Mary Barra

Immersed in GMs ignition switch megacrisis almost since day one as CEO, Barra has deftly juggled the demands of investors, regulators, customers, plaintiffs, and employees on one of the business worlds most visible stages. Shes a company lifer, but her insistence on greater openness nonetheless broke the long standing GM pattern of downplaying responses to product defects and she is making a genuine, if still far from complete, effort to transform the automakers sclerotic culture.