From the editor.

What does it take to succeed as a CFO these days? Obviously, there are a lot of options available--and no single answer. There are duties galore, and the mix of those varies from company to company. We decided to interview four CFOs in very different industries, find out more about their companies and consider some of the varying ways in which success is bred.

One clear key to success is industry knowledge. Gregory Wright, the CFO of Tesoro Corp., an independent oil refinery and marketing firm, has been in the energy business for 34 years, and at Tesoro for 11. He's been in varying segments of the market, and understands the ways to drive results in an exceptionally volatile business that has seen tremendous consolidation.

Another is flexibility. Robert Daleo, CFO of Thomson Corp., has ridden the convulsive changes that have taken the Canadian-American information giant from the newspaper and trade magazine arena to a focus on computerized delivery. Changes like that mean new metrics, new technologies to understand and a business strategy that moves with the evolving nature of information.

Then there is adaptability--in the case of Jack Tierney, finance chief at Dial Corp., to a whole new set of accounting standards. In 2005, Dial became a subsidiary of Germany-based Henkel KGaA, and adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Producing financial statements under those new standards is an obvious challenge, and so is the fact that his German management requires not just quarterly closes, but monthly financial updates.

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A fourth ingredient for success is the ability to leverage specific expertise. Bill Ger-ber, CFO of TD Ameritrade Holdings Corp., did our interview four days after he had been named to the top finance post. Obviously, it helped that he has been with the organization for six years, and has had a hand in all of the eight acquisitions the company has done in the past five years. But, he was an experienced M & A veteran when he came to the company, and was put in charge of the finance component of each of the deals.

Worth noting in this issue is a collective set of interviews with the CEOs of five of the largest U.S. accounting firms. Executive Editor Ellen M. Heffes, who interviewed the firms' CEOs back in 2004, asked them this time--in honor of FEI's 75th anniversary--to reflect on the changes they have witnessed in the accounting profession over their careers and particularly the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on their relationships with client companies and their CFOs.

The supplement on FEI's Hall of Fame that is bound into this issue deserves a few comments. It's the result of a lot of effort by the magazine staff, led by Creative Director Laura Avello, with text help from a couple of researchers and by yours truly. The timeline that you see in the middle of the section was painstakingly created, using both old FEI magazines and newsletters, as well as by sifting through the key events of the various years in the world at large.

The Hall of Fame inductees themselves were kind enough to give us some of their thoughts and feelings about being recognized among the first group to be so honored. The resulting package is, I think, a terrific marriage of content and design, and one we are very proud of.