David Goulden may not be a pure finance guy by training–he grew up in operations. But he certainly knows what Wall Street likes. Since he was named the CFO of EMC Corp. in August 2006, he has presided over the biggest bump up in the share price of the Hopkinton, Mass.-based company since the technology industry's implosion in 2000 and 2001. EMC's stock is up over 40% since the start of the year and up more than 70% over the past 12 months.

Much of the good news for EMC has emanated from its highly aggressive acquisitions strategy–buying upwards of 30 companies over the past four years at a cost of $7 billion. Not surprisingly, Goulden, 48, played a key role, engineering the acquisition and integration of one of the company's most successful M&A efforts–the combination of three software vendors, Legato Systems, Documentum and VMware. EMC completed the IPO of 10% of this high-flying virtualization software maker in July and raised over $1 billion, making VMware the third most valuable software company in Silicon Valley.

The CFO of the $11 billion provider of information infrastructure technology says there is more of the same to come as EMC continues synergistic acquisitions and organic growth. "We'll drive incremental growth through international expansion, integration of acquired and homegrown technologies and investments in new markets and new business models," Goulden says. "Customers see our combination of assets as a real powerhouse."