Christine McCarthy's title at the Walt DisneyCompany—treasurer and executive vice president of corporate realestate, sourcing and alliances—is about as wide-ranging as theycome, but the former science major wouldn't have it any otherway.

McCarthy joined the $38 billion media and entertainment companyas treasurer in 2000, after more than 15 years in the bankingindustry, most recently as CFO for a smaller regional bank. Sheappreciated that the treasury function at Disney had breadth,encompassing corporate finance, risk management, capital markets,global cash management, and credit and collections.

“What was appealing is that it's not a narrow treasury function,and never has been at Disney,” McCarthy said.

In the past five years, her responsibilities have grown as sheadded oversight of 18 million square feet of corporate campuses andwarehouses (theme parks are overseen by another department) in over40 countries, as well as sourcing, or global procurement, andcorporate alliances, a task she manages jointly with anotherexecutive.

“I am never bored,” McCarthy says. “On any given day, I can beswitching around pretty quickly.”

Handling it all wouldn't be possible without “an excellentstaff” of nine direct reports, McCarthy says, as well as theability to focus intently on whatever task is at hand.

Recently, prioritizing day to day has meant keeping her treasuryresponsibilities, especially capital markets, on the agenda,because of critical projects such as financing Disney's first themepark in mainland China, in Shanghai.

“The one area that is always top of mind for me are my treasuryresponsibilities, and that's because so many of those areas aremarket related, or large-scale project related,” McCarthy says.

Like so many companies, Disney has been focusing on building itsbusiness in China, and McCarthy has been busy finding ways for thecompany to more easily work with customers and suppliers there.Earlier this year, when Disney renewed its corporate creditfacility, it included three major Chinese banks in the syndicatefor the first time. “That's a significant change in the way we'reworking with the Chinese,” she says.

It may seem a departure for a former biology major at SmithCollege to end up as treasurer at one of the world's largest mediaand entertainment companies. But McCarthy, who also earned a M.B.A.in marketing and finance from the Anderson School of Management atUCLA, says learning the scientific method and performing researchin the lab prepared her well for a corporate finance career.

Indeed, she remains an advocate of encouraging women to studymath and the sciences, and recently mentored a woman engineeringmajor at Caltech. In part because of McCarthy's encouragement, thatstudent will go on to a graduate management science and engineeringprogram.

The similarities between biology and corporate finance lie inthe “disciplined approach to problem-solving,” McCarthy says.

“Applying the scientific method to problem-solving doesn't haveto be restricted to lab experiments,” she notes. “When you're goingthrough problems, you quickly throw out irrelevant factors, andfocus on the things that really make a difference. That trainingearly on in your career can really be well-applied inbusiness.”