eBay CEO
When a headhunter begged her to interview at a fledgling dotcom, Whitman, then an executive at Hasbro's preschool division, at first declined. But she reconsidered and within a couple of years turned eBay into the most successful pure Internet company while making herself the first woman Internet billionaire. Whitman, 44, has made eBay — with more merchandise than ever, including $1 billion a year in auto sales and 37 million users worldwide — a truly global marketplace.