indian operation to the top of the nation's M&A ranks, with deals worth $28.3 billion so far this year, according to research provider Thomson Financial.
Her big jobs now are integrating the asset-management business UBS recently bought from Standard Chartered PLC and expanding UBS's wealth-management business in India.
But Ms. Girotra's biggest challenge at the moment is finding and hanging onto good people. With Mumbai a hot financial center, talent is in demand. Compounding this, women there tend to quit banking early -- as their husbands begin to earn more -- to look after their families.
Ms. Girotra goes to lengths to try to retain her women bankers, offering them flexible hours and even talking to their families. So far, her efforts haven't worked. But her efforts show the tenacity that has helped UBS advance in India. "I've got a zero success rate, which doesn't mean I'll stop trying," she says.
* * *
44) Carolyn Reidy
President and Chief Executive-Designate
SIMON & SCHUSTER
In an industry where growth is hard to come by, book publisher Simon & Schuster Inc. has been on a winning streak in recent years, driven by such big-name writers as David McCullough and Bob Woodward.
Carolyn Reidy, who recently was named president and CEO of the CBS Corp. unit and officially takes the helm Jan. 1, will have to prove that she can maintain that momentum at a time when the hit-driven publishing business is paying ever-larger advances to brand-name authors.
In the near term, Ms. Reidy, 58, will be counting on such coming spring titles as Mary Higgins Clark's novel "Where Are You Now?" and former President Jimmy Carter's tribute to his mom, "A Remarkable Mother."
In the longer run, Ms. Reidy says her biggest challenge is creating a profitable digital business while focusing on traditional book publishing. "There is competition for leisure time, competition to attract authors, and more competition from our own retailers" that have gotten into the publishing business, she says. On the plus side, she notes, digital technology has made it possible for publishers to create important marketing tools such as blogs, podcasts and author videos.
"We're straddling two different worlds, and only one of them is currently making money," Ms. Reidy says. "That's what makes this so exciting."
Ms. Reidy started her career at Bertelsmann AG's Random House, where she initially sold paperback and book-club rights. A key opportunity emerged in 1992, when she was named president and publisher of Simon & Schuster's trade division. Nine years later, she was appointed president of the Simon & Schuster adult publishing division, responsible for such imprints as Atria, Free Press, Scribner, Simon & Schuster and Touchstone/Fireside.
--Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
* * *
45) Erin Callan
Chief Financial Officer-Designate
Investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. couldn't have picked a more turbulent time to name its first female chief financial officer.
Since September, when the bank named 41-year-old Erin Callan to the post, effective Dec. 1, Wall Street has been roiled by massive losses on mortgage-backed product investments, and two chief executives of other firms have been pushed out. Amid the carnage, Ms. Callan has been poring over her firm's financials to prepare for her first official earnings announcement in mid-December.
The firm's results will be closely watched. As a major player in the mortgage business, Lehman has suffered this year from the downturn in the origination of new home loans and the packaging of mortgage bonds into new securities. But unlike Citigroup Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co., whose CEOs recently left after announcing multibillion-dollar write-downs, Lehman appears to have shied away from holding risky mortgage products.
Ms. Callan is no stranger to number-crunching. A onetime tax lawyer, she joined Lehman in 1995. She spent years working on client transactions in the firm's capital-markets business before forming a financial analytics group in its investment bank in 2003. In 2006, she started advising alternative-investment clients.
"Now my clients are investors," Ms. Callan says -- but she plans to keep an eye on the hedge-fund and private-equity worlds as well.
* * *
46) Sharon Hom
HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA
Like other human-rights activists, Sharon Hom, 56, has testified before Congress, the European Parliament and other government bodies about censorship, the death penalty and violent suppression of dissent in China.
But Ms. Hom's work with New York-based Human Rights in China, an organization founded by scholars and activists right before the deadly 1989 government crackdown on protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, is becoming increasingly relevant to corporations. Just ask the sponsors spending millions of dollars to associate themselves with next year's Beijing Olympics.
"Any company doing business in China now, and particularly the Olympic sponsors, ought to be concerned, because of the incredible potential risk to their brand and their business," Ms. Hom says.
Many companies already are consulting with her in private about how to forge ethical investment strategies and avoid scandals or even boycotts next year. She is involved in a continuing effort with technology companies such as Google and Yahoo -- accused by critics of facilitating China's censorship regime -- to tackle human-rights concerns.
"China is the most important market, that's true. But without greater transparency and openness, that market is not a stable or reliable one," says Ms. Hom, a former professor at the City University of New York School of Law, who took the reins at Human Rights in China in 2002. She advises companies to deeply investigate their own practices in China and use their influence to lobby for reform.
And corporations should demand transparency from China's government, she says. "The information you need to do business shouldn't be classified," she says.
--Geoffrey A. Fowler
* * *
47) Denise Morrison
Senior Vice President and President-North America Soup, Sauces and Beverages
If Americans eat more soup next year, Denise Morrison likely will have a lot to do with it.
The 53-year-old Ms. Morrison, who has spent more than 30 years working at food companies, recently was promoted to run Campbell Soup Co. CPB -0.16 % 's North American soup, sauces and beverages business. That operation accounts for more than half of the company's nearly $8 billion in annual sales and about 80% of its profits.
Now her challenges involve keeping the soup business simmering while rolling out new low-sodium and other healthful soups, and high-end refrigerated soups.
Ms. Morrison had worked most recently at Kraft Foods Inc. before joining Campbell in 2003 amid a big management shake-up at Campbell.
She was promoted to lead U.S. operations in 2005 and helped turn around the core soup business. She oversaw the introduction of low-sodium soups, microwavable bowls and cups, and a big advertising campaign encouraging cooking with condensed soup and broth.
Those efforts, along with adding new fruit flavors to V8 drinks and a recent Coca-Cola Co. distribution deal, have been big successes.
Analysts say U.S. economic woes may push more people to eat at home, boosting Campbell's sales. And if Ms. Morrison succeeds in her new role, it could strengthen her candidacy to be the next chief executive.
"Food companies can make a huge difference" in improving people's nutrition, says Ms. Morrison. "I'm energized by that, and I think it could have a huge impact on shareholder value."
* * *
48) Andrea Wong
President and Chief Executive
LIFETIME ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES
Six months ago, Andrea Wong took over as president and chief executive of Lifetime Entertainment Services. One month after her arrival, the Lifetime network moved into first place among female-oriented cable networks and has stayed there ever since.
Ms. Wong, who also oversees the Lifetime Movie Network and Lifetime Real Women channels, has focused her attention on the marketing and programming divisions of her company, reinvigorating a moribund publicity effort and developing a slate of original programming, including seven reality shows scheduled to debut in 2008. Hearst Corp. and Walt Disney Co. each own half of Lifetime.
Ms. Wong made her name in reality television, developing hits "The Bachelor" and "Dancing with the Stars" for Disney's ABC broadcast network. As head of reality and alternative programming for the network, she helped rocket ABC into first place in young viewers, the most desirable to advertisers.
Ms. Wong's task is to keep Lifetime's predominantly middle-aged and female audience hooked on the channel with a mix of original and second-run movies and prime-time programming, including reality shows.
Her reality shows, including one about people planning extravagant parties in Orange County, Calif., blend the mass-market sensibility of the ABC network with the upscale-tabloid focus of other female-oriented cable channels. She has reduced the number of original movies Lifetime makes each year and improved the quality of those they do.
Ms. Wong's efforts extend to the Internet as well, where she is trying to establish a community and hub for Lifetime viewers when they're not watching TV.
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49) Carol Tomé
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President-Corporate Services
As Home Depot's chief financial officer, Ms. Tomé, 49 years old, guided the sale of the HD Supply wholesale-distribution division, an important step toward refocusing the company on its 2,000 retail stores. Mr. Blake also put her in charge of strategic business development and growth initiatives.
Ms. Tomé now is playing an integral part in retooling the company for the future, overseeing systems that will help solve customer problems and figuring out how Home Depot can best differentiate itself. "I am passionate about finding out what we can be best at," she says.
It's an effort that will require some of the determination she displayed in the sale of HD Supply.
The closely watched sale became a roller-coaster ride as it played out against a rapidly deteriorating housing market and suddenly tightening credit markets. The buyers and their investment banks were getting cold feet and tried to derail the deal.
"I wasn't going to let that happen," says Ms. Tomé, who once started a support group at Home Depot called the Velvet Hammers. She sat "cheek-to-cheek, 24/7" with Mr. Blake as they hammered out a compromise with the private-equity firms that were buying the unit and their bankers -- much to the relief of Wall Street, which feared that this would be the first of many deals to unravel.
A 12-year-veteran of the Atlanta-based chain, Ms. Tomé is one of the few top executives to survive the company turmoil of the last few years, providing much needed cohesion in a company known for its unique "orange-blooded" culture.
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50) Anna Burger
SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION
Whether organized labor helps decide next year's presidential election depends in large part on Anna Burger.
Ms. Burger oversees the national political operations of the fastest-growing union in the country and the one with the biggest political war chest. Having galvanized labor support in 2006 that helped Democrats regain both houses of Congress, she will play an even bigger role next year.
Ms. Burger, who started her labor career in the early 1970s, is chair of the federation of seven unions that broke away from the AFL-CIO in 2005, including the Teamsters and Laborers. She is deeply involved in setting and pursuing the federation's legislative agenda.
Most of her influence in elections comes as head of political operations of the Service Employees International Union, which spent $65 million in the last presidential election -- more than any other union. The 1.9 million-member union represents nurses, home-health-care workers, security guards and janitors. It has the richest political action committee of any union.
Ms. Burger, 57, says she plans to stay engaged in organizing campaigns and legislative battles like the one over a children's health-care bill. But a major focus next year will be on how to direct political funds on advertising, and a massive get-out-the-vote campaign.
To be eligible for SEIU's endorsement, candidates have to spend several hours at work and at home with a union member. Nearly all Democratic presidential candidates have done so.
"Being able to have elected officials understand what it's like to be an ordinary working person is really important to me," Ms. Burger says. "And I hope it makes a difference."
Corrections & Amplifications:
Pfizer Inc.' largest research campus is in southeastern Connecticut. The location was incorrectly given as northeastern Connecticut in an earlier version of this article.


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Hewlett-Packard (HP) has cut its PC prices in the US again, confirming its position as Compaq's main rival on price. Analysts say only direct selling PC vendors Dell and Gateway 2000 have prices close...
HPE seeks $5.1bn from Lynch over the company's failed acquisition of Autonomy
The review website's SRE manager Morten Reinholdt Boelskifte on innovation at the company
HMRC Digital interim head Andrew Sheppard explains how the taxman shifted to DevOps - and takes on apprenticeships to fill the skills gap
Apple's services launch today will be punctuated by the companies, such as Netflix, that choose not to participate

domain: news


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From VietNamNet Bridge
Can Gio Resort
Vietnamese tourist office opens in Japan
A tourism representative office for Vietnam will open in the Japanese capital Tokyo in December, according to the Vietnam Tourism Association.
The association will also establish a business club organising tours to Japan to promote Vietnam-Japan tourism and to protect the two countries’ interests in this sector.
Nearly 100,000 Vietnamese visitors are expected to visit Japan in 2013, almost double the amount of 2012, according to Janpan tourism agency figures.
Meanwhile, over 450,000 Japanese tourists are expected to visit Vietnam , up 5.1 percent year-on-year, according to Vietnam National Administration of Tourism data.
Promoting maritime tourism promoted
According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the world’s tourism development strategy till 2020 has the tendency to develop the Far East, including Viet Nam.
The cruise ships tourism generated more cash than other tourist types by 30-40%.
In the future, travel agencies need to exploit cruise ship tourism in such crucial markets as the North America, Europe, Australia and China through enhancing tourist promotion and advertisement programs.
Cruise ship tourism is expected to help Viet Nam fulfill the goal of receiving 7.5 million foreign visitors by 2020.
Jetstar Pacific offers additional 28,000 tickets for Tet
Low-cost carrier Jetstar Pacific Airlines will offer 28,000 extra tickets to meet traveler demand during the coming Tet holiday season.
Travel demand is expected to rise sharply 40 days before and after Tet, on routes from South to North on January 12-31 and from North to South from February 1-20.
Tickets are being sold from October 9 at www.jetstar.com, and Jetstar Pacific agents and ticket offices throughout the country. Passengers can use credit cards, domestic debit cards (ATM), or Internet Banking Services with banks that are partners of Jetstar Pacific for payment within 24 hours.
This is the second ticket selling phase by the carrier. Earlier, Jetstar Pacific had sold 136,000 seats for the Tet holiday season, including 14,000 seats during peak days.
Foreign arrivals in Hanoi shoot up by 20 percent
The number of foreign visitors to Hanoi in the first nine months of this year amounted to 1.9 million, a year-on-year increase of 20 percent and representing 35 percent of all international arrivals in Vietnam.
Up to 1.4 million foreign visitors were from China, rising by 37 percent from a year earlier. It was followed by the Republic of Korea and Japan, said the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
In the first eight months of 2013, Vietnam welcomed around 4.9 million international tourists, up 7.9 percent year-on-year. They mainly came from Russia (up by 63.1 percent), China (33.1 percent), Indonesia (25.6 percent), Thailand (24.2 percent) and New Zealand (21.9 percent).-
Read the full article from VietNamNet Bridge.
Can Gio Resort


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Lawmakers amend puppy-mill bill
Updated 11:27 pm, Monday, March 25, 2013
HARTFORD -- A plan by two Fairfield lawmakers to ban out-of-state puppy mills from sending sick and over-bred animals to Connecticut was watered down Monday by the Environment Committee.
An amended bill, which would prevent "substandard" in-state puppy raisers from selling animals to pet shops, was approved unanimously and next heads to the House floor.
Rep. Brenda Kupchick, who co-sponsored the bill with Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, said she was concerned by the amended bill, but hopes to build a coalition of animal-rights activists to amend it later in the legislative session.
She said that Connecticut-based puppy mills are virtually non-existent, while reputable in-state breeders avoid selling to the 17 existing pet shops.
"I think it's positive that the bill at least made it through committee and hopefully we can amend it so it gets stronger," she said.
"Most educated people know how they're being treated," Kupchick said after the vote. "They're constantly bred and interbred. That's why you have sick dogs. They're not kept in clean conditions."
Committee leaders said they were concerned that barring puppies and cats from out-of-state breeders could violate federal law on interstate commerce.
"They act like they don't want to hurt business," Kupchick said. "The business of what? Trafficking sick puppies to unsuspecting people who are going to end up spending $10,000 or more trying to get the dog fixed. Or watch some little kid see his puppy die after six months? That's what we're supporting in the state of Connecticut?"
The bill would allow for so-called rescue dogs to be obtained from out-of-state sources, but Sen. Ed Meyer, D-Guilford, co-chairman of the committee, said Connecticut cannot regulate out-of-state businesses to determine whether they fit the definition of substandard.
"The language supported by Rep. Kupchick that we would ask to be included would be a lot tougher and would ensure that the animals do not come from puppy mills that are mostly out west, like in Missouri. Pet stores buy from puppy mills, not from breeders."
Hornish said that the original bill would not have violated rules of interstate commerce because pet shops would have been allowed to purchase rescue dogs and cats from out of state.
"In the case of a retail-sales ban, the argument is that most puppies sold in pet stores come from puppy mills," Hornish said. "Banning the sale of dogs in pet stores is the rational way to eliminate this problem. So that's the solution."
email@example.com; 860-549-4670; twitter.com/KenDixonCT; facebook.com/kendixonct.hearst; blog.ctnews.com/dixon


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Nintendo has forecast that its profit will rise by another 26 per cent in its fiscal year 2008-2009, according to
Having announced a doubling in operating profit in its current FY results this morning, the firm has predicted that net profit will reach 325 billion yen ($3.13 billion) in the 12 months to March 31st – up from the 257.3 billion yen reported for this year.
The company also forecast that sales could grow 7.6 percent to 1.8 trillion yen. The firm enjoyed a huge 73 per cent year-on-year jump in revenues in its FY statement.
Operating profit – which is sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses – will probably climb 8.8 per cent to 530 billion yen, Nintendo added.


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The system has been designed as an alternative for brokers who don’t want to use Mortgage Brain’s Mortgage Trading Exchange or Trigold’s E-Trading Centre.
Mortgage Strategy revealed in August that Nationwide was looking at introducing the online platform as a way of maintaining service standards and improving all parts of its trading proposition.
While Nationwide’s merger with Portman and The Mortgage Works is not set to complete until September, the society says it has still to decide whether the two brands will be integrated onto the system.
Keith Astill, managing director of UCB, says: “We are delighted to be launching our online trading platform and look forward to unveiling our new look next week.
“We know that for brokers to keep doing business with us we must make our process quicker and simpler. We’ve been working with brokers on a number of facilities which should do this.”
He adds: “Our online platform will give brokers another channel through which to deal with us.”
Nationwide products will still be available on the MTE and ETC. The society will also be making changes to its MTE proposition.
Astill adds: “The online platform is just one of the enhancements we’ll be making. Brokers will still have direct access to our underwriters so we won’t be compromising the personal touch.”
Sole trader Roy New says: “The system will help brokers work out which Nationwide product is best suited to their clients. Anything that benefits brokers is good.”


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Green light for ‘repair cafe’
A DROP-IN centre in Bollington has launched a free ‘repair café’.
People visiting the Bridgend Centre, on Palmerston Street, will be able to get broken items repaired for free in return for a donation to the centre.
The idea is to reduce the amount of repairable items which would otherwise go to landfill.
Roland Edwards, from the centre, said: “Repair cafes were first started in Amsterdam in 2009 and there are now 1,300 worldwide, with 230 in the UK; but only one in Cheshire.
“The concept of the repair café is that the public can bring broken items, such as clothes, electrical appliances, computers, bicycles and furniture and be shown how to repair them by experts.
“The experts, who provide their services for free, help pass on their knowledge to the public, and the repairing helps contribute to the community becoming more sustainable.”
The next repair café will be on Saturday, July 15, from 10am am to 1pm.
The Bridgend Centre is a community hub which aims to improve social inclusion. As well as the repair café, there is a charity shop, workshop and guided walks.


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Hong Kong – Tailor Insight, the fintech market research organization, recently released a research report “WIMI Hologram is Facing a New Investment Opportunity of 100 Billion Yuan, Thanks to the First Year of Mass Production of LiDAR”. On May 25, Tesla, a U.S. electric vehicle company, announced that it would not use millimeter-wave radar in its Autopilot autonomous driving assistance system. The leading car company in autonomous driving technology will adopt a more audacious autonomous sensing solution. Environmental sensing is one of the core technologies of autonomous driving, and sensing and recognition cannot be achieved without sensors such as cameras, millimeter-wave radar and LiDAR. At present, there are two main solutions to the sensing technology of autonomous driving. One is visual computing with Tesla as a typical representative. This technology is composed of low-cost components such as millimeter-wave radar with camera as the dominant component. The other is composed of components such as camera and millimeter-wave radar with LiDAR as the dominant component.
“The former solution dominated by vision has low cost and is easy to massively produce, while the latter one dominated by LiDAR has the strength of accurate measurement but its cost is rather high. Both solutions have their own strengths and weaknesses.” Yang Diange, a professor at School of Vehicle and Mobility Tsinghua University, said in an interview with a reporter from the 21st Century Business Herald.
Tesla prefers the vision solution and its CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly defamed LiDAR in public, even so, there are still many car companies that regard LiDAR technology as the preferred solution to achieve higher-level autonomous driving.
This year, a number of Chinese car companies have announced their plans for mass production of onboard LiDAR.
Is LiDAR needed at this stage?
The automotive-grade LiDAR has been developed for some time. In 2017, Valeo produced its first automotive-grade LiDAR for the Audi A8 massively. On May 31 of the same year, Gu Jianmin, CTO of Valeo China, told the reporter from the 21st Century Business Herald that Valeo had produced and delivered nearly 130 thousand LiDARs worldwide.
It is understood that Valeo will massively produce LiDAR to install it on Nissan Legend model in March this year. In addition, Valeo’s second generation LiDAR will be installed on the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class model and on another car company’s models by mass production in Asia next year.
However, Valeo’s LiDAR has not been fully equipped on mass-produced vehicles, and it is only installed on some versions of some models. When the NIO ET7, Xiaopeng P5 and Alpha S models were launched, NIO, Xiaopeng and ArcFox all claimed to be the first to be equipped with mass-produced LiDAR. The models of the three car companies have been unveiled in the first half of this year and are scheduled to be delivered at the end of the year or in the first quarter of next year.
It is worth noting that more and more car companies have announced this year that they are going to adopt LiDAR. However, some car companies did not have LiDAR in their previous model design plans. Moreover, the assistant driving mode of some car companies does not need LiDAR.
The mass production and application of LiDAR is closely related to the technological development of autonomous driving. There is a general consensus in the industry that LiDAR is unnecessary for the L1 and L2 autonomous driving models and it will increase the cost. Nonetheless, for L3, L4 and higher-level autonomous driving models, whether it is necessary to use LiDAR is still a matter of controversy.
In simple terms, the biggest use of LiDAR at present is to improve the sensing accuracy of autonomous driving in extreme weather and extreme conditions.
Currently, the mass production and application of LiDAR still face difficulties and challenges. Three essential conditions must be met for equipping mass-produced self-driving car with LiDAR: ensuring the safety of autonomous vehicles, reaching automotive grade and keeping mass-produced costs under control.
In terms of cost, as the technology maturing and the scale expanding, most LiDAR companies now claim that their mass production costs have reached about US$1,000. Different from them, Wang Jun, president of Huawei Smart Car Solutions BU, previously said that the cost of its LiDAR could be reduced to $200 in an interview during Shanghai Auto Show this year. But he did not reveal exactly when the cost could be reduced to this.
However, from the perspective of laws and regulations, L3 and higher level autonomous vehicles can only be driven in autonomous driving test areas or demonstration areas, high-level autonomous driving has not reached the requirements for obtaining permission of driving in complex roads in urban areas.
Therefore, from the current stage, whether car companies need to equip mass-produced vehicles with LiDAR still needs to be considered in terms of various issues such as cost and the operatonal environment.
100 billion yuan market investment opportunity
In accordance with the predicted data of investment institutions, by 2025, the value of global LiDAR market will reach $12.6 billion and that of the Chinese LiDAR market will reach $4.31 billion. By 2025, three out of every 100 private cars in China will be equipped with LiDAR.
The development of autonomous driving technology has also made LiDAR a new industrial investment opportunity. In the second half of last year, startups such as Velodyne and Luminar listed on US stocks one after another.
As a holographic AR company listed on Nasdaq, WiMi Hologram Cloud has received cumulative investments of $170 million from well-known institutions such as Weibo since its IPO in April 2020, so it has sufficient capital to realize the expansion of the holographic AR industry to establish a vigorous competitive strength. WiMi Hologram Cloud (WiMi.US) is able to provide first-class products and services with its powerful technical capabilities and infrastructure. After winning the bid of China Mobile and Media Cloud Platform Phase II Holographic Remote Interaction, WiMi Hologram Cloud is redefining the communication mode of China Mobile through “5G+ Holographic Remote”. Recently, with the rapid development of the electronic car industry, WiMi Hologram Cloud has also entered into a partnership with Toyota’s electronics company on its onboard solutions to meet the demands for holographic applications on vehicles. The core business of WiMi Hologram Cloud is holographic AR technology for software engineering, media manufacturing services and cloud and big data.
In addition to the above businesses, WiMi Hologram Cloud also enters the LiDAR field. Since the announcement of its patent of 3D holographic pulse laser processing device for optical hologram, strong market demands have been shown in several industries. Therefore, WiMi Hologram Cloud decides to develop 3D holographic pulse LiDAR product “WiMi HoloPulse LiDAR “to further expand its holographic product portfolio matrix.
According to public records, WiMi Hologram Cloud focuses on holographic cloud services, which are mainly in the professional fields, such as, onboard AR holographic HUD, 3D holographic pulse LiDAR, head-mounted light field holographic device, holographic semiconductor, holographic cloud software and holographic car navigation. In conclusion, WiMi Hologram Cloud is a holographic cloud comprehensive technical solution provider, covering multiple links of holographic AR technology, and it includes holographic onboard AR technology, 3D holographic pulse LiDAR technology, holographic visual semiconductor technology, holographic software development, holographic AR advertising technology, holographic AR entertainment technology, holographic ARSDK payment, interactive holographic communication, etc.
Due to the explosion of demand for holographic applications on vehicles, WiMi Hologram Cloud will develop holographic onboard devices, holographic onboard chips and holographic onboard software to meet the demands for holographic applications on vehicles. WiMi Hologram Cloud is committed to working out solutions for the integration of onboard holographic software and hardware. Furthermore, WiMi Hologram Cloud will develop more holographic AR patents and products applicable to the automotive industry in order to build more customer relationships.
As LiDAR is installed on more and more autonomous vehicles, the market competition in this new field will become increasingly fierce.
About Tailor Insight
Tailor Insight provides easy and quick solutions that allow customers to capture, monitor, and audit market data from a holistic view down to an individual task on market research and industry trend insights. For more information, please visit http://www.TailorInsight.com


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Next-generation SUV will get conventional and plug-in hybrid variants
Mitsubishi has released the above image hinting at what’s to come in Chicago. If we are to take a semi-educated guess, we expect a new Montero to grace the stage in the windy city, but rumours until now have stated not to expect a new model until at least 2018.
The Montero (known as the Pajero or Shogun in other markets) was never sold in Canada and left the US market in 2006. In Europe and other locales, the off-road model is known for its off-road prowess thanks to being the most successful vehicle to contest the Dakar Rally.
Details at this point are scarce. A new Montero will arrive in both conventional gasoline and plug-in electric guises when it reaches production.


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Ted Baker blames Covid disruption for delay in results
Ted Baker has delayed the publication of its annual results, blaming pandemic-related disruption to audit work.
The fashion chain had expected to publish its results for the year to the end of January on May 27. The date has been pushed back to June 10.
“The revised date was determined in discussion with BDO, the group’s auditor, with the agreement of the Ted Baker board, and is a consequence of the disruption caused by Covid on the audit processes,” the company said.
Ted Baker is expecting to report a pre-tax loss of about £79 million on revenue of about £340 million, in line with consensus expectations.
The retailer, which sells smart dresses and suits, has been hit by a decline in demand for party outfits


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Challenges may linger and storm clouds reemerge, but with all the improvements since the onset of the pandemic, it’s fair to say the sun is rising on a new dawn for the foodservice industry.
Food and beverage subscription programs may be going from feast to famine as the foodservice landscape shifts again.
After a surge of sales earlier in the pandemic, for example, the meal-kit segment has become a Pandora’s box of challenges now that rising food costs, supply chain snafus and returning restaurant traffic have resulted in a steep falloff of subscriptions.1
There’s been a lot of anticipation and speculation about the role robotics will play in the future of foodservice. But the fact is, robotics has already arrived, and their presence is expanding across the competitive landscape.
What a difference a few years can make. It’s been over two years since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, and while the light at the end of the tunnel has flickered and faded at times, bright spots have emerged and expanded to illuminate a feast of opportunities and recharge our sense of optimism.
Product packaging matters to many of today’s vending and micro market customers—more than half of U.S. consumers, in fact, say they’re highly concerned about its environmental impacts.1
Topics: Vending, College & University, Healthcare, Commercial, Single-Serve, Grab-and-Go, Convenience, Social Responsibility, Sustainability, Micro Markets & Vending, Sales & Profitability, Prepackaged, Waste Reduction, Cafeteria, Office Coffee Service (OCS)