World Beaters

WILLIAM HAWKINS
Medical Marketer
Medtronic, a medical-device maker based in Minneapolis, Minn., saw net earnings rise 22.5%, to nearly $2 billion, in the past fiscal year, and that's great news for the company's new president and chief operating officer, William Hawkins, 50. Hawkins, an avid Duke University basketball fan, knows his competition; he has also worked for Eli Lilly, Guidant and Johnson & Johnson. The challenge for the biomedical engineer and former head of Medtronic's vascular business will be to keep the company hitting nothing but net. Next up on Hawkins' game plan: overseeing the launch of its first drug-coated cardiac stent in Europe later this year.

SUSAN ARNOLD
Beauty Queen
As head of Procter & Gamble's beauty-products division since 1999, with brands like Olay and CoverGirl, Susan Arnold, 50, trusts her intuition. "You get just enough data, but then you have to have a sense of what works," says the 24-year P&G; veteran, who became vice chairwoman last month. "And you have to have the guts to act on it." Under Arnold, the division's sales have grown about 14% annually. The mother of two, who recently competed in a triathlon and learned to surf, will add hair care to her portfolio. With a third of P&G;'s $43 billion revenues under her control, she's one of three execs in the running to take over from CEO A.G. Lafley.

HUBERT JOLY
Globetrotter
At first glance, Hubert Joly, 45, a former technology consultant and ex-chief of Universal Vivendi's game division, seems like an unlikely executive to lead Carlson Wagonlit Travel, the world's second largest business-travel company. But the French-born Joly, who loves to travel with his wife and two teenagers, insists that technology is what the $11.5 billion, Paris-based firm, with 12,500 employees in 140 countries, needs most to compete with online travel services like Expedia. His expertise should also help him handle the deregulation of reservation systems like Sabre.