Celebrating the best and the brightest.

Progress is a funny thing. When we published the first listing of "The 25 Hottest Black Managers in Corporate America" in February 1988, there were no CEOs on the list, nor did any women make the all-star roster. The Hudson Institute had just released its landmark study Workforce 2000, but it was long before the pairing of the words "corporate" and "diversity." Clearly, a lot has changed since that issue.

Seventeen years later, our listing of the black corporate elite has tripled to 75 of the best and brightest in American, as well as global, industry. More than 15 of the executives on our latest list hold the coveted CEO title at one of the nation's 1,000 largest publicly traded companies. In fact, African Americans are at the helm of three of the world's most recognized corporations: American Express, Merrill Lynch and Time Warner. (American Express CEO Kenneth I. Chenault was, at 36, the youngest member of our inaugural list of top black corporate managers.) Also, our 2005 list of top African American corporate leaders is graced with 15 women (up from eight on our last such list, published in our February 2000 issue)--clearly a sign of progress. With corporations routinely touting diversity as key among their core values--and mainstream business magazines publishing their own lists and stories about minorities in leadership positions at these companies--it would be easy to assume that a new day of equal opportunity and all-inclusive meritocracy has dawned in corporate America.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Has progress been made? Well, yes and no. While it is true that the corporate elite identified in our 2005 list represent a 300% increase over our 1988 list, it is also true that African Americans still hold less than 1% of the tens of thousands of senior-level corporate posts at America's 1,000 largest public corporations. Black executives must still swim against the tide--and, in many cases, the waters have become more turbulent. Corporate downsizing hit many executives like a tsunami, washing away once viable careers. The most recent recession derailed the careers of thousands of black corporate professionals, seriously depleting the talent pool that is the source of tomorrow's black corporate leaders. That pool has yet to be replenished by a jobless recovery, where African Americans continue to be the last hired, first fired, and most likely to be underemployed.

On another front, affirmative action, which for decades has given blacks access to opportunity in higher education as well as corporate America, has been severely weakened. Numerous mainstream universities are reporting a decline in black applicants. Corporate diversity initiatives are far more enamored with recruitment than with mentorship, development and advancement of black professionals. At too many major corporations, diversity efforts represent a revolving door that either traps African Americans at the thresholds of their careers or ejects them from corporate America altogether. As a result, the structure of even the most diverse major corporations resembles a lopsided, double-stuffed Oreo cookie--a mostly white middle-management pipeline sandwiched between a thin sprinkling of blacks in high-profile, senior positions, and a thicker layer of African Americans conscripted to lower-level jobs with little hope of aspiring to the "C-suite" (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.). Black executives must continue to prove that they are more technically proficient and politically savvy than their white counterparts. For black corporate achievers, less-than-stellar performance remains a dangerous luxury with potentially devastating consequences.

All of this makes the accomplishments of the 75 men and women featured in this issue all the more impressive, important, and valuable. Their stories will inspire thousands of overlooked and underappreciated black professionals to remain committed to hard work and top-notch performance despite the low expectations of others. Today's top executives are the role models who can show tomorrow's leaders how to lift--and ultimately shatter--limits on their potential and ambitions.

The corporate leaders on our inaugural list of top black managers set a standard of excellence that many of the executives on our 2005 list were challenged to match--and exceed. We are confident that today's black corporate elite will do the same for future generations of African American corporate achievers.