Women climb ladder in the arts, finance, sports;willing to shift gears, work all night to pursue passion

SEP 28, 2007
By  Bloomberg

Big names in banking

Jean Afterman Ellen Alemany Debra Allee Sharon Allen Sonia Attkiss Lidia Bastianich Eleanor Baum Candace Beinecke Stephanie Bell-Rose Rosemary Berkery Sheila Birnbaum Cathleen Black Jo Ivey Boufford Thia Breen Pamela Brier Mary Schmidt Campbell Patricia Cloherty Faith Hope Consolo Nancy Coyne Elaine Crocker Zoe Cruz Jennifer Cunningham Leslee Dart Julie Hembrock Daum Karen Davis Vishakha Desai Laura Desmond Elizabeth Diller Mary Callahan Erdoes Katherine Farley Michelle Felman Jane Friedman Susan Fuhrman Bonnie Fuller Ellen Futter Barbara Gallay Gladys George Mary Gerzema Julie Gilhart MaryAnne Gilmartin Thelma Golden Marian Goodman Stefani Greenfield Julie Greenwald Veronica Hackett Bonnie Hammer Dottie Herman Chung-Wha Hong Karen Brooks Hopkins Judith Jamison Andrea Jung Suri Kasirer Sallie Krawcheck Kay Krill Evelyn Lauder Shelly Lazarus Bertha Lewis Pamela Liebman Anita Lo Susan Lyne Elizabeth McCann Mary Jane McCartney Judy McGrath Heidi Miller Ann Moore Liz Neumark Bridget O'Connor Nancy Peretsman Lisa Phillips Vikki Pryor Jennifer Raab Emily Rafferty Carol Raphael Abbe Raven Rachael Ray Jacqueline Reses Sylvia Rhone Julie Richardson Janet Robinson Judith Rodin Rossana Rosado Jane Rosenthal Daryl Roth Faiza Saeed Diane Schueneman Kimora Lee Simmons Darcy Stacom Tara Stacom Marilyn Jordan Taylor Mary Ann Tighe Doreen Toben Diane von Furstenberg Laura Walker Lisa Weber Randi Weingarten Susan Whiting Anna Wintour Deborah Wright Kathryn Wylde Nina Zagat Publisher's note Crain's picks women who stand for NY Coming up with the list of the 100 most influential women in New York business was extremely difficult because there are hundreds of women here who are smart, successful, accomplished and driven. So how do these women distinguish themselves from the others? They represent the fabric of New York, a vibrant array of industries that make our city unique and full of opportunity. They have risen through the ranks of large public companies and started their own businesses. They manage nonprofits and run private firms. They are iconic movers and shakers who are helping to shape the trends in their marketplace. And lastly, they understand the meaning of trade-offs: Having kids? Not having kids? Canceling vacations, or not even planning a vacation? But what strikes me is that they recognize the extraordinary importance of managing expectations and setting realistic goals. They have chosen paths that have provided them with self-fulfillment in whatever way they have defined it. We salute our 100 women for what they have achieved, the gifts that they have given back to New York and the role models they are for the next generation of women and young girls.

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS THROUGHOUT BUSINESS WORLD

when marian goodman earned her master's degree in art history in the 1960s, it was nearly impossible for a woman to get a job as a museum curator. So she found another way to break into the clubby and male-dominated art scene: She started an art printing business. Ms. Goodman is now one of the most influential contemporary-art dealers in the world, and women fill the ranks of curatorial departments at New York City's major museums. High-profile directors like Lisa Phillips of the New Museum of Contemporary Art and Thelma Golden of the Studio Museum in Harlem-not to mention Emily Rafferty, the first female president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art-are ample evidence of how far women have come in the art industry. And their successes extend far beyond the arts. Finance, real estate, media, professional services ... name the business sector; women fill high-ranking executive posts there. Crain's special section identifying the 100 most influential women in New York City business highlights the inroads that women have made into all segments of the local business community.

Short-listed

women have been climbing the ranks on Wall Street for a while, but never before have so many filled major management positions at the top investment banks. Just think of Rosemary Berkery, vice chairman and general counsel at Merrill Lynch; Zoe Cruz, co-president of Morgan Stanley; and Sallie Krawcheck, chief executive of Citigroup Global Wealth Management. Women's entre into the biggest boys' club of all-sports-represents an even greater step forward. Jean Afterman, who joined the Yankees in 2001 as assistant general manager, is one of only three female assistant GMs ever in Major League Baseball. Ms. Afterman, whose contract expires at the end of this year, is now a top candidate to become the first female GM. “You get very comfortable being in one place, but I'm not done yet,” she says. Climbing the corporate ladder has not come easy for many of our power brokers. Many women have achieved success by working nearly around the clock. Kimora Lee Simmons, creative director of Baby Phat, is under so much pressure to get everything done that she sleeps only four hours a night. “I'm the example for young wom-en on the go,” Ms. Simmons says. Star architect Elizabeth Diller, who is designing the $1 billion renovation of Lincoln Center, begins work at 4 a.m. But for her, the differences between day and night, and between her work and her home life, are blurred: Her husband, Ric Scofidio, is her business partner. “I don't distinguish the difference between work and play,” Ms. Diller says. “My husband and I are very obsessed with our work, and it's contiguous with our personal lives.” Babies on board a surprising number of women are working hard with young children in tow. Jane Friedman, chief executive of HarperCollins, has interrupted meetings with boss Rupert Murdoch to take a call from one of her four kids. Mary Callahan Erdoes, chief executive of J.P. Morgan Private Bank, has three children under age 5. Gone are the days when women felt they needed to choose between a family and a high-powered career. “When I come in on weekends, the kids come with me,” Ms. Erdoes says. “They get the conference room, and I get the office.” While the women in Crain's group of 100 all have drive and -determination, many executives switched course before finally finding their niche. A large number started out as lawyers before switching gears, among them Ellen Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History; Stephanie Bell-Rose, president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation; and Vikki Pryor, chief executive of SBLI Mutual Life Insurance. Others made more unusual shifts. Liz Neumark, founder of Great Performances-the fourth-largest independent catering companies in the country-originally wanted to work as a photographer. She started the catering firm as a side business to make ends meet. Julie Gilhart, fashion director at Barneys New York, dropped out of college when she was 20 to become a buyer at Neiman Marcus. She has never regretted it. “My whole life is about discovery,” Ms. Gilhart says. “If I lived to 200, I still wouldn't get to do everything I want to.” n <CHART> TINY NICHE AT THE TOP Gender breakdown of CEOs of New York City-based Fortune 1000 companies. 3 Number of female CEOs 68 Number of male CEOs 1 Andrea Jung Avon Products (#283 on Fortune 1000) 2 Janet Robinson The New York Times Co. (#583) 3 Kay Krill Ann Taylor Stores (#783) Based on the 2007 Fortune 1000 list. sources: cnnmoney.com, catalyst A Readers' Guide How did Crain's define influence? In short: impact that resonates. It is illustrated in a woman's professional biography and in her list of accom-plishments. In some cases, it is revealed by the trends she sets. As we made our evaluations, we asked a range of questions: How many people does the individual supervise? How much revenue does she generate? We defined business broadly, in keeping with the Crain's mission. Elected officials and women working in government jobs were excluded. We didn't impose any age criteria. The final list features a number of women in their 50s and 60s, because it generally takes time to build a portfolio of power. Finally, while we chose 12 individuals to highlight in longer profiles, we presented all 100 in alphabetical order-primarily to make the section easy to read. But we also wanted to identify a subgroup of women who we believe have the most clout. Thus, for the first time, we bring you Crain's “Power 25,” on Page W6. <CHART>

DISPARITIES IN THE BOARDROOM

CompanyNo. of directors who are female/total% of directors who are female Este Lauder5/1241.7% Avon Products4/1040.0% Merrill Lynch4/1136.4% CIT Group3/1030.0% KeySpan*3/1030.0% Barnes & Noble3/1127.3% Bristol-Myers Squibb2/922.2% MetLife3/1421.4% Colgate-Palmolive2/1020.0% Liz Claiborne2/1020.0% Loews2/1020.0% Alcoa 2/1118.2% Consolidated Edison2/1118.2% Dover2/1118.2% Marsh & McLennan2/1118.2% Omnicom Group2/1118.2% Viacom2/1118.2% Assurant2/1216.7% Foot Locker2/1216.7% Goldman Sachs Group2/1216.7% Hess2/1216.7% J.P. Morgan Chase2/1216.7% McGraw-Hill2/1216.7% Morgan Stanley2/1216.7% New York Life Insurance2/1216.7% TIAA-CREF1/616.7% Time Warner2/1315.4% American Express2/1414.3% CBS2/1414.3% Citigroup2/1414.3% Verizon Communications2/1513.3% Guardian Life Insurance2/1612.5% AIG2/1711.8% Bank of New York Mellon2/1811.1% Interpublic Group1/911.1% Jones Apparel Group1/911.1% Lehman Brothers1/1010.0% Altria Group1/119.1% Asbury Automotive Group1/119.1% IAC/InterActiveCorp1/128.3% Pfizer1/128.3% L-3 Communications0/90.0% Virgin Media0/90.0% Bear Stearns0/130.0% News Corp.0/150.0% Based on the 2007 Fortune 500 list. *KeySpan was acquired by National Grid in August. Sources: Company Web sites, as of July 17 Power 25 The New York City women who wield the most clout

NAMECOMPANYCLOUT FACTORPAGE

1Zoe CruzMorgan StanleySurvived management upheaval and set revenue recordsW12

2Andrea JungAvon ProductsGrew sales 70% to $9 billion in eight yearsW20

3Cathleen BlackHearst MagazinesThe voice of the magazine business in a digital ageW10

4Mary Ann TigheCB Richard EllisHeads real estate giant with $36.8 billion in transactionsW29

5Sallie KrawcheckCitigroup Global Wealth Management Runs a unit with $1.4 trillion in client assetsW20

6Shelly LazarusOgilvy & Mather WorldwideOversees 10,000 employees in 377 offices across 97 countriesW21

7Judy McGrathMTV NetworksEstablished MTV as a mainstream platform for political activismW23

8Heidi MillerJ.P. Morgan ChaseRuns a unit with $9 billion in revenues and $15.2 trillion in assetsW23

9Anna WintourVogueHer opinion makes or breaks a designer's careerW29

10Doreen TobenVerizon CommunicationsSlashed the telecom giant's debt loadW29

11Ann MooreTime Inc. First woman to head the No. 1 magazine publisherW23

12Janet RobinsonThe New York Times Co.Grew digital revenues to 10% of the total, from 4%W26

13Sharon AllenDeloitte & ToucheRevenues have jumped by more than a quarter under her watchW8

14Jane FriedmanHarperCollinsTurned big book publisher into a profit powerhouseW15

15Nancy PeretsmanAllen & Co. LLCGo-to guru for media M&AW24

16Katherine FarleyTishman Speyer Power broker in real estate and the artsW15

17Jennifer CunninghamLobbyistMost powerful unelected woman in New York politicsW13

18Ellen FutterAmerican Museum of Natural HistoryTurned museum into a world-class institutionW16

19Sheila BirnbaumSkadden Arps Slate Meagher & FlomCalled the “queen of torts”W10

20Pamela LiebmanThe Corcoran Group Has grown residential brokerage to $14 billion in salesW22

21Randi WeingartenUnited Federation of TeachersRaised salaries for members by 43% since 2002W29

22Marilyn Jordan TaylorSkidmore Owings & MerrillShaping the landscape of New York CityW29

23Laura DesmondStarcom MediaVest Group, The AmericasOversees more than $15 billion in ad spendingW14

24Jane RosenthalTribeca Productions/Tribeca EnterprisesHelped turn TriBeCa into Hollywood EastW27

25Carol RaphaelVisiting Nurse Service of New York Touches the lives of 31,000 New Yorkers every dayW25

WIELDING BANKING'S SCEPTER

Ellen Alemany Royal Bank of Scotland America Ellen alemany earned her stripes in the business world early on, helping out at her father's liquor store on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx and later working summers as a marketer for a tennis camp. She went on to finish college in three years and then held down a job at IBM while earning her M.B.A. at night. That work ethic-along with abundant talent-has made her one of the most senior women in banking in the country. This past spring, Ms. Alemany took over as chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland's U.S. operations and subsidiaries, a multifaceted group of businesses employing 27,000 people, generating $4 billion in revenues and holding a total of $150 billion in deposits. Those combined deposits would make RBS's business here the sixth-largest banking oper-ation in the country. Ms. Alemany's job: to integrate the diverse businesses and take advantage of growth opportunities in the United States. It's the kind of challenge that she loves. Before joining RBS, she worked at Chase Manhattan Bank and then did a 20-year stint at Citibank, where she ran businesses on both the corporate and consumer sides. “What excites me and gives me personal fulfillment is the ability to lead change, to run a business from the front end to the back end,” says 51-year-old Ms. Alemany.

CONSULTANT IS QUEEN OF EIS

Debra Allee AKRF As founder of one of the country's first environmental impact firms, Debra Allee has been making or breaking major real estate developments for two decades. Ms. Allee, 68, and three others started Allee King Rosen & Fleming in 1981. The consultancy, now called AKRF Inc., plays an important, and often controversial, role in the city's real estate scene. It prepares environmental impact statements, which detail the probable effect of development projects. She has built the firm, which also provides transportation planning and green design services, into a powerhouse with 1,000 clients, more than 2,000 projects and a staff of 240. Her development work spans the island of Manhattan-from the Hudson Yards rezoning to downtown redevelopment. She has also prepared impact statements for the Second Avenue Subway, Columbia University's new Manhattanville campus, and the No. 7 subway line extension. Though the environmental review process often puts Ms. Allee and her company under the microscope, it is her job to remain dispassionate. “I'm a defender of the process,” she says. “It's what we have, and it keeps us thinking.”

ACCOUNTING AUTHORITY

Sharon Allen Deloitte & Touche Sharon allen became chair of accounting and consulting giant Deloitte & Touche in 2003. It was a low point for the industry: The Enron debacle and the demise of Arthur Andersen had cast suspicion on all of the big firms. Deloitte was facing intense pressure, and Ms. Allen took decisive action. She fostered the firm's consulting operations while rivals were spinning off such businesses. She got the 37,000 people working under her to buy in by pushing dissenters to articulate and hash out their views. “I came to the conclusion that you can't make the really hard decisions without help from everyone you work with,” says Ms. Allen, 56. Her strategy worked. Annual revenues jumped more than 27% over the three years ended in 2006, while manpower has grown 26%. She was recently elected to a second four-year term as leader of the firm. Now Ms. Allen uses her position to aggressively push major corporations to hire more minorities and more women. She also participates in two high-powered groups: the Women's Leadership Board at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the President's Export Council.

PERSPECTIVE FOR RICH CLIENTS

Sonia Attkiss Credit Suisse Private Banking In 1997, Sonia Attkiss was a fledgling financial adviser trying to build a client base from scratch. She went looking where the money was: among the growing ranks of technology entrepreneurs. The strategy paid off. Today, as a director at Credit Suisse Private Banking, Ms. Attkiss leads a team of bankers managing $2.8 billion in assets for more than 100 wealthy individuals and families. She is known for her client-centered approach: A few years ago, when two clients sold their company, it was Ms. Attkiss-not the bankers who structured the deal-who found a way for them to save tens of millions of dollars. “We don't accept "no' as an answer,” she says. “We always look to uncover ways to get things done.” Ms. Attkiss, 41, grew up in a small town in Alberta, Canada, where she played varsity basketball and softball, ran track and swam com-pet-itively. After grad-uating from Harvard University, she worked in Ottawa for a member of Parlia-ment and then spent five years in adver-tis-ing. Hungry to do some-thing entre-pre-neurial, she earned an M.B.A. and entered the training pro-gram at Don-aldson Luf-kin & Jenrette, which was ac-quired by Credit Suisse in 2000. In a complex investing environment, “Sonia's real skill is putting all of it in perspective,” says Dale Miller, her former boss and a managing director at Credit Suisse.

CHEF LIGHTS FIRE UNDER MILLIONS

Lidia Bastianich Lidia's Italy Lidia bastianich didn't start out in the kitchen; in fact, she studied medicine in college. She was introduced to professional cooking when her family opened its first restaurant in 1971, and she has since become New York's doyenne of Italian cuisine. Despite her lack of formal training, she has created a culinary empire encompassing six restaurants, five cookbooks, four TV shows-including the public-television series Lidia's Italy-two wineries, a line of pasta sauces and a travel company. Ms. Bastianich, 60, is inspiring millions of people to cook. The key to her success, she says, is simple: She promotes cooking as a collaborative act of affection among family members. “My style does not reflect any rigid culinary school,” she says. “It reflects home cooking.” Her professional passions are not limited to the kitchen. An immigrant from Istria, a former region of Italy now also shared by Croatia and Slovenia, Ms. Bastianich came to the United States in 1958 with help from Catholic Charities. She gives back by contributing time and money to the U.N. Development Fund for Women. She is also a founder of the International Association of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, which helps women who want to enter the field. “Opportunity is very important to me,” Ms. Bastianich says. “The culinary industry has been very hard for women, especially financially.”

DEFYING RECEIVED WISDOM

Eleanor Baum Cooper Union Engineering School When eleanor baum was in high school in the 1950s, guidance counselors told her that women couldn't grow up to be engineers. Her mother warned that no man would marry an engineer. Dr. Baum paid no attention. After a brief stint in the aerospace industry, she taught at Pratt Institute, becoming dean of its engineering school in 1985-the nation's first female engineering dean. Dr. Baum was named dean of Cooper Union's engineering school in 1997, and female enrollment has risen to 30% from 3% since then. “We knew we were successful when women no longer needed to be the smartest ones in the class,” she says. Dr. Baum, 67, serves as executive director of the Cooper Union Research Foundation, a nonprofit corporation that sponsors research projects in the engineering school. She is also on the boards of Allegheny Power System Inc. and the New York Building Congress. She proved her guidance counselors wrong in a number of ways. Dr. Baum has had an outstanding career and is married to a physicist, Paul Baum, a professor at Cooper Union.

BALANCING ACT AT TOP LAW FIRM

Candace Beinecke Hughes Hubbard & Reed Long before Candace Beinecke became chair of Hughes Hubbard & Reed, her mother knew that she'd become a lawyer: She argued too much as a kid. Ms. Beinecke, 60, was a pioneer in her field. She was a corporate lawyer during the 1970s, a time when clients thought nothing of dropping a firm that put “girls” on their legal teams. She was appointed chair of Hughes Hubbard in 1999, making her the first female chair of a major New York law firm. Throughout her career, she has earned respect from combative and sometimes outright sexist male lawyers, while maintaining her firm's independence in an era of consolidation. It's been a balancing act. “I think my greatest skill is being able to do tough things without breaking a lot of glass,” she says. During Ms. Beinecke's tenure, Hughes Hubbard has ranked among the top law firms in the country for its corporate practices and diversity hiring, while profits per partner have increased 19% each year on average. Ms. Beinecke also serves on a number of boards. She's chairman of $35 billion investment fund First Eagle Funds, a director of transportation and energy firm Alstom and a vice chair of the Partnership for New York City.

BRINGING LAW, ORDER TO WALL ST.

Rosemary Berkery Merrill Lynch Rosemary berkery has a broader mandate than the typical general counsel. She not only runs all of Merrill Lynch & Co.'s legal and compliance operations; she also oversees global research and represents Merrill in dealings with numerous constituencies, from governments to individual investors. A trusted adviser to Chief Executive Stanley O'Neal, Ms. Berkery was elevated to vice chair in July, expanding her influence. “Rosemary's been instrumental in driving growth and new business opportunities for the firm,” says Mr. O'Neal. A Long Island native, Ms. Berkery, 54, took the law boards as a lark and won a full scholarship to St. John's University. She is “one of the few people who actually liked law school,” she says. After graduation, she spent five years at Shearman & Sterling; she then joined Merrill in 1983. She has held numerous positions over the years, from associate general counsel to head of securities research to chief of private client marketing. Recently, as Merrill has sought to expand, she has played a key role in identifying partnerships and acquisition targets, negotiating deals and integrating new businesses.

QUIETLY TOPS IN TORTS

Sheila Birnbaum Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom Sheila birnbaum has been called “the queen of torts,” and she has earned the title. As the partner in charge of the complex mass tort and insurance group at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Ms. Birnbaum has battled in many of the most significant class actions of the past 30 years. In 2003, she convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a $145 million punitive-damages award against State Farm Mu-tual Automo-bile Insurance Co. as unconstitutionally excessive. In another Supreme Court case, in 1997, she successfully defended Metro-North Commuter Railroad against an asbestos lawsuit. Other clients have included Dow Corning, Anheuser-Busch, Copley Pharma-ceutical and American Stores. In a field notorious for its in-your-face personalities, 67-year-old Ms. Birnbaum is known for her quiet, pedagogical style. Before entering private practice, she spent more than a decade as a law professor at Fordham University and at New York University, where she also served as an associate dean. “I try to listen hard to people and help them resolve their issues,” she says, speaking of her style of managing the 75 attorneys in her division. “I prefer being a problem solver, rather than one who creates more problems.”

A CAREER OF FIRSTS

Cathleen Black Hearst Magazines As president of one of the world's largest magazine publishers, Cathleen Black makes decisions that touch the lives of millions. In her 12 years at Hearst Magazines, Ms. Black has turned the $7 billion company into a lean and formidable operation, while ushering venerable brands-from Cosmopolitan to Good Housekeeping to Esquire-into the online era. She has pushed into global markets and oversees 200 international editions. Ms. Black, 63, a board member of the Magazine Publishers of America, is an industry champion and has become a symbol of women's rise in corporate America. She helped launch Ms., was the first woman publisher at a weekly consumer magazine-New York-and served as the first publisher of USA Today. Ms. Black sits on the boards of Interna-tional Business Machines and Coca-Cola. “My message for women is that you really have to define what you want,” she says. “I got the drive and ambition gene.” Her influence is about to grow further with the publication this fall of her book, Basic Black, which is aimed at giving other women the keys to her success.

HEALTH FOR NYC AND BEYOND

Jo Ivey Boufford New York Academy of Medicine Her appointment in February as president of the New York Academy of Medicine caps Jo Ivey Boufford's extraordinary career in health care. She is the only woman to have led the city's Health and Hospitals Corp., and she served as a top official in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In her previous position as dean of New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, she helped shape the careers of thousands. She now leads the nation's most respected urban health center. The 160-year-old academy, which has a budget of $23 million, has a broad mandate that ranges from conducting groundbreaking research on HIV to holding health classes for more than 500,000 public school students. Dr. Boufford, 62, hopes to create more of a platform for policy recommendations. “If you do something well in this city, it becomes a model for the nation and the world,” she says.

HOT ON THE SCENT OF EXPANSION

Thia Breen Este Lauder Thia breen's impressive career in cosmetics started humbly. Her first job as a teenager in Benson, Minn., was selling Bonne Bell makeup at her parents' small-town drugstore. That early experience stuck with Ms. Breen, now the president of Este Lauder Worldwide. “The only thing that really matters is customers coming to the beauty counter,” she says. “If someone gets great service, that's the reflection of the brand.” Ms. Breen, 57, has spent most of her career promoting and developing Este Lauder's brands. She started with the company in 1977 as an account executive for Clinique. As she climbed the ladder, Ms. Breen managed the Aramis and Origins brands, and later helped make Clinique the top cosmetics brand in U.S. department stores. Today, she focuses her energy on increasing The Este Lauder Cos.' global business, which spans 130 countries and territories. Last year, the parent company reported $7 billion in sales. Although she's come a long way from hawking Bonne Bell in her hometown, Ms. Breen takes her success in stride. “I just add a few zeros to the orders these days,” she says.

RESULTS THAT ARE OFF THE CHARTS

Pamela Brier Maimonides Medical Center Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn was already on its way to becoming a standout community hospital when Pamela Brier became chief executive in 2003. She took the institution to the next level. This year, a survey by HealthGrades named Maimonides the state's best hospital for cardiology and pulmonary care and ranked it in the top 5% nationwide for stroke care, cardiology and critical care. Maimonides is also the state's busiest maternity center-the site of 6,709 births last year. In fact, although other com-mu-nity hospitals see obstetrics as a money-loser, Ms. Brier predicted that good maternity care would increase patient loyalty and bring in new business. So she spruced up the birthing rooms and hired more staff. Fifteen years in New York City's municipal hospital system armed Ms. Brier, 62, with sharp executive and political skills. “She's indefatigable, and she's got special warmth,” says longtime health care lobbyist Maureen Connelly. Ms. Brier's role at Maimonides, which serves many low-income families, al-lows her to make her presence felt in the community. “Even though I'm not working for gov-ernment anymore, I still feel that I'm a public servant,” she says.

PIED PIPER FOR ARTISTS IN TRAINING

Mary Schmidt Campbell Tisch School of the Arts, New York University The number of applications for the Tisch School of the Arts has grown threefold since Mary Schmidt Campbell became its dean in 1991. That's how it should be, because Ms. Campbell believes there's no greater mission than seeding the careers of young people who are ready to learn. “We want students to come here, whether or not they can afford to,” she says. To that end, the 59-year-old art historian, author and former museum curator has raised funds to pay for 30 high school students to attend an annual summer program at Tisch. And the school's 2006 gala raised $1 million for undergraduate scholarships. The dean led a $50 million campaign for capital improvements to the school's Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film & Television and for renovations to the Institute for Performing Arts. Ms. Campbell was recently nominated to the board of the New York State Council on the Arts, a position that will let her foster the arts beyond NYU.

A LITANY OF PIONEERING RETAIL DEALS

Faith Hope Consolo Prudential Douglas Elliman In her 25 years of bringing retailers to New York City, real estate broker Faith Hope Consolo has helped transform dozens of neighborhoods from shabby to chic or fading to on-fire. “I think every place can offer something better,” she says. Ms. Consolo, 58, completed 207 transactions just last year. Over the course of her career, she has handled some of the city's most important retail leases. She helped jump-start the Flatiron district's commercial ascent when she oversaw a deal for clothier Paul Smith, and she helped solidify Times Square's reputation as a family-friendly destination by putting Toys “R” Us into 100,000 square feet there. Her clients on Fifth Avenue have included Fendi, Versace and Cartier. As chairwoman of the retail leasing and sales division of Prudential Douglas Elliman Group, Ms. Consolo directs 200 brokers across the country and helps retailers with national-even international-expansions. One example: a 52-store, 20-city package she completed for Papyrus. Ms. Consolo, whose often-seen advertising tagline is “You need Faith,” is a relentless self-promoter. But the hype isn't empty: She made it to the top in a field dominated by men.

STAR OF B'WAY ADS

Nancy Coyne Serino Coyne Anyone who's seen a TV commercial for Cats or walked past a billboard for Wicked is familiar with Nancy Coyne's work. In fact, Ms. Coyne has created virtually every Broadway advertisement for the past 30 years. Her agency, Serino Coyne Inc.-which was bought by giant Omnicom Group four years ago-has 100 employees and an 80% share of the Broadway ad market. It handles 15 of the 16 top-grossing shows and has represented just about every Tony-winning musical in the past three decades. When business plummeted immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Ms. Coyne convinced Broadway's fiercely competitive producers to band together, creating the first industrywide ticket discount initiative, The Season of Savings. Broadway had its best winter ever. The 60-year-old executive credits her success to her mother, who worked tirelessly to help her daughter become the Shirley Temple of their native Silver Spring, Md., as well as first in her high school class. Ms. Coyne, now a grandmother of 7-month-old twin boys who live in her building, is equally passionate about and protective of her clients. “I feel very maternal toward my shows,” she says. “I do everything I can for them to thrive.”

PRACTICED TRAINER OF TRADERS

Elaine Crocker Moore Capital Management Known in hedge fund circles for her ability to identify and nurture talented traders, Elaine Crocker has spent more than 30 years helping to launch some of the industry's most skilled players. Ms. Crocker, one of the few women in the upper reaches of that rarefied universe, is president of $13 billion Moore Capital Management, where she runs the compliance, personnel, legal and finance operations and helps find and develop portfolio managers. Ms. Crocker, 62, handles her role “with the experience born of dealing with many talented but difficult-to-manage traders and with the needs of investors through many investing cycles,” says Moore Capital founder and Chairman Louis Bacon. A New Jersey native, Ms. Crocker took a job in 1970 with fledgling trading company Commodities Corp., eventually rising to the position of executive vice president. Among other responsibilities, she headed trading administration; in that role, she sought out promising traders and helped to train them. She once turned Mr. Bacon down for a job, telling him to go get some experience. Later, she gave him seed money to trade independently. He went on to found Moore Capital; in 1995, he tapped Ms. Crocker to join his team.

WALL STREET SURVIVOR

Zoe Cruz Morgan Stanley Zoe cruz survived the power struggle that roiled Morgan Stanley two years ago, which brought John Mack back to the company as chief executive. She had already proved herself to be a formidable force on Wall Street. From 2000 to 2005, Ms. Cruz ran the investment bank's profitable global fixed-income, commodities and foreign exchange business. Under her leadership, 2004 revenues from fixed-income sales and trading reached $5.6 billion. That record-breaking figure represented 14% of Morgan Stanley's total revenues that year. Now, as head of Morgan Stanley's biggest business-institutional securities-as well as its retail brokerage, Ms. Cruz is again demonstrating her mettle. The securities operation, which includes underwriting and stock and bond sales and trading, posted record revenues in the second quarter; at $7.4 billion, they were up 39% from year-earlier levels. Ms. Cruz, 52, joined Morgan Stanley's investment banking division in 1982, straight out of Harvard Business School. In 1990, she was named a managing director, and from 1993 to 2000, she was co-head of the foreign exchange division. Colleagues have referred to her as a “Cruz missile,” a nod to her direct approach.

FORCE IN NY POLITICS

Jennifer Cunningham Lobbyist Jennifer cunningham has been called the most powerful unelect-ed woman in New York politics. As the former political director for the state's largest health care union, 1199 Service Employees In-ter-national Union, as well as the suc-cessful manager of Attorney Gen-eral Andrew Cuomo's 2006 cam-paign, Ms. Cunningham, 45, is a rising star. One of her first victories, in the mid-1990s, was to persuade Gov. George Pataki to provide health insurance for the working poor, via a program called Family Health Plus. This past year, as a lobbyist, she convinced the Legislature to raise home health aides' hourly pay to $10 from $5. Ms. Cunningham's pride in public service is plain, and one could get the idea that she's a softy from her friendly manner. But that would be wrong. When Gov. Eliot Spitzer tried to cut hospital and nursing home funds last spring, Ms. Cunningham wrote the ads that used nurses and old people to scold the new governor. “It was contentious,” she says. “It was an odd assumption that because there was this new "tough guy,' we would have any other response than to do right by health care workers and patients.”

PR VETERAN FOCUSES ON FILMMAKERS

Leslee Dart 42West Her client roster proves Leslee Dart's impact in the entertainment in-dustry. The founder and chief executive of public relations agency 42West, Ms. Dart rep-resents high-profile film-makers Wes Anderson, Mike Nichols, Syd-ney Pollack and Woody Allen. The 53-year-old publicist says she started her own agency in 2004 after she was fired from powerhouse PMK/HBH Inc.-and took most of her clients with her. 42West, which began as the two-employee Dart Group and changed its name last fall, has since grown to 54 employees. At a time when filming in the Big Apple is booming, Ms. Dart has shown that you don't have to be on the West Coast to be a success in the movie busi-ness. Unlike most of her competitors, who are based in Hollywood, Ms. Dart anchors her agency in New York, where more than half of her staff works. In addition to enter-tain-ment marketing, the firm pro-vides more unique services, like awards-campaign coun-seling and crisis planning. In its first two and a half years, 42West's clients have already racked up hundreds of Oscar nominations. “It's not a matter of pulling out a PR 101 notebook,” Ms. Dart explains. “You really create a campaign for each individual project.” Judging from the Academy Award triumphs of recent films Crash and The Departed, it's not a bad strategy.

RECRUITER PUTS WOMEN ON BOARDS

Julie Hembrock Daum Spencer Stuart Julie hembrock daum is tackling one of the most glaring gender inequities in corporate America: the lack of women board directors. Ms. Daum, head of the North American board-staffing practice at Spencer Stuart, has helped place 350 women on boards since 2000. “I once had a company interested in recruiting a woman, but she had to speak German and like to go bird shooting,” says Ms. Daum. “That kind of thing doesn't happen anymore.” Ms. Daum, 53, has worked at Spencer Stuart for 14 years, following a career as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. The notches on her gun include some of the world's largest corporations. She filled the entire board of the newly public Delta Air Lines last spring, and also staffs the boardrooms for American Express, Pfizer, General Mills and UnitedHealthcare, to name a few. Each year, Ms. Daum develops the Spencer Stuart Board Index, a publication detailing trends at national boardrooms, and is also responsible for the creation of the Directors' Forum, a “boot camp” for first-time board directors, at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “We see ourselves as more than just recruiters,” says Ms. Daum. “We see ourselves as advisers in the boardroom.”

CONSENSUS-BUILDER ON HEALTH CARE

Karen Davis The Commonwealth Fund In the fractious field of health care policy, Karen Davis, president of The Com-monwealth Fund for 12 years, stands out as a consensus-builder whose practical ideas are helping states to reform their health care systems. A case in point: an influential 2003 article she co-wrote that outlined, among other things, how to cover the uninsured by expanding public health programs. Some of Ms. Davis' ideas have been taken up by presidential candidates and have inspired officials in Massachusetts and other states searching for progressive solutions. “She's always thinking of ways you can mix and match ideas, trying to weave them into a broader cloth,” says Dr. James Mongan, chief executive of Partners HealthCare System in Boston. The 89-year-old Com-mon-wealth Fund supports everything from rural health to improvements in elder care with some $20 mil-lion in grants each year. Ms. Davis, 64, an economist by training and the first woman to head an agency of the U.S. Public Health Service, says she isn't finished forcing change. “I find it a tragedy when there are things we know how to do and we don't do them,” she says.

INDIA NATIVE PROMOTES ALL OF ASIA

Vishakha Desai Asia Society Recent speakers at the Asia Society include Afghan President Hamid Karzai and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Composer Philip Glass attends performances, scouting for the hottest Asian musicians to collaborate with. Vishakha Desai, 58, a native of India, presides over it all. Ms. Desai, a scholar of classical Indian art and former performer of South Indian dance, was promoted to president of the 50-year-old institution three years ago-the first woman ever in that post. Since then, the $30 million organization has expanded its global reach. Last year, it went on a $100 million building spree, creating glitzy outposts in Hong Kong, Houston and elsewhere. Previously, Ms. Desai served as director of museum and cultural programs at the Asia Society, which became the first U.S. institution to present contemporary Asian art. Artists she introduced in a 1998 museum show are today fetching record prices at auctions. Ms. Desai is proud of the Asia Society's newfound prominence, but not surprised. “As Asia rises in importance, if the Asia Society doesn't rise in importance, we should close our doors,” she says.

ADVERTISING ADVOCATE

Laura Desmond Starcom MediaVest Group, The Americas Laura desmond first considered advertising as a career in an unlikely setting: her college rhetoric class. She was the only student to argue that advertising has a positive impact on society. “I thought there must be something [to advertising], since I was so positive embracing it,” she says. “I thought I had better check it out.” She did more than test her theory: Ms. Desmond became a major player in the ad game. As chief executive of the Americas division of giant media buyer Starcom MediaVest, she is responsible for more than $15 billion in annual media buys for advertising titans such as General Motors and Procter & Gamble. Ms. Desmond, 43, wasted no time climbing the career ladder after graduating from the University of Iowa. She won a coveted position at the prestigious media division of Leo Burnett, predecessor to Starcom. In 2000, she became CEO of Starcom MediaVest's Latin American division; within three years, she had doubled revenues. In 2003, she became CEO of the troubled MediaVest USA unit. She turned it around and soon won $350 million in business from Coca-Cola and a slew of new assignments from other heavyweights, including Wendy's and Wal-Mart. “Her leadership and our knowing she was at the helm made a big difference to us,” says Chuck Fruit, a senior adviser to Coca-Cola. Ms. Desmond was named CEO of SMG, The Americas last year.

ARCHITECT GIVES CITY A NEW LOOK

Elizabeth Diller Diller Scofidio + Renfro Elizabeth diller never wanted to become an architect: It was her parents' idea. But the former Cooper Union art student took an architecture course on a lark and ended up switching her degree. Now she is changing the face of New York. Together with her former college professor and now husband, Ric Scofidio, Ms. Diller has become the go-to architect for cultural and civic projects. The firm is designing the lion's share of the $1 billion overhaul of Lincoln Center, and also won the bid to transform New York's High Line into a park. Ms. Diller, 53, did not seek out mainstream commissions for most of her career, favoring small art installations instead. But in 1999, she and her husband became the first architects to win a so-called genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation. After that, clients like the Boston Institute for Contemporary Art came calling. Still, Ms. Diller, who teaches full-time at Princeton and works from 4 a.m. until 9 p.m. nearly every day, takes on only projects she's passionate about. “I don't distinguish the difference between work and play,” says the Poland-born daughter of Holocaust survivors. “My husband and I are very obsessed with our work, and it's contiguous with our personal lives.”

MATH MAJOR TAKES MAJOR BANK ROLE

Mary Callahan Erdoes J.P. Morgan Private Bank When she graduated from Georgetown Uni-versity, Mary Callahan Erdoes, the only woman in her class to receive a degree in mathematics, didn't know a balance sheet from a spreadsheet. “What I knew was that being a female math major was unique, and I had to figure out a way to use it,” she says. She got the jump start she needed from a crash course in finance and a job as an analyst at Bankers Trust. She joined J.P. Morgan Private Bank in 1996 as head of the fixed-income group, handling wealthy clients, foundations and endow-ments. Eight years later, she was named chief executive of the private bank, the third-largest in the world. On her watch, assets under management have grown more than 33%, to $422 billion. Colleagues credit Ms. Erdoes, 39, with first-rate coaching and communication skills. When she took over the private bank, she set up shop in the trenches alongside the portfolio managers, private bankers and estate advisers. She holds a daily 8:15 a.m. conference call, during which she fields questions from any of the bank's 3,500 employees in 38 countries. Her toughest challenge now is managing billions of dollars in a turbulent market. “The big job is making sure we're doing the best for clients in good markets and bad, being able to weather any storm,” Ms. Erdoes says.

REAL ESTATE AND THE ARTS

Katherine Farley Tishman Speyer Katherine farley is a power broker in two worlds: real estate and the arts. As a senior managing director at Tishman Speyer-where she has worked since 1984 and where she met her husband, Jerry Speyer, the company's chief executive-Ms. Farley is responsible for all of the real estate behemoth's busi-ness in emerging markets. The 58-year-old executive, who has a master's in architecture from Har-vard, presides over $600 million in investments in Brazil and $700 mil-lion in India, as well as projects in China totaling close to $1 billion. And that's her day job. Ms. Farley, vice chair of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, is leading the center's $1 billion redevelopment project, the city's largest and most important cultural expansion. She is also a trustee of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She made headlines a few years ago when, as chair of the New York Philharmonic's real estate committee, she led the orchestra's ill-fated negotiations to merge with Carnegie Hall. In general, Ms. Farley shies away from the spotlight. “She cares much more about the work than about herself,” says Reynold Levy, president of Lincoln Center. “She is very modest and self-effacing.”

IT'S ALL IN THE BOOK

Jane Friedman HarperCollins Jane friedman is head of the world's fourth-largest publishing company, a $1.34 billion giant with 3,000 employees and expanding operations worldwide. HarperCollins Publishers produces 4,500 books a year, including current hits like The Dangerous Book for Boys and literary gems like Annie Dillard's The Maytrees. Ms. Friedman, 62, who began her career as a Dictaphone typist, was an executive with Alfred A. Knopf before taking the top spot at HarperCollins in 1997. Since then, the subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has nearly doubled in size. With operating income of $159 million, it has the largest profit margins in the industry. Ms. Friedman, known for having her finger on the pulse of the mass market, is breaking more ground with her project to digitize the company's backlist. The mammoth undertaking will make books searchable and pave the way for HarperCollins to sell them in digital form. A working mother of four before it became common for women with children to climb the corporate ladder, Ms. Friedman has been known to interrupt a meeting with Mr. Murdoch to take a call from her son. “That is my rule,” she says, “that my sons can always reach me by phone-no matter what.”

A LEADER OF THOSE WHO TEACH

Susan Fuhrman Teachers College, Columbia University Susan fuhrman knows how to fix schools. She began her career as a professor of education policy at Rutgers University and for more than a decade has carried out her ideas from top positions at two of the nation's leading academic institutions. Ms. Fuhrman, 63, recently completed her first year as president of Columbia's Teachers College, where she is working to bridge gaps in the city's under-served schools. Before that, she was for 11 years dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Grad-uate School of Education, where her accomplishments included creating a model pre-K-through-8 public school in West Phila-delphia. Her initiatives have been copied by other reformers. “Her study on state and federal policy on elementary and secondary education puts her in the forefront of reform,” says Jim Kelly, president of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Ms. Fuhrman controls a budget of $170 million. She has spent the past year recruiting key personnel and developing more transparency in fiscal and policy matters. Perhaps her biggest influence is being felt off campus: Ms. Fuhrman is implementing professional-development programs at a dozen Harlem high schools.

CELEBRITY GOSSIP'S GODMOTHER

Bonnie Fuller American Media Bonnie fuller, the former editor of Us Weekly who is credited with defining the celebrity weekly maga-zine, took her star power to American Media Inc. in 2003. As chief editori-al director, she oversees 15 titles, including Star, Shape, Men's Fitness, Natural Health and Fit Pregnancy. Ms. Full-er, whose rsum includes stints at YM, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and Glamour, has transformed Star from a tabloid to a glossy title. Circulation has jumped 24% since her arrival, to 1.5 million copies, though she is under intense pressure to keep bumping up those numbers as readers move to the Internet. The number of advertising pages is up 36% since 2004. “Bonnie Fuller has a well-honed sense of how to deal with celebrities, but her real success derives from the fact that she used these skills just before there was an explosion of celebrity-driven media,” says Martin Walker, chairman of Walker Communications, a magazine consulting firm. In April 2006, Ms. Fuller, 51, published her first book, The Joys of Much Too Much: Go for the Big Life-The Great Career, The Perfect Guy, and Everything Else You've Ever Wanted. Ms. Fuller, who has four children, says she wants women to know “they can have a full life and a career”-and plenty of celebrity gossip.

UPDATING "HISTORY'

Ellen Futter American Museum of Natural History It's hard to imagine the American Museum of Natural History without the Rose Center for Earth and Space, which has introduced millions of people to the wonders of astronomy since it opened in 2000. Construction of the $210 million project was one of Ellen Futter's first feats after she became museum president 13 years ago. It wasn't her last. The 58-year-old former lawyer has turned the once-stagnant 138-year-old museum into a world-class institution. The museum's annual traffic has doubled to 4 million visitors, its endowment has grown 143% to $571 million, and its operating budget has tripled to $156 million. It recently secured authorization to grant graduate degrees in science, making it the first American museum awarded that right. Firsts are nothing new to the Long Island native. At 32 she became president of her alma mater, Barnard College, and the youngest person ever to head a major U.S. college. During 13 years in that post, she preserved Barnard's independence from Columbia University and built a dorm giving all students the option to live on campus. “I like being a provocateur for change in ways that advance the institutions while also staying true to their history or tradition,” she says.

TRAVEL AGENT OPERATES FIRST-CLASS

Barbara Gallay Linden Travel When simon cooper, president of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., wants advice on his hotels, he turns to Barbara Gallay. So do the heads of many other five-star hotels and leading cruise lines. Ms. Gallay, a 66-year-old New Jersey native, is president of one of the world's most exclusive travel agencies. Among her affluent clients: the top brass at numerous Fortune 100 corporations, members of European royalty, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Ms. Gallay, who as a young woman was told she was too tall to pursue her dream of becoming a stewardess, has run Linden Travel for the past 32 years. More than 100 associates work for her. Last year, Linden reached $100 million in revenue. In the first six months of the year, sales were 11% ahead of the previous year's levels. She is so busy that she barely has time for her first love: personal travel. “I have planned Bhutan twice and had to cancel it,” Ms. Gallay says. “But my business is so rewarding that I sometimes pinch myself because I can't believe I've done this.”

EXEC KEEPS HOSPITAL HEALTHY

Gladys George Lenox Hill Hospital Seventeen years ago, the recruiter seeking to fill the top job at Lenox Hill Hospital didn't think Gladys George, then the general counsel and acting president, was qualified to hold the post permanently. The hospital's directors thought differently. It turned out that they were right. Ms. George, known for her passion for the job and unassuming style, has steadied Lenox Hill during a tumultuous era for hospitals. She leads a giant institution: 652-bed Lenox Hill treats 225,000 patients a year. Combined with subsidiary Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, the organization has revenues of $637 million. Though it sits in the shadow of three major academic medical centers, it has been named among the nation's best hospitals for heart care, orthopedics and neurology and neurosurgery. For Ms. George, 61, the hard work is far from over. She has fought to keep Lenox Hill independent at a time when many other hospitals have merged. The hospital has been struggling financially, but its prospects are improving. Ms. George, one of only two women leading major New York City hospitals, says she has no thought of leaving. “I love my hospital,” she says. “Having this job has been a privilege.”

TOUGH AD EXEC WITH VELVET GLOVE

Mary Gerzema Universal McCann Advertising executive Mary Gerzema has a reputation for being a fist in a velvet glove. Early in her career, the accomplished, straight-shooting Midwesterner planned on becoming a lawyer. She probably would have been a litigator. “I can't fake it. Everybody knows where I am coming from,” she says. She has to be tough. Ms. Gerzema, 44, is president of the U.S. business of Universal McCann, a $6 billion media services enterprise. She manages the advertising purse strings of many of the world's biggest corporations, including Johnson & Johnson, Sony and Microsoft. She makes decisions that ripple throughout the media industry-from choosing which agencies handle which projects to deciding where ads get placed. Clients and colleagues love the Minnesota native's moxie. Her boss, Universal McCann Worldwide Chief Executive Nick Brien, boasts of the time she threatened to lead a revolution against him because he had been rude to colleagues during a meeting in London. “Mary isn't intimidated by figures of authority. That's one of the many great things about her,” he says.

DEVELOPER WITH KEEN STYLE SENSE

MaryAnne Gilmartin Forest City Ratner Maryanne gilmartin, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner Cos., is about to change Brooklyn forever. She is spearheading the colossal Atlantic Yards project, a $4 billion development that includes an arena designed by Frank Gehry, a 511-foot tower and 6,400 residential units. It ranks among the city's most important projects so far in the new millennium. That Forest City CEO Bruce Ratner gave Ms. Gilmartin the job reveals her stature in real estate. With the Renzo Piano-designed New York Times building, she showed the field that it was possible to do a speculative project with a top-tier architect. Other developers are now following her lead. Ms. Gilmartin, 43, says the paucity of female devel-opers made it easier to carve out a space in her own style, which includes an artistic sensibility. She sits on the advisory board of the New York City Ballet and is a member of the Architectural League of New York. “I've helped create a new image for developers,” she says. “Women have a place in this world, and they can be authentic here.”

THE PRIZE CURATOR OF HARLEM

Thelma Golden Studio Museum in Harlem The studio museum in Harlem has long been a local landmark. Since Thelma Golden took the helm, it's become known worldwide. “Wherever you go in the art world, when you say "Thelma,' you don't have to say "Golden,' ” says Nancy Lane, a Studio Museum trustee. “Thelma has moved us to a truly global stage.” The 41-year-old star curator joined the $6 million museum, which presents work by artists of African descent, in 2000 and became its director two years ago. The Queens native, who had wanted to work in the arts since the sixth grade, got her big break when the Whitney Museum of American Art hired her as a curator in 1991. She made headlines with a controversial show, “Black Male,” and earned a reputation for presenting chal- lenging ideas. She serves on numerous international art prize committees and is a juror for nearly all of the public art commissioned in New York City. She traipses the world in search of new artists to champion. “I still have the same feeling I had as a 15-year-old traveling the city by myself going to exhibitions,” she says. “At that time I was so moved by the experience of artworks, and it still happens, sometimes every day.”

ART DEALER HAS GLOBAL ROSTER

Marian Goodman Marian Goodman Gallery In the mid-1970s, Marian Goodman was running an art printing business when she fell in love with the work of Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers. She searched for a gallery to represent him in the United States-when no one would, Ms. Goodman opened one herself. Since then, Ms. Goodman, a New Yorker whose father was a collector, has used her East 57th Street gallery to build a roster of superstar artists, most of them Europeans. Her stable includes German painter Gerhard Richter, who recently had a show at the Museum of Modern Art, and German photographer Thomas Struth, who had a 2003 retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ten years ago she opened a gallery in Paris. Ms. Goodman, who declines to give her age, originally hoped to land a curatorial job after earning a master's in art history from Columbia University, but found those positions scarce for women at that time. Now she is one of the most influential dealers in the world. “I was on a mission to introduce these wonderful European artists to the United States,” she says. “I conducted somewhat of a crusade that eventually succeeded.”

TREND GURU FASHIONS MINI-EMPIRE

Stefani Greenfield Scoop NYC Stefani greenfield's inspiration for Scoop NYC came from friends who said things like, “I wish I could shop in your closet.” When she opened her first boutique downtown 11 years ago, she displayed her merchandise the way she organized her closet-organizing items by color and trend rather than by brand. Scoop met with immediate success and has since evolved into a mini fashion empire that boasts its own brand and online sales operation. Ms. Greenfield, 40, heads the design team for Scoop's private label and co-owns 13 stores in nine cities worldwide. Sales figures for her stores are impressive, ranging from $1,000 to $2,500 per square foot annually. She appears on The Today Show as a fashion expert and is collaborating with the Home Shopping Net- work on a show that will feature Scoop's labels and star Ms. Greenfield as co-host. Without fail, each trend that Ms. Greenfield welcomes into her stores develops into the next fashion craze. She has an uncanny ability to identify emerging trends-for example, her early endorsement of skinny jeans and ballet flats. But she remains humble. “There's no crystal ball,” she says. “You follow your internal concept and hope it leads in the right direction.”

MUSIC EXEC LEADS WAY TO TECH AGE

Julie Greenwald Atlantic Records Music maven Julie Greenwald has had her grind on ever since she joined Def Jam Records as the personal assistant to Lyor Cohen, head of the hip-hop label at the time. She flexed her work ethic and moved up to executive vice president of what became Universal Music's Island Def Jam Group before she turned 30. Today, as president of Atlantic Records-under Warner Music Group, where Mr. Cohen is chief executive-she's running one of the biggest record labels in the world. It's her job to lead Atlantic into the digital age by finding ways to bring music to consumers through technology-“and make kids pay for it,” she notes. This is an experimental phase for the industry, but Ms. Greenwald isn't afraid to fail. “Trying new things makes you smarter, wiser and more powerful,” she says. Ms. Greenwald, 37, expects no less from the 160 people who report to her, taking an unabashedly tough-love approach in her management style. “She has an aggressive, cutting-edge approach to A&R, marketing and promotion, which encourages her staff to constantly push the creative boundaries in developing our artists,” says Mr. Cohen.

DEVELOPER TRANSFORMS LANDSCAPE

Veronica Hackett The Clarett Group A woman in an industry dominated by men, and an outsider in a city where old-line families still call the shots, Veronica Hackett, 62, has built one of the most important development companies in New York City. The Clarett Group, which she co-founded eight years ago with the late Neil Klarfeld, is responsible for nearly $2 billion worth of development, including residential towers in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and in Harlem. The firm's managing partner, Ms. Hackett has expanded its operations to Washington, D.C., and to California. She is currently at work on a 1 million-square-foot project in Hollywood that is the centerpiece of a downtown revival. Ms. Hackett, who shares equity in the business with most of her 47 employees, is one of the Committee of 200, a nonprofit network of top women entrepreneurs who help other women in business. She takes a special interest in the unusual few with the nerve and vision to become developers. “With development, there's this physical ability to transform the landscape,” she says. “That's amazing.”

NAILING THE NETWORK CHIEF'S JOB

Bonnie Hammer USA Network and Sci Fi Channel Bonnie hammer fell into television. Back when she was a photographer working on the set of a public television show, she was offered the job of production assistant to replace someone who had just been fired. She stepped right into the promotion. That's been a major theme in Ms. Hammer's career: embracing what comes her way. “I'm comfortable taking risks, going places where other people won't go,” says Ms. Hammer. “If someone tells me that something can't be done, I just work harder.” As a programming executive at USA Network, she crafted its prestigious “Erase the Hate” public service campaign. She was then assigned to help develop programming for the World Wrestling Federation. She initially hated the sport so much that she almost quit, but she decided to give the job a try. She made it work. Then in 2001, Barry Diller, head of USA Networks Inc., made Ms. Hammer head of the Sci Fi Channel, an underdeveloped property. He told her, “Do something with this,” she says. She turned the channel from a genre wallflower into a ratings powerhouse. In 2004, she became president of USA as well. Now she's turning the industry upside down. USA Network is the top-rated channel on cable, and Sci Fi is rated No. 5. Together, they have won nine Emmys and a Peabody. The networks, now part of the NBC Universal Television Group, are available in more than 90 million homes.

CHUTZPAH BUILDS A NAME

Dottie Herman Prudential Douglas Elliman Dottie herman personifies the conviction required to succeed in New York's residential real estate business. She started out as a broker on Long Island and built a company through a series of acquisitions that began in 1989. She is now chief executive of Prudential Douglas Elliman, one of the largest real estate brokerages in the metro area, with projected 2007 sales volume of $14 billion. “You can't be afraid to fail,” claims Ms. Herman, 54. “People laughed in my face while I was doing this.” Ms. Herman, who broke into the city by buying Douglas Elliman soon after Sept. 11 had roiled the market, now oversees an empire: 3,300 brokers and 1,000 staffers involved in the brokerage, a mortgage company, property management operation and title firm. She has adopted novel strategies gleaned from outside the city, such as maintain-ing a desk to get Internet queries answered in real time. Always in demand as an inspirational speaker, Ms. Herman often mentions the sign in her office: “Success is just failure turned inside out.”

BAM HEAD DELIVERS MORE BANG

Karen Brooks Hopkins Brooklyn Academy of Music When karen brooks Hopkins came to the Brooklyn Academy of Music as a development assistant in 1979, the place was a tough sell to funders and patrons. No longer. Ms. Hopkins took over from Harvey Lichtenstein, longtime BAM president and her mentor, eight years ago. Since then, annual attendance has tripled to 500,000, and the budget has more than dou-bled to $35 mil-lion. She has built an endowment of $60 million from nothing. In fact, with programs like the acclaimed Next Wave Festival and Sundance film-screening series-and edgy campaigns to market them-Ms. Hopkins' success wooing young audiences has been copied by major Manhattan institutions like Lincoln Center. Ms. Hopkins' imprint also extends outside the arts world. She is the first cultural executive in decades to become a New York state regent and is playing a leadership role in the revitalization of Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood. The 55-year-old mother of a college-age son says there is rarely a moment when she isn't working. “BAM is not a job, but a crusade,” she says. “Building it has been my life.”

DANCER HAS STEPPED UP FOR AILEY

Judith Jamison Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater It's been three years since the opening of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's stunning new building on West 55th Street, but Judith Jamison still gasps in disbelief every time she walks in the door. The 64-year-old artistic director-a legendary choreographer who was once one of the most famous dancers in the world-convinced her board of directors that Ailey needed its own home. She helped raise $75 million to build the facility, the largest one in the nation used exclusively for dance. Her feat should come as no surprise. Mr. Ailey handpicked her to run the company shortly before his death in 1989. Since then, she has pulled Ailey out of the red and doubled its budget to $24 million. She has led Ailey dancers to performances worldwide, set up dance camps around the country and established a joint bachelor's program with Fordham University. Ms. Jamison, who grew up in a close-knit, churchgoing family in Philadelphia, credits her faith for her success. “That's how I've gotten as far as I've gotten, because it sure isn't all me,” she says. “Whatever gift God gives us is what we're here to do.”

SHE FINDS CALLING

Andrea Jung Avon Products During her 13 years with Avon Products Inc., Andrea Jung has done nearly everything except actually ringing customers' doorbells. She started with the cosmetics firm as a marketing executive and worked her way through various positions, with responsibility for research and development, strategic planning and joint ventures. The breadth of her experience helped Ms. Jung land the top job in 1999. That year, the company reported revenue of $5.3 billion. Since becoming chief executive, Ms. Jung has grown Avon's sales to $9 billion by expanding the company's reach around the world, introducing Avon to a younger generation of shoppers and striking innovative alliances such as the fragrance deal Avon made last year with Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. “She has made Avon more relevant to the women who sell it and the women who buy it,” says Connie Maneaty, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets who covers the cosmetics industry. “It was always one of those brands in the back of your mind, but now it's more contem-porary.” Ms. Jung, a 48-year-old graduate of Princeton University, grew up in Massachusetts as a daughter of immigrant parents and speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.

GEEK RISES TO THE TOP

Sallie Krawcheck Citigroup Global Wealth Management In high school, Sallie Krawcheck blossomed into a socially secure homecoming queen and track star, but she never forgot the earlier years she spent as a loner. Today, she draws on both sides of her personality as chief executive of one of the world's largest financial operations: Citigroup Global Wealth Management, which oversees $1.4 trillion in client assets. The 42-year-old former securities analyst loves nothing better than poring over spreadsheets in the morning-“I am a geek through and through,” she says-then trotting off to wealth- management office visits in the afternoon and client functions at night. “A successful businessperson has to move seamlessly through both worlds,” Ms. Krawcheck says. But it was also her reputation for integrity that prompted Citigroup Chief Executive Charles Prince to elevate her from CEO of Smith Barney to chief financial officer in 2004, a position she held until early this year. Mr. Prince needed her help to overcome a conflict-of-interest scandal. Now, with oversight of Citi's 46,000 employees in global wealth management, Ms. Krawcheck is drawing on her reputation and skills to wield uncommon influence.

RETAIL EXEC REACHES LOFT-Y GOAL

Kay Krill Ann Taylor Stores It didn't take long for Kay Krill to change the DNA of Ann Taylor Stores Corp. Within a year of signing on as vice president of merchandising in 1994, she launched and began nurturing Loft, a casual-apparel chain designed to complement the company's core offering, Ann Taylor. Although Ann Taylor has experienced ups and downs, Loft eventually outgrew its sister brand, and now the two lines generate a combined $2.4 billion in annual sales. Industry observers and company insiders say the key to Loft's success was Ms. Krill herself, now chief executive. She is known for her remarkable merchandising savvy and hands-on management style, not to mention her lingering Southern drawl. Ms. Krill, a 52-year-old North Carolina native, studied psychology and economics at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, but she learned the apparel industry on the job. In 1977, she went through Macy's executive training program before landing a job at Talbot's in the 1980s. Ms. Krill also served in various management positions at Hartmarx and Carroll Reed before she got to Ann Taylor. “Kay's depth of experience in the industry, combined with her talent for effectively shaping and building brands, have made both her and our company more successful over time,” says Michele Patton, a Loft senior vice president and director of stores.

COSMETICS EXEC HARDLY SKIN-DEEP

Evelyn Lauder Este Lauder Every woman is frightened about breast cancer,” says Evelyn Lauder, senior corporate vice president of The Este Lauder Cos. She is one of the most prominent New Yorkers raising funds to fight the disease. In 1989, she and her husband, Leonard Lauder, son of the late founder of the company, raised $18 million to establish the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, which has become a worldwide model for coordinating supportive services for breast cancer patients. In the early 1990s, Ms. Lauder started the company's pink- ribbon campaign to spread awareness about breast health. The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which Ms. Lauder established in 1993 to address a lack of funding for research, has raised $180 million. “Evelyn's foundation brings together the scientists and clinicians, which is a new way to make a difference in the fight against breast cancer,” says Dr. Larry Norton, deputy physician in chief for breast cancer programs at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Ms. Lauder, 70, is singularly focused on this battle. An avid photographer, she has donated $1 million in proceeds from published photo collections and gallery exhibitions to the foundation.

MARKETING FIREBRAND

Shelly Lazarus Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide From her perch atop a sprawling marketing network, Shelly Lazarus preaches the religion of “360-degree branding”-projecting a single message throughout print, television, radio and Internet advertising campaigns. “You have to understand every possible way the brand interacts with customers,” she says. Ms. Lazarus is chief executive of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide Inc., an advertising conglomerate with 10,000 employees in 377 offices across 97 countries. Total billings last year reached more than $10 billion. She says that she brings the same commitment to her job that she brings to her outside pursuits, like hiking, biking and skiing. And she hires only people who approach advertising in the same way. “I believe that people who are passionate about what they do succeed,” she says. “You need that kind of passion in the people around you.” Ms. Lazarus, 59, acquired the passion when she joined Ogilvy, following a short stint at Clairol immediately after she earned her master's degree from Columbia Business School. She had planned to stay just a few years at the agency; instead, she built her career there. She has served as chairman and chief executive for the past 10 years.

A BELIEVER FIGHTS THE GOOD FIGHT

Bertha Lewis New York Acorn Bertha lewis has a passion for left-wing politics, and feet that are not at all pretty. Ms. Lewis, the executive director of the New York Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has logged thousands of miles collecting signatures, walking picket lines and getting out the vote. Along the way, she has become the leader of a grassroots force that can make or break many a well-crafted business deal. Ms. Lewis, 56, started down the road almost 20 years ago, fighting successfully for everything from squatters' rights to a higher minimum wage. In 1998, she helped found the union-allied Working Families Party. The WFP is as much a lobbying group as it is the choice on a ballot line; politicians of all stripes routinely seek Ms. Lewis' endorsement. “Once a year, I'm a popular girl,” she says. “These are people that otherwise wouldn't bother to spit on me.” Ms. Lewis has recently used her clout to help derail one controversial development plan, Starrett City, and assist another, Atlantic Yards. This past summer, she helped 60,000 child care providers win the right to unionize. Her vision extends beyond New York: Ms. Lewis is helping groups in half a dozen states establish liberal third parties of their own.

BUILDING ON A LEGEND

Pamela Liebman The Corcoran Group Pamela liebman says that conversation at dinner parties inevitably lands on two topics of almost equally wide appeal: sex and real estate. “I'm not sure which is at the top of the list,” she says, but she does know that she can comfortably lead any discussion about real estate. Ms. Liebman, 45, has been chief executive of The Corcoran Group Inc. for seven years, succeeding legendary founder Barbara Corcoran. On her watch, the residential brokerage has grown from $2 billion in annual sales to a forecast $14 billion for 2007, expanded to Long Island and Palm Beach, and bought Citi Habitats, a firm specializing in rental units. Corcoran, with 2,500 employees and brokers, is one of the city's largest residential brokerage firms and probably the best-known, partly because the eloquent Ms. Liebman is so often the voice of the industry. Inspired when a family friend was diagnosed with leukemia, she has also become a rising health care philanthropist, helping to run a foundation and holding a seat on the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society board.

MANAGING MARTHA'S MAKEOVER

Susan Lyne Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia In 2005, when Martha Stewart, fresh out of prison, spoke to employees of Martha Stew-art Living Omnimedia Inc. while the TV cameras rolled, Susan Lyne was the other woman on the stage. Today, while Ms. Stewart remains the personifi-cation of the brand, Ms. Lyne is center stage in the executive suite. In the two and a half years that she's served as chief executive, Ms. Lyne has overseen an expansion of the lifestyle empire built by Ms. Stewart, who remains with the company as a creative consultant but is barred from serving as an officer or director. Ms. Lyne has signed more than a dozen major merchandising deals, including one for a massive line of products for Macy's, and launched additional publications, including Blueprint. “Our focus has been to create new products and new businesses that allow women to express themselves and improve their lifestyles in new ways,” Ms. Lyne says. The executive, 56, is able to draw on a variety of professional experiences. She was formerly managing editor of The Village Voice, the creator and editor of Premiere Magazine, and president of ABC Entertainment, where she championed hit shows Lost, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. “I think at ABC, I was able to steer programming toward "girl shows'-shows that women could look upon as their own,” she says.

PRODUCER COMMANDS BROADWAY

Elizabeth McCann Theater producer With her tough-talking demeanor, Broadway producer Elizabeth McCann sounds like a character in one of her award-winning plays. She peppers a con-versation with wisecracks. “Getting ahead in business means having an ability to compromise your conscience, and you get better at it the older you get,” she says. Later, she expounds, “My parents were immigrants from Scotland but everyone thinks I'm Irish, which makes me happy because no one knows how shrewd the Scots are with a dollar.” Steel and wit is how the diehard New Yorker broke into the clubby theater world more than 40 years ago and has stayed on top ever since. Ms. McCann, 76, has produced a dizzying array of hits, including The Elephant Man, Copenhagen and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She has won eight Tony Awards along the way. Never one to shy away from edgy material, Ms. McCann has produced all of Edward Albee's plays during the last 20 years. Ms. McCann's love affair with the theater began at age 16, when her cousin took her to her first show. She started in the business as a ticket taker, earned a law degree from Fordham, and was managing director for the Nederlander family before going out on her own. Among the shows she produces: the Tony Awards.

A NATURAL FOR GAS OPERATIONS

Mary Jane McCartney Consolidated Edison Mary jane mccartney delivers gas to 1.1 million homes and offices in New York City and Westchester. She doesn't drive a truck: For the past 14 years, she has served as head of gas operations at Consolidated Edison Co. It's her job to assure that a steady flow of natural gas makes its way here from as far away as the Gulf of Mexico and Canada. During her tenure, natural gas usage has increased 149.5% since 1993. “We really see gas as a factor in reducing New York City's carbon dioxide footprint,” she says. Ms. McCart-ney, 59, supervises a team of 1,000 people who respond to emergency calls about gas leaks and build, repair and inspect gas pipes. Her division has shepherded innovative changes such as the introduction of robotic gas-pipe sealers to minimize disturbances on New York City's streets. In a field dominated by men, Ms. McCartney commits herself to assisting female colleagues through brown-bag lunch programs and by arranging special work schedules for women returning from maternity leave. She is proud of the role she plays in the city. “If you fly into New York and you see the lights,” says Ms. McCartney, “you know that the work we're doing is keeping the city going.”

CHANNELING PASSIONS

Judy McGrath MTV Networks When she was a child, Judy McGrath wanted to be a conductor. She did become a conductor of sorts-but her orchestra rocks. Ms. McGrath, 54, is the chief executive of MTV Networks Co., which operates 138 cable channels-including MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Logo-and more than 270 Web sites. With 500 million viewers worldwide, MTV channels are so widely watched that imams in Islamic countries use them to run announcements alerting teens to come to prayer. Ms. McGrath joined the nascent MTV in 1981 as an on-air promotions writer and quickly rose through the ranks by adopting the company's youthful, maverick tendencies. She still sneaks off at night to watch Beastie Boys concerts in Central Park. Her greatest professional pride stems from the extent to which MTV has established itself as a mainstream platform for political activism. By offering programming like Darfur Is Dying, Rock the Vote and the recent Presidential Forum held on Logo, Ms. McGrath's networks provide a voice for kids yearning to change the world. “We serve superpassionate fans who are always reaching, always changing,” she says. “That's at the heart of everything we do.”

TREASURY TENDER

Heidi Miller J.P. Morgan Chase Heidi miller, chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s $9 billion treasury and securities services business, holds one of the big-gest financial services jobs in the country. The business, which serves governments, corporations and financial institutions, has custody of $15.2 trillion in assets and handles some $3 trillion in wire transfers daily. In her first year on the job, Ms. Miller exhorted colleagues at an industry conference to follow the example of innovators such as PayPal and provide faster, cheaper and simpler processing for customers. The 54-year-old executive has streamlined J.P. Morgan Chase's securities services business and introduced new products to treasury services, while increasing revenues, transaction volumes and assets under custody. Armed with degrees from Princeton and Yale, Ms. Miller started her career at Chemical Bank in 1979, later moving to Travelers Insurance. She became chief financial officer of Citi-group in 1998 when Citi-corp and Travelers merged. Following top-level stints at Priceline.com and Marsh Inc., she was named CFO of Bank One; there, she helped chief Jamie Dimon accomplish a stunning turnaround. She assumed her current position when Bank One and J.P. Morgan Chase merged in 2004.

MAGAZINES' NO. 1 FAN

Ann Moore Time Inc. For a groundbreaking executive who has risen to the top of her profession, Ann Moore hasn't wandered far. The chairwoman and chief executive of Time Inc. since 2002-and the first woman to head the company-was hired by the No. 1 magazine publisher straight out of Harvard Business School in 1978. She joined for love, not money. Time Inc.'s offer was the lowest of the dozen or so that she received, but Ms. Moore, 57, was crazy about magazines. Her passion paid off: By the late 1980s she was founding publisher of Sports Illustrated for Kids. As president of People from 1993 to 2001, she turned Time Inc.'s most profitable publication into the launching pad for juggernauts In Style and Real Simple. Those three titles have continued to bolster Time Inc. as competition from the Internet has taken a toll on stalwarts Time and Fortune. With some analysts calling Time Inc. a drag on earnings and a poor fit within parent Time Warner, Ms. Moore's focus now is on transforming the publisher into a multiplatform content company with a host of profit-generating Web sites. But she still finds time for her first love. “I got to read four magazines on the way back from an out-of-town meeting this morning,” Ms. Moore says. “That's my work. How lucky is that?”

MARQUEE MEDIA DEALS

Nancy Peretsman Allen & Co. LLC In the hypercompetitive world of mergers and acquisitions, Nancy Peretsman is on everyone's list of power players. No wonder. Her track record has made her the go-to guru for Barry Diller and other leading media bosses. “She thinks like an owner,” says Herbert Allen, president of affiliate investment firm Allen & Co. Inc., who has known Ms. Peretsman since she was in college and babysat for his kids. “She's got a better batting average of being right than anyone I've ever seen.” Ms. Peretsman, 53, had planned to become a lawyer after she graduated from Princeton University, but she became disenchanted with that idea and headed to the Yale School of Management instead. She spent a dozen years at Salomon Brothers, where she led the media investment banking group. She joined Allen & Co. in 1995, just as the digital media age was dawning. As a managing director of the investment banking firm, she has helped construct countless marquee deals, including News Corp.'s successful $5.6 billion bid for Dow Jones. “It's all about timing,” says Ms. Peretsman. “Sometimes it's the wrong time for a transaction and you have to tell people that or, conversely, recognize that it's the right time.”

MUSEUM DIRECTOR THINKS BIG

Lisa Phillips New Museum of Contemporary Art Eight years ago, Lisa Phillips was starting a new job as director of the New Museum while curating a huge exhibition of 20th-century American art for her former employer, the Whitney Museum-and while pregnant with twins. When her doctor ordered her to go on bed rest, Ms. Phillips rolled a couch into her office and kept working. It's no wonder that under her leadership, the New Museum is preparing to open a $50 million building on the Bowery in December. The facility, a huge step up from the museum's former location in a SoHo storefront, is already the talk of the art world. Ms. Phillips has also increased the institution's budget to $10 million from $2 million, tripled its endowment and helped create a board so desirable that it has a waiting list. At the Whitney, Ms. Phillips organized the first major museum shows in New York for Julian Schnabel, Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman, putting those artists on the map. Despite her accomplishments, the 52-year-old native New Yorker-whose secret passion is meteorology-is restless. “I had a lot of recognition early on, but success is something else,” she says. “I keep raising the bar for that one and re-evaluating what success means.”

INSURING BLUE-COLLAR CONNECTION

Vikki Pryor SBLI USA Mutual Life Insurance Vikki pryor has quietly and patiently remade SBLI USA Mutual Life Insurance Co. Once a New York-centric niche player, SBLI is now a leading financial services provider for America's working class. Before Ms. Pryor, 53, stepped into the role of chief executive nine years ago, SBLI's products were sold only in New York banks. She launched training programs for all the company's employees, streamlined its offerings and kick-started Web operations. Now the company's products are sold in 49 states through banks, Web sites and walk-in customer centers, as well as over the phone. The company has nearly 400,000 policyholders, $16.7 billion of insurance in force and $1.5 billion in assets. Ms. Pryor says she expanded the company's presence in order to revitalize its connection to blue-collar clients, the core of its customer base. “Our products are vitally important for the average person,” she says. “We are always focused on how these programs reflect how these families live and work.” The executive's other obsession is education. Five years ago, Ms. Pryor-a former trial attorney with the U.S. Treasury-established the Promise Prize, a law school academic award, in memory of her grandmother. Business colleagues say that her low-key personality belies her resolve. “Never mistake her quietness for a lack of strong feelings,” says Robert Catell of Ms. Pryor, who served on his board when he was chief executive of KeySpan Corp.

A SCHOOL FINDS ITS RESTORER

Jennifer Raab Hunter College When jennifer raab took over as president of Hunter College in 2001, the City University of New York had just scrapped its decades-long open admissions policy. The ugly public fight over the change left the morale of Hunter students and faculty in tatters. “Departments had been shut down, and it was hard to attract faculty,” she says. The story is different now. Ms. Raab has made the school competitive in the faculty market by raising $25 million in private donations for improved facilities, as well as for professional training programs and scholarships. The college, which has an annual budget of $170 million and 21,000 students, is also mining its alumni for donations. Additionally, faculty members have received $39 million in research grants in recent years. Ms. Raab, 51, married to Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin, came to Hunter after seven years at the city Landmarks Preservation Commission as an appointee of Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The former practicing attorney served as issues director in Mr. Giuliani's 1989 mayoral campaign. “Often, the key to success is to change the culture,” she says.

MET LIFER'S EMPLOYEES TOP PRIORITY

Emily Rafferty Metropolitan Museum of Art Emily rafferty is a Met lifer. She began her career in 1975 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a 25-year-old assistant in the development office. She worked her way up to run the Met's national and international fundraising oper-ations, where she raised hundreds of millions of dollars and added thousands of members. Then, three years ago, she was named president, the No. 2 position at the museum. Today, 58-year-old Ms. Rafferty-the first woman to run the Met's day-to-day oper-a-tions-oversees 2,000 employees, a $190 million annual operating bud-get and an $80 million merchan-dis-ing business. She is close to wrap-ping up a $1 billion capital campaign. Ms. Rafferty's influence extends well beyond the Met. She has men-tored dozens of mu-seum pro-fes-sionals who have gone on to careers all over the country. Even now, she says, her employees are her top priority. “The thing I worry about the most is the health and well-being of the staff,” says Ms. Rafferty, who grew up blocks from the Met. “Our people are what make this place come alive.”

MOVING PAST ABC'S OF CABLE

Abbe Raven A&E Television Networks Television executives turned up their noses at shows about offbeat topics like drug interventions and ancient Roman sewers-until Abbe Raven proved that such infotainment content was programming gold. Ms. Raven, a former teacher, has devoted her 23-year television career to tapping viewers' appetite for shows that other networks deemed boring or weird. She was part of the creative team that launched The History Channel in 1995 and resuscitated the flagging A&E Network in 2004 by debuting nontraditional fare such as Dog the Bounty Hunter, Growing Up Gotti and Intervention. “At the time, these shows were a little different,” Ms. Raven says. “There was a lot of skepticism about what we were doing.” In 2005, Ms. Raven was named chief executive of A&E Television Networks-a $1 billion enterprise that operates seven channels available to 300 million viewers. She also remains active in education: The 54-year-old Queens native recently served as principal for a day at her old high school, Andrew Jackson, in Cambria Heights, and she leads a kind of class discussion each week with small groups of her employees. “Good ideas come from everywhere,” she says.

FOOD MAVEN HAS TASTE FOR SUCCESS

Rachael Ray Cooking entrepreneur By now, everyone in the country knows Rachael Ray. The Queen of Quick started a sensation in 1998 when she published her first cookbook, 30-Minute Meals. The book evolved into a Food Network show of the same name, which won an Emmy Award in 2006. She has since cooked up a mini-empire. “I think people like anything that's accessible, that they can look at and say, "Hey, I could see myself doing that,' ” she says. Ms. Ray hosts the Food Network's Tasty Travels and a syndicated television talk show, Rachael Ray, carried by 194 stations and reaching 4.3 million people every day. Her cookbooks-12 in all-take turns appearing on The New York Times bestseller list, and her magazine, Every Day With Rachael Ray, has 1.3 million readers. Ms. Ray has also started a nonprofit, the aptly named Yum-o, to encourage healthier eating habits in children. In spite of her full plate, Ms. Ray, 39, remains as cool as the cucumber she uses in her spicy no-bake beans. “If I only have one day off every 20 days, it's OK,” she says. “I know how to cram a lot in.”

PRIVATE EQUITY PERSONALITY

Jacqueline Reses Apax Partners As the head of the U.S. media group at Apax Partners, Jacqueline Reses is one of the few women in the upper reaches of the private equity world. Earlier this year, she led the Apax team that won one of the most competitive private equity deals of recent years: the $7.8 billion acquisition of Thomson Learning, the second-largest educational publisher in the country. Ms. Reses has been applying her business instincts from way back. When she was 8 years old, she accompanied her father on sales trips and late-night oxygen deliveries for his medical supply business. As president of her high school class, she invested the class's money in a money market account. At the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, she majored in entrepreneurial management and marketing. “Entrepreneurialism is in my blood,” says 37-year-old Ms. Reses. Her first job after Wharton was at Goldman Sachs, where she worked in mergers and acquisitions. But her desire to do something entrepreneurial was irrepressible. She left Goldman, eventually going to head a technology startup. In 2001, she joined Apax-a leading private equity firm, with more than $20 billion under management-and a year later, she founded its U.S. media group.

A&R EXPERT BREAKS BARRIERS

Sylvia Rhone Universal Motown Records When sylvia rhone was named chairman of Atlantic's Elektra Entertainment Group in 1994, the veteran music executive achieved two industry milestones: She became the first woman and the first African-American to be tapped to run a major label. Ms. Rhone has been breaking ground for years. At Elektra, she guided the delicate merger of Elektra, East West and Sire Records and fashioned one of Warner Music Group's most competitive labels. She also mentored young female and minority executives, prompting Time Warner Chairman Dick Parsons to comment, “The Elektra Entertainment Group was one of the most actualized examples of diversity in action at a company that I've ever seen.” Now, she is doing the same thing as president of Universal Motown Records, where she manages a staff of 200. Ms. Rhone-born and raised in Harlem-has been recognized throughout her career for her ability to spot and nurture great artists. Her roster at Motown fuses legends like Stevie Wonder with new stars India.Arie, Erykah Badu and Lil' Wayne. The 55-year-old Ms. Rhone, a Wharton graduate, holds dozens of career awards and has taken the lead in a series of community causes, ranging from rebuilding burned churches to supporting the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

FROM BRAINY BANKER TO BUYOUT BOSS

Julie Richardson Providence Equity Partners There weren't a lot of tele-commu-nications deals being done when Julie Richardson cut her teeth in investment banking at Merrill Lynch 20 years ago. But the ones she did prepared her for the front lines when giant telecom transactions started to pop in the 1990s. “I was 27 and had done a couple of deals and suddenly, I became a de facto telecom person,” she says. Ms. Richardson continued to sharpen her credentials. She left Merrill Lynch in 1998 for J.P. Morgan, where she eventually became chair of the telecom group and a banker to heavyweights like AOL Time Warner and Verizon. She was J.P. Morgan's lead banker for Comcast in that company's $72 billion hostile takeover of AT&T's broadband business. Former colleague Robert Kindler, who worked with her on that deal, says she was one of the best bankers in the business. “She's clearly the smartest person in the room,” says Mr. Kindler, now vice chairman of Morgan Stanley. Ms. Richardson, 44, now heads the New York office of buyout firm Providence Equity Partners. In 2005, she led a Prov-idence team in the $11.3 billion buyout of software maker SunGard. “Twenty years into it,” she says, “I still love what I do every day.”

GRAY LADY'S WEB POWER

Janet Robinson The New York Times Co. Janet sees where the media business is going,” says Janet Robinson's boss, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times. “She knows how to translate all we do in print for a digital audience.” Ms. Robinson, 57, worked her way up through the ranks over a quarter of a century with the paper. Chief executive of The New York Times Co. since 2005, she spearheaded the acquisition of About.com and other Internet properties. Digital revenues have grown to 10% from 4% of the total since 2004, and The Times' Web site has more unique visitors than any other newspaper's, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. These are challenging times to preside over a traditional media company adapting to a digital environment-and perhaps no operation is under more scrutiny than The Times. Ms. Robinson led a $200 million cost reduction that included consolidating printing plants, trimming paper size and cutting staff. “I'm focused on running the company for the benefit of shareholders and making sure we transition to the digital age as quickly and effectively as possible.” Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of The Wall Street Journal-the nation's other great national paper-makes her task even more urgent.

CHARITY'S BOTTOM-LINE ENFORCER

Judith Rodin The Rockefeller Foundation As president of The Rockefeller Foundation, Judith Rodin controls a $3.7 billion endowment that dispensed $147.5 million last year for urban and agricultural redevelopment in 34 countries. But writing checks is not the only way she makes her presence felt. “There's more to charitable giving than giving,” says Dr. Rodin, who has shaken up the 94-year-old institution since she took the helm two years ago. “We're looking for accountability, transparency and nimbleness so that we can change a project midstream if we're not seeing results.” After cleaning house and hiring her own team, Dr. Rodin began emphasizing big projects, like a $12.5 million grant to help rebuild New Orleans and a $50 million commitment with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to enhance crop production in Africa. The scattershot approach, in which she says the foundation dispersed money through “too many small, unrelated grants,” has been jettisoned. Dr. Rodin, 63, developed her bottom-line leadership style during her 10 years as president of the University of Pennsylvania, where she returned a money-losing medical center to profitability. “Grant-making today must be conditioned on performance,” she says.

A KNOWING VOICE FOR LATINOS

Rossana Rosado El Diario La Prensa T he publisher of El Diario La Prensa since 1999, Rossana Rosado is one of the most prominent voices for Latino New Yorkers. She has steered the ship through a stormy time. During her tenure, the daily newspaper has been sold and resold, most recently to ImpreMedia Co., which earlier this year also scooped up rival Spanish-language paper Hoy New York from the Tribune Co. “Other newspapers have made the mistake of becoming disconnected from their readers,” says John Paton, ImpreMedia's chief executive. “Rossana has an intense local focus.” Ms. Rosado, 46, started at the paper as a reporter and later became its editor. El Diario now generates annual revenue of $22 million, and national advertising sales have risen 28% in three years. The paper has a circulation of 50,000 and reaches more than 295,000 readers. Both those measures have grown over the past two years as many newspapers watched readership decline. Her access to government officials, nonprofits and community groups has given Ms. Rosado leverage “to represent a community that hasn't had influence and power,” she says. Her newfound clout-and that of her readers-is likely to only keep growing.

FILM BUFF ON A ROLL

Jane Rosenthal Tribeca Productions/Tribeca Enterprises Jane rosenthal is the business brains behind the wheel of New York's most famous taxi driver: Robert De Niro. The duo, who founded Tribeca Productions in 1989, has produced 22 movies. Perhaps Ms. Rosenthal's most important contribution to the city, however, came in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. She and Mr. De Niro, along with Ms. Rosenthal's husband, real estate financier Craig Hatkoff, launched the Tribeca Film Festival to help revive downtown. “As filmmakers, the only thing we knew how to do was to screen pictures,” says Ms. Rosenthal, 50. The first festival, in 2002, attracted 150,000 visitors. The event has grown into an annual celebration of worldwide film and culture that most recently brought in 500,000 people for screenings, concerts, family events and panel discussions. “We are everybody's festival,” says Ms. Rosenthal. “You don't just have to be in the movie industry to come to TriBeCa.” In addition to her dealings downtown, Ms. Rosenthal is active in Democratic Party politics as a fundraiser-she's backing Sen. Hillary Clinton for the 2008 presidential race. Top mayoral aide Patricia Harris, who has worked with Ms. Rosenthal since the first festival, says, “Anytime the city needs her help, she is always ready to lend a hand.”

PRODUCER THRIVES ON-, OFFSTAGE

Daryl Roth Daryl Roth Productions Daryl roth has produced five Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, including Wit and Proof. She has received two Tony Awards and countless nominations. When fellow producers have a hot project, they call Ms. Roth first, team-ing up with her on hits like The Year of Magical Thinking and Curtains. Ms. Roth, a former interior designer who is married to real estate magnate Steven Roth, achieved her clout through tenacity. “I had no fear of failing,” she says. “I still remember feeling I had to just keep looking forward and refuse to listen to people who weren't encouraging.” It has been nearly 20 years since the 63-year-old producer put on her first show and fulfilled a lifelong dream. Now a major force on and off Broadway, the New Jersey native has a reputation for finding high-quality work and supporting emerging talent. A few years ago, Ms. Roth started an annual theater fund, allowing investors to put their money into whatever projects she chooses for the season. They trust her to make the calls. Her influence is felt offstage, as well. In 1996, she bought a former bank building on Union Square and turned it into a theater. The Daryl Roth Theatre has been a major catalyst in making the neighborhood a destination.

OUT IN FRONT AT BROKER'S BACK OFFICE

Diane Schueneman Merrill Lynch Diane schueneman started at Merrill Lynch & Co. in preautomation days, working at night as a billing clerk while she was still in high school. It was an inglorious beginning for someone who now, as head of global infrastructure solutions, runs the back office of the nation's biggest brokerage. She manages services, operations, technology and information security for the firm, which has net revenues of $35 billion. Ms. Schueneman, 55, is one of a handful of women in top technology jobs on Wall Street. Her rise at Merrill began in 1971 when, lacking the money to finish college, she parlayed her early jobs there into a position in fixed-income sales. Over the next 33 years, she headed numerous businesses. She oversaw a $1 billion overhaul of brokers' workstations, a watershed accomplishment that experts say has given Merrill a several-year advantage over its competitors. In 2004, she won her current job. The continuing challenge, she says, is keeping up with change. “If you're going to be in our business, you have to be agile and recognize a changing trend early on,” she says.

HIGH STEPS OF A FASHION FABULON

Kimora Lee Simmons Baby Phat Over a decade, this 32-year-old former supermodel and hip-hop style icon has turned herself into a one-woman fashion powerhouse. In 2004, Kimora Lee Simmons and estranged husband Russell Simmons sold their company, Baby Phat Fashions, to apparel giant Kellwood Co. for $140 million. Ms. Simmons is now creative director of Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons (part of Baby Phat Fashions) and controls the licenses for many of its products-licenses that generated $750 million in retail sales last year. She has a SoHo boutique and several other stores internationally, and recently launched the KLS line. Ms. Simmons' book, Fabulosity: What It Is and How to Get It, was released in August. And her reality TV show, Life in the Fab Lane, is now airing on the E! network. “I'm the example for young women on the go,” declares Ms. Simmons, who says she sleeps four hours a night. She is also melding her business pursuits with her advocacy for animal rights. “I'm trying to make my clothing line 100% fur-free,” she says. “I'm almost there.”

A RECORD-SETTER, ON HER TERMS

Darcy Stacom CB Richard Ellis Five years ago, Darcy Stacom left Cushman & Wakefield Inc., where her father and older sister are top real estate brokers, for its biggest competitor. “I wanted the opportunity to prove myself,” says Ms. Stacom, vice chair of CB Richard Ellis Group. And prove herself she has, in spades. Late last year, Ms. Stacom, who specializes in commercial deals, brokered the record-breaking $5.4 billion sale of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village to Tishman Speyer Properties. It was the latest in a string of successes. Known as an innovator in structuring transactions, Ms. Stacom, 47, was the top broker worldwide for CB Richard Ellis in 2005 and 2006, with $11 billion in sales in 2006 alone. She continues to break ground by expanding her 15-member team's practice to the other boroughs. Her involvement in civic life increases along with her status. Ms. Stacom serves on the board of one of the city's largest hospital systems, Continuum Health Partners, and played a role in efforts to lower real estate taxes and create incentives for companies to move downtown.

PRO PUTS IT ON LINE

Tara Stacom Cushman & Wakefield The elder of two sisters in a family of influential real estate brokers, Tara Stacom, vice chair at Cushman & Wakefield Inc., has brokered leases for millions of square feet of space. Over a 20-year career, she has worked with some of the city's most important companies, including Colgate-Palmolive Co., J.&W. Seligman & Co. and the Bank of New York. She also works on the landlord side, managing the leasing of 10 million square feet. Within two weeks after Sept. 11, Ms. Stacom had tapped her knowledge and store of goodwill to find temporary offices for 4,000 Bank of New York employees. “I gave my handshake personally for a warehouse full of furniture,” she recalls. Ms. Stacom was Cushman's No. 1 producer in 2004-the first woman to achieve that spot-and continues to be a top broker at the firm, which did $9 billion worth of deals in Manhattan last year. As a member of the company's board of directors, she had a hand in the recent decision to sell a majority stake to the IFIL Group of Italy. Ms Stacom, 49, is deeply involved in Girls Inc., a New York-based nonprofit that aims to give girls nationwide the confidence to take on challenges.

LOW-PROFILE CITY SHAPER

Marilyn Jordan Taylor Skidmore Owings & Merrill Architect marilyn jordan Taylor is the main force be-hind Columbia Univer-sity's ambitious Manhattanville develop-ment, the East River Waterfront mas-ter plan and the new interna-tion-al arrivals terminal at John F. Kennedy airport. For someone who is shaping the landscape of New York, Ms. Taylor keeps a low profile. “I'm not really interested in being a "starchitect,' ” says Ms. Taylor, part-ner and head of the urban design and planning practice at Skidmore Owings & Merrill. “My hope is to be an effective advocate for making the city a better place for everyone.” Ms. Taylor, who grew up in Montezuma, Iowa (pop. 1,432), has achieved that goal for clients worldwide since joining SOM nearly 40 years ago. In 2005, she was appointed chair of the Urban Land Institute, the first woman and the first architect to head the prestigious research organization. The 60-year-old's passion for her profession has made an impact at home, too: Her son is going to architecture school, and her daughter has an urban studies degree. But despite Ms. Taylor's love for cities, when she really wants to relax, she heads to her log cabin in New Hampshire.

AT THE HEAD OF A GIANT

Mary Ann Tighe CB Richard Ellis Mary ann tighe, 59, is in charge of one of New York City's largest commercial real estate services operations. She was a star broker for Insignia/ ESG before she became local chief executive of CB Richard Ellis Group five years ago, just months before the two firms merged, and ended up running both. Ms. Tighe recruited other stars while firing laggards, and revamped the combined firm to emphasize teamwork and mentoring. CB Richard Ellis' tristate opera-tion has more than 1,000 employees and completed $36.8 billion worth of sale and lease transactions in 2006. Ms. Tighe, who has a background in arts and entertainment and was a TV executive at ABC before getting into real estate, is altering the cityscape. Her deal-making brought Cond Nast to Times Square and the New York Times Co. to its new building on Eighth Avenue. A leader in re-pop-ulating down-town, CB Richard Ellis filled giant 55 Water St., and one of Ms. Tighe's clients, the New York Academy of Sciences, was the first company to sign a lease at 7 World Trade Center. “You always need someone to believe first,” she says. Often, that person has been Ms. Tighe.

CFO DIALS FOR DOLLARS

Doreen Toben Verizon Communications Doreen toben has some advice for young women hankering for big jobs. “Stop thinking it's because you're a woman that something hasn't happened to you,” she says. “You have to be a risk-taker; you have to do tough jobs and produce results.” The 57-year-old chief financial officer of Verizon Communications Inc. follows her own advice every day. She regularly awakens at 3 a.m. to work out and read analysts' reports. Last year, she structured Verizon's $8.5 billion acquisition of MCI, and under her leadership, Verizon has reduced its debt and pumped money into the key areas of wireless broadband and fiber. She now spends much of her time on strategy, helping to position the company in a telecom sector roiled by new entrants and new technologies. Ms. Toben's introduction to the telecom business came in 1972, when, as a college graduate looking for a job in a tough market, she found a position in AT&T's treasury department. From there, she moved to Bell Atlantic, a Verizon predecessor, where she once managed the crews that dug ditches and manned switches. Later, as controller and CFO, she played a key role in a series of mergers that led to the formation of Verizon in 2000. She was named CFO in 2002.

DYNASTY ESTABLISHED ON A DRESS

Diane von Furstenberg Diane von Furstenberg Studio Reinvention is the name of the game in fashion, and Diane von Furstenberg has made a career of it. After selling her first company and moving to Paris in 1985, she stopped designing clothes and founded a French-language publishing house. She rebooted in 1997, launching her new company and reintroducing her signature wrap dress for a new generation of fans. The Studio, which forecasts revenue of $200 mil lion for 2007, sells to boutiques and specialty stores in 57 countries. “When I licensed my brand, I lost control,” says Ms. von Furstenberg, 60. “The brand lost its point of view.” Today, she sells a complete collection of women's sportswear, handbags and shoes. Her business partners are her children, Tatiana and Alexandre, and her second husband, media mogul Barry Diller. Ms. von Furstenberg, who was named president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America last year, was on the cover of Newsweek at age 28 and later helped pioneer TV shopping channels. Success is not about fame, though, she says. “You have to have an honest product.”

RADIO CHIEF RESCUES STATION

Laura Walker WNYC Radio Laura walker rescued WNYC Radio. Twelve years ago, the municipal-owned station was suffering from neglect and the city was ready to unload it to the highest bidder. Ms. Walker, 49, came aboard as chief executive and helped raise $20 million and establish a foundation to buy the station. She has since transformed the operation: The audience of the AM and FM station has risen 43% and is the largest for any public radio outlet in the country. WNYC Radio is doubling the size of its newsroom and moving out of its famously dilapidated quarters at 1 Centre St. to a new facility in Hudson Square. It produces national shows such as On the Media and is ramping up its programming efforts by partnering with Public Radio International to create a morning news program this fall aimed at younger listeners. Under Ms. Walker, WNYC has developed a distinctive voice in a noisy media marketplace. “We're doing something which New York is thirsting for,” she says. “And we're doing it in a way that fits with the lifestyles of New Yorkers.”

PEOPLE POWER: IT PAYS

Lisa Weber MetLife Lisa weber runs an average of 43 miles a week on the streets of New York-starting at 3:45 nearly every morning before work-and she participates in two marathons a year. She shows the same stamina as president of MetLife Inc.'s retail business, which has $18 billion in sales and 20,000 employees. Ms. Weber, 44, spends little time in her office. She's usually out in the field, meeting with managers, financial advisers and support staffers. She watches how they work, listens to what makes them frustrated and encourages them to offer suggestions about how she can make their jobs easier. The executive learned the value of human resources while serving as MetLife's chief administrative officer from 2001 to 2004. “Anyone can copy a product or service. No one can copy the power of your people,” Ms. Weber points out. “Always be out there: That's my managerial style.” All that sweat and all those miles have translated into major boons for MetLife. Annual operating earnings for the company's retail business-including individual, auto and home policies-have reached roughly $2 billion, up 50% since Ms. Weber became president three years ago. She has aggressively increased her division's third-party business and overseen the integration of two big acquisitions. Now she is setting her sights on the ultimate long-distance race: the courting of America's exploding retiree market.

TEACHERS' FAVORITE

Randi Weingarten United Federation of Teachers The president of the United Federation of Teachers commands an army of 160,000 active and retired New York City teachers and other education pro-fes-sionals. To get what she wants, Randi Weingarten uses a tireless advocacy, loud voice and deft skill for crafting partnerships with city officials. Since 2002, the UFT has raised salaries for union-represented employees by 43%. “We must continue to debate how to bring teachers the respect they deserve,” she says. While trying to gain greater stewardship of schools for educators and parents, Ms. Wein-garten con-tinues to lobby for fair wages and better conditions for teachers. “Our salaries were not competitive with those in the suburbs,” she says. Before taking the helm, Ms. Weingarten, 49, spent 12 years as a lead contract negotiator for UFT. She is also vice president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers and is ready to assume broader responsibility there, saying, “I would accept the role of president of the AFT if asked.” One of the city's most powerful union forces, Ms. Weingarten serves as vice president of the New York City Central Labor Council and head of the Municipal Labor Committee.

MAVEN OF MEDIA MEASURING

Susan Whiting Nielsen Media Research Susan whiting helped make cable television a media powerhouse. As a young innovator at Nielsen Media Research Inc. in the 1980s, she helped created the rating systems that allowed sponsors to track cable viewers and consequently gain the confidence they needed to spend billions of dollars on advertising. It was a labor of love for Ms. Whiting, who joined Nielsen right out of college 29 years ago. “We were basically running with ideas as soon as we developed them,” she says. “We were helping a whole industry build itself.” That industry turned on her in 2005, when Nielsen's new digital meters reported ratings for some channels that were lower than previous measurements. Media executives lobbied pol-iticians to intervene, and Ms. Whiting had to testify in support of the new systems at two congressional hearings. She eventually won the war and gained political allies. In January, 51-year-old Ms. Whiting was named chair of Nielsen Media Research and executive vice president of The Nielsen Co., its Dutch parent. These market research companies are active in more than 100 countries, with over 38,000 employees. They collect data on every television show in the United States and more than 70% of global Inter-net activity, and they track box-office grosses for more than 50,000 movie screens.

STYLE'S ARBITER

Anna Wintour Vogue The feared and revered editor in chief of the world's leading fashion magazine, Anna Wintour, has used her authority to turn the title into a product line. Cond Nast has added Teen Vogue, Men's Vogue, and Vogue Living. The family of magazines generated $500 million in adver-tising revenue in 2006, according to Publishers Information Bureau, and the September 2007 issue of Vogue, at 840 pages, was the largest consumer monthly ever. “Vogue is a powerful brand, but we need to make sure we don't dilute it,” says Ms. Wintour, 55, whose signature dark glasses and blunt bob have established a public persona of elusive iciness. The magazine has legs, she says, because “we don't talk down to readers, and we haven't given in to tabloid journalism.” The British-born editor held a series of jobs at Harpers & Queen, Harper's Bazaar, British Vogue, New York and Home & Garden before taking the top spot at Vogue in 1988. Ms. Wintour, who has raised more than $12 million for AIDS research and more than $31 million for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, finds refuge in her Long Island garden. “Landscapes are good for the soul,” she says.

CEO RIGHTS A BANK ON THE BRINK

Deborah Wright Carver Bancorp In 1999, Deborah Wright became chief executive of an institution on the verge of blowing up. Carver Federal Savings Bank, a subsidiary of Carver Bancorp Inc., had written off millions of dollars in bad loans and was the target of a hostile takeover bid. With the support of the city's business leaders, Ms. Wright was able to weather the proxy battle, and she began a turnaround. Since then, Carver has nearly doubled its assets and has become profitable. “She has turned it into the most successful African-American-owned banking institution in the country,” says Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a network of local business leaders. “But for Debbie Wright, Carver would have disappeared.” Born in North Carolina, Ms. Wright settled in New York City after attending business and law school at Harvard University. She went to work for the partnership, where she led the marketing of its first project promoting affordable-home ownership: Towers on the Park in Harlem. She later served as commissioner of housing preservation and development under Mayor Rudy Giuliani and then as the head of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone. When she joined Carver, she saved the institution with swift action, closing unprofitable branches and recruiting talented managers. And Ms. Wright, 49, is not finished. “We have to be bigger,” she says. “There's a certain scale and level of innovation that's required of small guys to beat the big guys at their game.”

TAKING CARE OF THE CITY'S BUSINESS

Kathryn Wylde Partnership for New York City As chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde is one of the city's most powerful advocates for business. Ms. Wylde is also a civic leader who assisted in the city's recovery after Sept. 11 and helped Mayor Michael Bloomberg gain control over the public schools. At 61, she works for the city's future by championing the mayor's sustain-ability programs, including his plan to alleviate traffic congestion. An expert in housing and economic devel-opment policy, Ms. Wylde has given the partner-ship-made up of 200 chief execu-tives-a wide reach. “We redefined ourselves as a credible source of information and support for the city's broader interests,” she says. The New York City Investment Fund, the organization's economic arm, has raised more than $100 million for such projects as the East River Science Park's biotech center. It also maintains a $2 million fund for loans to nonprofit arts and cultural groups. “Kathy has both the knowledge and the drive to get things done,” says Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons. “That's not easy in New York City.”

LETTING EVERYBODY BE A CRITIC

Nina Zagat Zagat Survey Nina zagat has always loved restaurants, but she's never been very fond of food-establishment critics and their outsize influence. She and her husband, Tim, started Zagat Survey nearly 30 years ago, in the belief that their wine-club friends could review eateries as well as anyone. Zagat Survey has since brought power to the people in the world of dining and leisure. Ms. Zagat, who was a practicing attorney when the company was launched, mimeographed surveys and collected reviews by hand, often working through the night. She also reviewed hundreds of restaurants herself. “We really believed in the idea,” Ms. Zagat says. “We were confident that regular people were savvy enough to decide what they liked and didn't like all by themselves.” Their labor of love has paid off. Zagat Survey employs 120 people in New York and is growing aggressively. Zagat.com, launched in 1999, allows users to access reviews of more than 30,000 restaurants, hotels, nightclubs and other attractions in 104 countries. Ms. Zagat brainstorms and tests ideas, while her husband and co-chair serves as front man and administrator. Not a day goes by without leisure-loving people thanking 65-year-old Ms. Zagat personally for the chance to be heard.

MAJOR-LEAGUE NEGOTIATOR EYES A GM POSITION

Jean Afterman New York Yankees Hideki Matsui's grand slam in his first game at Yankee Stadium in 2003 marked the arrival of two new stars: Mr. Matsui, a Japanese power hitter, and Jean Afterman, the baseball executive who brought him to the Bronx. Ms. Afterman, 50, is one of the most influential people in the executive suite of the world's best-known sports franchise. She joined the Yankees in 2001 and, as assistant general manager, has been at the forefront of the team's international brand expansion. Helping to persuade Mr. Matsui to sign with the Yankees is her biggest accomplishment. “She did a phenomenal job with Matsui, and Matsui means so much to the Yankees,” says Kim Ng, whom Ms. Afterman succeeded when Ms. Ng left to take the same job with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ms. Ng knows the pressure Ms. Afterman is under. None of Major League Baseball's 30 teams has a female general manager, and only three women-Ms. Afterman, Ms. Ng and Elaine Steward of the Red Sox-have made it to assistant GM. Ms. Afterman, unassuming and funny, fixes coffee at her stadium office, thanking the microwave for its service on many late nights. She and Mr. Matsui have been known to fondly call each other a Japanese slang term that translates loosely as “little asshole.” Her charm masks a fearsome negotiating talent. “She is as tough as they come and one of the smartest people I know,” says General Manager Brian Cashman. Bridging cultural gaps is natural to Ms. Afterman, whose grandfather, a Russian immigrant, was a fruit peddler. She taught English as a second language before a brief stint in the movie business and becoming a lawyer. She went to work for agent Don Nomura, representing Japanese players who were barred from American ball by a 1967 agreement between the Japanese and American leagues. She and Mr. Nomura used loopholes in the pact to help players, including Hideo Nomo and Hideki Irabu, get major-league contracts. “It wasn't just baseball,” she says. “It was human rights and baseball.”

"A visionary leader'

ms. afterman's Yankees contract expires at year-end. Her future with the team may depend on whether it ends its seven-year championship drought. She concedes that, in time, being an assistant general manager won't be enough, and no doubt she's a leading candidate to become baseball's first female general manager. “The question is not whether she can do it,” says Wayne McDonnell, clinical assistant professor at New York University's Center for Hospitality, Tour-ism and Sports Management. “It's whether someone gives her the chance.”

FOUNDATION LEADER DIRECTS FUNDS TO DESERVING STUDENTS

Stephanie Bell-Rose Goldman Sachs Foundation Stephanie bell-rose grew up in poor neighborhoods in Brooklyn and on Long Island. But that didn't stop her from helping others. She started volunteering at age 14, working summers at a day care center and a nursing home. “Both of my parents were committed to service for the improvement of the lives of others,” she says. “That was a part of our family ethos, and I absorbed it from my earliest days.” And when she earned a scholarship to Harvard University, Ms. Bell-Rose never hesitated about her career choice: public service. Today, as the founding president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, the 49-year-old Harvard Law School graduate controls $200 million in assets-putting her at the helm of the largest philanthropy on Wall Street. In eight years at the foundation, Ms. Bell-Rose has focused on one major issue: helping bright kids from disadvantaged backgrounds reach their potential. The foundation's signature initiative aims to nurture middle-school students who have potential for academic success but few resources and no mentors. It has served more than 1,200 kids, many of whom went on to top-tier universities. Ms. Bell-Rose has also worked hard to assure that her efforts are making a difference. She was one of the first foun-dation executives to hire outside experts to gauge the results of the organization's charitable activ-ities-an idea that has since gained wide acceptance among nonprofits.

Profiting on properties

“stephanie is a visionary leader among foundation presidents,” says Ronna Brown, president of the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers. “Goldman is one of the corporations that is very strategic in its giving and measuring the effectiveness of its grantees' programs.” In her previous job as counsel and program officer for public affairs at the Mellon Foundation, Ms. Bell-Rose spearheaded a new area of research into SAT scores and the subsequent college prog-ress of high-achieving minority kids. A number of universities are continuing her work in the field. In her spare time, Ms. Bell-Rose is a member of numerous boards, -including the Dean's Council of Harvard Law School and the -American Museum of Natural History. She is a trustee of the Barnes Foundation in Penn-sylvania and has been instrumental in helping the famed art institution right itself after years of financial trouble. Much of Ms. Bell-Rose's inspiration has come from her mother, who was widowed at age 34 and raised four children on her own. All of them went on to Ivy League schools. Now, Ms. Bell-Rose instills in her three sons the same values learned from her family. She also uses her children as sounding boards when reviewing which projects to fund. “My kids are the best proposal readers around,” she says.

CAPITALIST ADVENTURER MINES RUSSIA'S FREE-MARKET FRONTIER

Patricia Cloherty Delta Private Equity Partners Patricia cloherty is used to taking risks. In the 1960s, as one of the first -applicants to the newly formed Peace Corps, she ended up being the lone volunteer in a remote outpost in Brazil where women weren't even allowed to drive. “It was an experiment to see if a woman could work alone in central Brazil,” she says. “I learned flexibility.” More recently, she has parlayed her yen for adventure into backing entrepreneurs in the Wild East of newly capitalist Russia. Since 1995, Ms. Cloherty has been bankrolling startups-including finance companies and a chain of sandwich shops-that aim to serve the country's growing middle class. Over the years, she doled out $330 million from the Washington-backed U.S.-Russia Investment Fund. Now, as chief executive of Delta Private Equity Partners, she controls a $120 million private investment pot targeted at the Russian market. In Russia, where corporate ownership isn't always clear and the rule of law is a work in progress, Ms. Cloherty's involvement often goes beyond investing. In 1998, the city of St. Petersburg nullified her fund's majority position in a porcelain factory and refused to compensate her. She sued and won back control. “She doesn't like simple chal-lenges,” says venture capitalist Alan Patricof, a former partner of Ms. Cloherty's.

Behind the scenes

many of her early investments have paid off handsomely. She has sold some properties for as much as two to four times her original investment to buyers including Nestl, GE Consumer Finance, Socit Gnrale and Fidelity Investments. Ms. Cloherty, 65, cut her teeth in the VC world at Patricof & Co. Ventures, where she started as a research analyst in 1969. She was named a partner within a year; eventually, she became president and co-chair, along with founder Mr. Patricof. She backed numerous success stories, such as chip maker Tessera and several biotech firms. Among them was Scotland's PPL Therapeutics, which engineered Dolly the cloned sheep. “I like the performance orientation of the venture capital business-backing early-stage companies and trying to beat the big guys,” she says. Ms. Cloherty later served as dep-uty administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, under President Jimmy Car-ter, and as president of the National Venture Capital Association. She helped launch the Committee of 200, which aims to stimulate entrepreneurship among women. In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed her chair of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund, which made equity investments in promising Russian companies. Even though the Russian govern-ment is continuing to play an activist role in the economy, Ms. Cloherty is gearing up to start a third fund. “The capitalist genie is out of the bottle,” she says. “It will not be held back.”

INSTINCTS GIVE ACQUISITIONS EXEC REAL ADVANTAGE

Michelle Felman Vornado Realty Trust In an industry dominated by outsize masculine personalities, being a woman has its advantages. “Women are extremely intuitive,” says Michelle Fel-man, executive vice pres-ident at Vornado Realty Trust. “You understand other people's motivations, and you can respond to them in a way that gets both sides what they want.” Ms. Felman, head of acquisitions for the country's second-largest real estate investment trust, combines her intuition with the skills of a savvy and disciplined deal-maker. Her job is finding and valuing investment properties-from office buildings to shopping malls-and overseeing the often complex process of underwriting, negotiating and structuring their acquisition. Vornado's enterprise value has grown to $34 billion from $1.5 billion during her decade with the company. “She has very good instincts for good deals,” says Vornado President Michael Fascitelli. Ms. Felman, 45, has engineered some of Vornado's most prominent transactions. She helped steer Vornado's $2.5 billion purchase of Charles E. Smith Commercial Realty, which added 14.3 million square feet to Vornado's burgeoning portfolio and made the REIT the largest commercial property owner in the Washington, D.C., area. She also has been instrumental in the acquisition of numerous marquee properties, including the Manhattan Mall and the former Manufacturers Han-over Trust headquarters at 350 Park Ave. The latter purchase re--established Vornado as a player in the New York City office market after a period of reduced buying ac-tivity. A few years ago, she helped launch the company's profitable mez-zanine lending business.

Independent bent

“she's not just a deal-doer,” says Steven Mnuchin, co-chief executive of Dune Capital Management, who has worked with Ms. Felman on a number of transactions. “She's very creative and really understands both the real estate business and how to structure deals.” The daughter of a Holocaust survivor and a former Israeli policewoman, Ms. Felman, a self-described tomboy, grew up on Long Island. She majored in economics at the University of California, Berkeley and earned an M.B.A. from the Wharton School. Following Wharton, she spent three years in real estate finance at Morgan Stanley and then headed to GE Capital where, as managing director of global acquisitions and business development, she was involved in $5 billion worth of corporate and property acquisitions. She joined Vornado in 1997 and was named head of acquisitions in 2000. Her advice to would-be deal-makers: “Only worry about the important things, and deal with those first and up front. If you can't figure out the one or two most important things, you should not be doing the deal.”

FREE SPIRIT FINDS A HOME AS A FASHION GUIDING LIGHT

Julie Gilhart Barneys New York When Ju-lie Gil-hart arrives at the SoHo of-fice of fashion designer Rogan Gregory, it's hard to believe that she isn't one of the models. The reed-thin Ali McGraw look-alike is wearing short-shorts, a flowing Lanvin blouse and chunky sandals. But Ms. Gilhart, 49, doesn't stalk the catwalk. As fashion director at Barneys New York, she decides what is for sale at some of the world's most important fashion emporiums. “Julie got us exposure at the most well--respected retailer,” Mr. Gregory says, adding that Barneys accounts for 30% of his wholesale business. Ms. Gilhart, known industry-wide as the shepherdess of undis-covered designers, scored a coup by promoting green clothing, including Mr. Gregory's line of organic-cotton casual wear. She has also moved established stars like Helmut Lang, Alber Elbaz, Balenciaga and Proenza Schouler into the mainstream. For instance, after she brought French luxury handbag and luggage company Goyard to the United States, Bergdorf Goodman and other stores followed suit. “Thanks to Julie, we've had a continuous parade of fresh talent,” says Howard Socol, president of Barneys. He says that Ms. Gilhart has been a significant force in the company's success but declines to disclose -financial data. Barneys' holdings include five full-scale department stores, 14 co-ops, 11 outlets, a Web site and a licensing agreement with a Japanese company-and Ms. Gilhart's influence permeates all of them.

Following parents' work ethic

born and raised in Dallas by her mother, aunt and grandmother, Ms. Gilhart, 49, left college at age 20 and became a buyer for Neiman Marcus. After five years, she rejected the department store career path for the life of an independent stylist, traveling the world to uncover trends and designers and returning with fresh ideas for magazine shoots. In 1992, she reluctantly accepted an unsolicited job offer from Barneys to head up its expansion. “I told them that I didn't like the corporate structure of a retail organization,” Ms. Gilhart recalls. “I liked the freedom and creativity and spontaneity of freelance work.” As it turns out, she found the long leash she craved at -Barneys. Ms. Gilhart has weathered the past decade of corporate expansions and contractions and is dealing with Barneys' pending sale to a Dubai-based investment fund. Ms. Gilhart, who lives in the West Village with her 15-year-old Jack Russell terrier, supervises two people and maintains a hectic schedule of markets, fashion shows, and meetings with buyers and salespeople. “My whole life is about discovery,” Ms. Gilhart says. “If I lived to 200, I still wouldn't get to do everything I want to.”

S. KOREA NATIVE FIGHTS FOR RIGHTS OF IMMIGRANTS

Chung-Wha Hong New York Immigration Coalition Months after she took over the New York Immigration Coalition two years ago, Chung-Wha Hong organized the largest immigration rally in New York City history, attracting more than 300,000 people for a march on City Hall. Around the same time, the 41-year-old native of South Korea helped win an influx of $700 million in state funds for local schools to help immigrant students who don't speak English. And this past summer, after intense lobbying from a coalition put together by Ms. Hong, Mayor Michael Bloomberg enacted a law dramatically changing housing-code enforcement and mandating quick action by landlords to ensure that all violations are promptly addressed, a move that will help immigrant- and low-income families living in homes without hot water or heat. Those are just a few of Ms. Hong's victories in a 20-year career fighting for the rights of immigrants. “I've never seen anyone in my life show such a strong commitment and dedication for social justice,” says S.J. Jung, president of the Young Korean American Service and Education Center. “She is the hardest-working person on earth.” Stories of Ms. Hong's tenacity are legendary. About 10 years ago, when she was executive director of the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, Ms. Hong worked around the clock for days until she finally collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. As she was falling to the floor, she grabbed a stack of mailings, handed them to a staffer and said, “These must go out today.”

Thinking for herself

ms. hong, who arrived in St. Louis at age 11 with her family, is following the work ethic she saw her parents exhibit. Her father and mother worked multiple jobs as they built lives in the United States. Ms. Hong came to the country without knowing English and spent her afternoons with a tutor. The family later moved to Boston, where they lived in housing projects, and Ms. Hong went on to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania. Now that Ms. Hong, who lives in Flushing, Queens, with her three children, is established here, she feels it is her responsibility to help newcomers. The coalition is made up of 215 immigrant organizations. When Ms. Hong meets with government officials, she always brings representatives of these groups. After years of lobbying for immigration reform, she is still smarting over the recent demise of federal legislation. But she is plotting the next battle. “There were people who thought that finally they would be able to come out of the shadows and live as Americans with equal rights, and that was pretty devastating,” she says. “That's why we're going to pull together a multisector coalition and create new momentum.”

LOBBYIST KNOWS HOW TO NAVIGATE ALLIES OF POWER

Suri Kasirer Kasirer Consulting Four years ago, when Spanish firm Cemusa walked in-to New York City, its prospects of winning a $1.3 billion city contract were, in the words of lobbyist Suri Kasirer, “very, very slim.” Its competitors were household names. But Ms. Kasirer liked Cemusa's designs for bus shelters, newsstands and public toilets, and she outlined a winning path. “She can plan a strategy very quickly,” says Cemusa's chief executive, Toulla Constantinou. “I trust her instincts.” Navigating New York is one of the talents Ms. Kasirer brings to her position as its top-grossing lobbyist, a title she captured in 2005. With just two other senior lobbyists on staff, Kasirer Consulting represents the Israeli real estate firm that bought the Plaza Hotel; several nonprofits, including Safe Horizons and the American Cancer Society; and about 30 other clients. Ask anyone about Ms. Kasirer, 47, and they will tell you that she is always beautifully groomed and always working. Even her lunches are a well-orchestrated bit of networking, eaten at a regular table at City Hall restaurant. “She doesn't shut off,” says William Rapfogel, head of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. “She's extraordinarily ambitious, and she mixes that with this burning commitment to work and the causes she cares for.” Her husband has a different take on Ms. Kasirer's drive. “It's infuriating! Infuriating!” says Bruce Teitelbaum, a lawyer and former chief of staff to Mayor Rudy Giuliani. “The BlackBerry is glued to her hand.” But his mock fury is tied to pride in the $3 million business his wife has built in 11 years. “Suri takes her work extremely seriously; she's deeply com-mitted,” Mr. Teitelbaum says, noting that she wakes up to jot down ideas.

First in her class

the daughter of an orthodox rabbi, Ms. Kasirer grew up in Queens and graduated from Yeshiva University. She thought about becoming a lawyer, but her parents did not expect her to become anything beyond a wife and mother, she says. Her only brother and his wife have eight children, and both of them teach at a yeshiva school. Ms. Kasirer jokes that she is the black sheep, although she is happily married and gave birth to a daughter, Sophia, last November. Ms. Kasirer served as a special adviser to Gov. Mario Cuomo and worked for Hillary Clinton's 1992 Senate campaign. She is driven in part by the charitable work of her nonprofit clients. She also set out, years ago, to prove some powerful critics wrong. In 1998, newspapers wrote that she used her husband's connections to lobby the Giuliani administration. After a scandal about whether one of her clients received special parking privileges, the mayor barred his staff from doing business with her. With her rise post-Giuliani, she has put the sniping behind her. “I've been vindicated that it is not about any one particular relationship,” she says. “It's not about any one person putting an arm around my shoulder and saying, "Whatever you need.' ”

RESTAURATEUR ACTS OUT LONGTIME FOOD OBSESSION

Anita Lo Annisa restaurant Anita lo, 41, dressed in a beat-up T-shirt and shorts, arrives at her restaurant on a rickety bicycle with a basket full of fresh fennel and rhubarb for the evening's dinner. She barely stands out on a tiny Greenwich Village street. The same can't be said for her award-winning restaurant Annisa. The critical success of the 45-seat eatery has made Ms. Lo one of the most highly regarded chefs in the world. “Her food is phenomenal,” says Dana Cowin, editor in chief of Food and Wine, which chose Ms. Lo as a “best new chef” in 2001. “She is truly among the best chefs overall-anywhere.” Annisa, which Ms. Lo opened seven years ago, is one of only two woman-owned restaurants to earn a coveted star in the two-year-old New York edition of the Michelin Guide. But Ms. Lo's reach extends beyond Annisa's upscale patrons, many of whom wait a month for reservations. In 2005, she and business partner Kenny Lao opened Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, a fast-food dumpling restaurant on West 23rd Street. The duo added a second location on East Eighth Street last month. They plan to roll out another six locations in the next two years. Ms. Lo is also planning to launch a 120-seat Asian barbecue restaurant on Bleecker Street this fall. “I am trying to build an empire,” says Ms. Lo, who caused a stir among foodies when she defeated Mario Batali on Iron Chef in 2005. It was the first time a woman beat a man on the American Food Network competition program. Born in Birmingham, Mich., to Chinese immigrant parents, Ms. Lo credits her upbringing as the inspiration for her career in the food business. Her mom and stepfather loved food and travel, instilling in Ms. Lo a passion for international cuisine.

A lifeline

after majoring in french at Columbia University, Ms. Lo got a degree in cooking at the prestigious Ritz-Escoffier school in France, graduating first in her class. She worked her way up the food chain at several well-known restaurants, including Bouley and Chan-terelle. Her creative juices flow the most at her house on Long Island, where she catches fresh fish to go with produce from her garden for her own meals. That is where she invents the dishes that keep her patrons -salivating. Ms. Lo says she knows that she is only as good as the last meal she has served any of her demanding customers. “You don't choose this industry; it chooses you,” she says. “You have to be obsessed with it-you have to really want it and need it in order to sustain it.”

EXECUTIVE UNITES CATERING, CULTURE TO HIT THE BIG TIME

Liz Neumark Great Performances In 1979, Liz Neumark was a recent Barnard College graduate trying to start a career as a photographer. But she had a problem: She was broke. So she hatched a plan to launch a catering outfit that would support her and other female artists. Great Performances: Artists as Waitresses, which started out as a financial safety net, has evolved into the country's fourth-largest independent ca-tering firm. The business generated $35 million in sales last year. Great Performances provides the food service for many of New York's major cultural institutions, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Sotheby's and Jazz at Lincoln Center. This year, Ms. Neumark scored another coup when she signed a 25-year contract to cater events in the storied ballroom of The Plaza when the renovated hotel reopens early next year. The Plaza deal is a joint venture with Delaware North Cos., a giant international food service con-glomerate that is providing the financial muscle. The exclusive gig, which will put Great Performances at the center of high-society functions, is a source of great pride for Ms. Neumark. “I grew up in Manhattan,” she says. “There are event spaces, and then there's The Plaza.” The chief executive nearly walked away from it all three years ago when her 6-year-old daughter, Sylvia, died of a brain aneurysm. After a great deal of soul-searching, Ms. Neumark decided to remain active in the -business and honor her daughter's memory by starting The Sylvia Center, a nonprofit facility on a 35-acre farm she bought last year. The center teaches underprivileged children about agriculture and nutrition.

Back up and running

“the farm is life-affirming,” says Ms. Neumark, 51. “Food creates community, and the farm is a wonderful extension of that.” Katchkie Farm, so called for Sylvia's family nickname, provides Great Performances with fresh produce-an arrangement that dovetails with the caterer's mission of using locally grown food. No other catering business in the city has branched out into farming. In addition, Ms. Neumark is launching a line of retail items from the upstate farm. The first, Thunder Pickles, debuted last year; Katch-kie Ketchup is being -introduced this month. “Liz is a marketing wizard,” says Carl Sacks, director of consult-ing for Catersource, which provides education and training to food professionals. “She has done a superb job of taking the company to a position that is unique in the industry.”

TINKERER-TURNED-TECHNOCRAT CREATES COMPETITIVE EDGE

Bridget O'Connor Lehman Brothers Bridget o'con-nor, nicknamed Gadget by her family, spent her high school years tak-ing apart her car and tinkering with early versions of the personal computer. “I like creating things, fixing things and understanding how things work,” she says. “I had every gadget known to man.” That tinkerer's talent helped Ms. O'Connor become a major player in Wall Street technology. As chief information officer and global head of business continuity at Lehman Brothers, she is responsible for the hardware and software that power the firm's business around the world. Her greatest challenge is ensuring that the firm's technology serves its bottom line. “It's about bringing the possibilities of technology to the table, about engineering a relationship -between the business guy and the technology guy to achieve a competitive advantage,” Ms. O'Connor remarks. Under her leadership, Lehman created LehmanLive, a Web portal that delivers the company's products and services-from trading to employee benefits processing-to clients and employees. LehmanLive proved crucial following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Ms. O'Connor, then chief technology officer, was among 750 Lehman employees who escaped from their offices at 1 World Trade Center. But the firm was shut out of its headquarters at the World Financial Center, the site of its primary data center and 2,700 direct lines to clients.

Sound and sophisticated

although 5,500 employees were forced to work from home offices, hotel rooms or borrowed space around the city, LehmanLive allowed the firm to resume critical functions within days. Ms. O'Connor continues to live and breathe the lessons of that catastrophic time. “It's about engineering everything to be always available, always resilient,” she says. A computer science major, Ms. O'Connor, 43, earned an associate degree from Middlesex County College in New Jersey. She intended to get a bachelor's -degree by going to school part-time, but she was diverted from that goal by two challenging jobs-the first at an e-commerce com-pany and the next with AT&T Bell Labs. She joined Lehman in 1991; in 2002, she was named CIO. Among her other -talents, according to her boss, Leh-man President Joe Greg-ory, is the gift of com-munication. “In a complex world where end users and technologists rarely speak the same language, she's incredibly adept at bridging both,” he says. And she's still acting like Gadget. She recently hooked up her BlackBerry to the GPS and tracking device in her teenage son's car. She gets an alert when he goes outside the boundaries or exceeds the speed limits she's set for him.

HEALTH CARE POLICY PRO WORKS ON THE FRONT LINES

Carol Raphael Visiting Nurse Service of New York After graduating from Harvard Uni-versity's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Car-ol Raphael could have moved into a career as a health care policy wonk. But she didn't want to be a reformer on the sidelines. She wanted to go “eyeball to eyeball” with the people she served. She's been on the front lines ever since. Today, as chief executive of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, she oversees more than 12,000 employees and a budget of nearly $1 billion. During her 15 years at the helm, VNSNY has become the nation's largest nonprofit home health care organization. “She's been able, year after year, to look into the future and come up with the right direction for -VNSNY,” says former board Chair Carl Pforzheimer III. Ms. Raphael, 65, who was formerly a public school teacher and principal, is the first non-nurse to head 114-year-old VNSNY. Af-ter getting her master's degree in public policy, the Brooklyn native worked for Mayor Ed Koch, heading the city's $1.4 billion Med-icaid program and other programs such as home health care and public assistance. Her intense time in City Hall was formative. “It's very easy to be diverted by putting out another fire or trying to address another crisis,” she says. “But you can't take your eye off what you want to endure: building the infrastructure and capacity of an organization that will outlast you.”

Creating clout

ms. raphael has made VNSNY a model of sound fiscal management and technological sophistication. Using a system patterned after that used by FedEx, VNSNY nurses carry mobile computers for entering pa-tient data. Soon they will be able to use the devices to communicate and exchange data with patients' physicians. The CEO has also instituted rigorous performance measurements and accountability standards, and she has set up a research division to test new approaches to health care. Last year, VNSNY opened a hospice. It also operates a long-term-care HMO, one of the first in the nation. Thanks to Ms. Raphael's successes at VNSNY, she is in demand among policy-makers. She has been a member of MedPAC, which advises Congress on Medicare policy, and now serves on an Institute of Medicine work-force committee. She was recently elected chair of the New York eHealth Collaborative, which aims to increase the use of tech-nology and information-sharing across health care organizations. Ms. Raphael now spends much of her time positioning VNSNY for a future in which demand for home health care and other services for aging baby boomers is expected to soar. “We have to be careful that we grow in a way that provides care in a quality way-that we're not expanding at the expense of things that matter,” she says.

UNFLAPPABLE ATTORNEY HAS M&A IN HER DNA

Faiza Saeed Cravath Swaine & Moore Faiza saeed, one of 12 female partners at law firm Cravath Swaine & Moore, has helped hammer out some of the most significant mergers and acquisitions of the past decade. Ms. Saeed, 42, was lead counsel for Vivendi in the three-way, $46 billion transaction with Seagram and Canal+ Group that gave birth to Vivendi Universal. Ditto for the $12.5 billion merger between Lycos and Terra Networks. She also handled the $4.1 billion initial public offering of entertainment goliath DreamWorks. One of the keys to Ms. Saeed's success is her understated style of deal-making. Navigating a merger or acquisition may traumatize her clients; she has seen people yell and pound tables, and she has gotten her share of panicked late-night calls. Ms. Saeed stands out by remaining calm and unruffled. “You don't ever want the deal to become about you,” she says. “Wheth-er someone on the other side is irritating or pleasant is irrelevant. You have to find a way to work with everyone.” Ms. Saeed-now in her ninth year as a partner at Cravath, a firm with 400-plus lawyers-adds that it pays to appreciate the fact that corporate negotiations are rife with twists and turns. “There is so much complicated give-and-take in any deal,” she notes. “It's like making goulash.” ms. saeed's intellectual background also helps explain how she has gained such clout so early in her career. She studied molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley and dreamed of unraveling the secrets of the human genome. The mental training she received in these academic studies now help her handle mergers in the media sector. “Technology is such a big driver in this industry,” she says. While at UC Berkeley, she also majored in economics, which has proved valuable as she vets deals, looking for any problems that could cause the resulting businesses to crater. She finished her education at Harvard Law School. Her gifts make her an invaluable corporate adviser, says Katherine Kendrick, corporate counsel for DreamWorks Animation. Ms. Saeed has played an instrumental role in every transaction the company has done over the past decade, Ms. Kendrick says. Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation, says Ms. Saeed's contribution to his business goes well beyond providing legal counsel. “She is a strategic partner whose input is sought before we make many of the critical business decisions impacting our company,” he says. When not constructing mega-deals, Ms. Saeed is busy counseling foreign leaders through the World Economic Forum. The Geneva-based group brings together academics, politicians and other experts to tackle the thorny issues of global poverty. Last year, the group named her a “young global leader.”

WOMEN TAKE ALTERNATIVE PATHS TO GET TO THE TOP

Women make up only 14.7% of the directors of Fortune 500 companies. At this rate, Catalyst, the organization that analyzes barriers to full participation by women in our economic life, says that “it will take women 73 years to reach parity with men in the boardrooms.” The figure is only slightly higher for officers in the nation's largest companies. I take great pride in the accomplishments of the 100 women Crain's is highlighting in this issue. The stark truth, however, is that few women get to the upper reaches of big corporations. Most women have faced issues their male counterparts have not. I think the same is true for their working-age daughters. We have a long way to go. We won't get there without acknowledging reality: The rungs on the corporate ladder are still slippery for many women. Consider how many of the women on the list have chosen alternative routes to success, beginning with sales and sales management. Once allowed to sell, women could show their stuff because the numbers spoke for themselves. No qualitative assessments were necessary. The crack in the door was all that was needed for real estate world-beaters such as Faith Hope Consolo, Dottie Herman, Pamela Liebman, Mary Ann Tighe and Darcy and Tara Stacom. Janet Robinson, chief executive of The New York Times Co., and Cathleen Black, president of Hearst Magazines, also have sales backgrounds. Others among the Crain's 100 women eschewed corporate life and are entrepreneurs or run nonprofit organizations. Entrepreneurs such as Marian Goodman, Elizabeth McCann, Veronica Hackett and Stefani Greenfield charted their own courses and trusted their fate to the judgment of the marketplace. It approved. Nonprofit organizations have long been more hospitable to women in the executive suite. That's provided an avenue for the notable accomplishments of people such as Pamela Brier, Ellen Futter, Jennifer Raab and Thelma Golden. Admittedly, some of the city's largest companies have promoted women. At MetLife, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, Verizon, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, women hold high-powered positions. But only Andrea Jung heads a Fortune 500 company. One factor, beyond men's comfort level with other males, surely must be the demands of family life for women with children. Most working mothers face problems at some point in arranging child care, finding enough time for their children, coping with fatigue and the demands of their employers. For those with career aspirations, the problems are compounded. Young, early-career couples and single moms are often unable to afford or house 24-hour, live-in caregivers. Advocacy organizations have long argued for corporations to maximize their investment in managerial-level women through measures such as flexible hours, job sharing and reasonable parental leave. Corporate acceptance has been mixed. And women who avail themselves of family-friendly policies often find their upward progress thwarted. Women who step off their career tracks during child-bearing years frequently find it difficult to get back on. Life in upper management is grueling. Neither government nor corporations can require that men share equally in family responsibilities. Corporations are unlikely to reduce their demands on top managers. As the tidal wave of baby boomers begins to retire, top talent will grow even scarcer. I hope changing demographics will inject new urgency into efforts to tap women's full potential. Seventy-three years is too long to wait.

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