World Beaters

By Sean Gregory Sunday, Jan. 19, 2003
    • PETER KIM
    Lab Leader

    As an M.I.T. professor, he researched proteins that block HIV from healthy cells. At Merck he spearheaded the company's 2001 acquisition of Rosetta InPharmatics, a biotech company. Kim, 44, was recently named head of Merck Research Laboratories, which spent approximately $3 billion last year. Among its products in late-stage development: treatments for depression, diabetes and chemotherapy-induced nausea, as well as a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer.

    JUDY GIBBONS
    Portal Pusher

    Born in an Irish farming village, Gibbons, 44, has landed near the top of Microsoft's Internet business. She has helped MSN, the company's Web-portal service, become Europe's top entry point to the Internet, partly by allying MSN with mobile providers. As MSN's vice president for Europe, Africa and the Middle East, she will roll out access in 16 countries this year. Gibbons is a self-described culture vulture who frequents art galleries and Friday-night Shakespeare in London.

    LUIS LARESGOITI
    Make-Believer

    So your daughter isn't sure whether she wants to be a pediatrician or a pilot? Take her out to play — role-play, that is. Laresgoiti, a former toy distributor, is partnering with Mexico City — based Grupo Magico Internacional, an amusement-park operator, to build Wannado, a $50 million children's career theme center set to open in Sunrise, Fla., in the spring of 2004. For $15 to $20, kids can play doctor — and cruise-ship captain, archaeologist and dozens of other roles — in lifelike surroundings with adult actors. Wannado will be modeled after a hit Mexico City operation that Laresgoiti, 38, built in 1999.

    GULER SABANCI
    Belting Boss

    What's exciting about industrial fabric such as tire belting? Plenty, if you can sell more of it than anyone else in the world. Sabanci, 47, heads the tire and reinforcement-materials division of the Sabanci Group, her family's industrial and financial conglomerate, based in Istanbul. Under her watch, the division has entered Latin America and the Middle East and become No. 1 in its industry. Operations in China and Indonesia are to start this year. Sabanci spends her free time tending her small vineyard in western Turkey.

    JEAN POOL
    Slot Player

    An innovative advertising executive who pioneered the money-saving strategy of buying multiyear packages of local television time (for clients like Ford Motor), Pool, 54, recently left Mindshare to take over North American operations for Universal McCann. She will manage local buys nationwide for a number of heavy hitters, including General Motors and Lowe's, and, of course, will try to make some rain.