Nancy Cooper faced quite a challenge when she joined CA Technologies as its CFO and executive vice president in August 2006. The IT management software company was under a deferred prosecution agreement after a Justice Department investigation into accounting irregularities, and Cooper was brought in not only to see the agreement through to its conclusion, but to rebuild the finance team.

And she has reshaped finance into a tactical advance team with a well-articulated strategy. “I'm on a whole new path with the finance team―having them focus not just on basic accounting but viewing finance as a source of information to help run the company,” Cooper says. “We worked toward articulating a strategy to be as efficient as we can.”