Mr Mayo was seen by City analysts as the brains behind Marconi's transformation from a diversified group into a firm focused on telecoms, a change which left the company worryingly vulnerable to the downturn in technology markets.

BBC: Marconi braced for takeover bids

There was a great piece in the New Yorker the other day about that remarkable transformation and decisions made about group affiliation trumping policy.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

This reflects the remarkable emergence and transformation of a Korean family group dating to 1896, and how a growth region thousands of miles away can exert pull on North Asian corporate mainstays.

FORBES: Arabia-Asia: The Mideast Is Prime Territory for Korea's Doosan Heavy

Jimmy Carter was president when LaPierre first went to work for the NRA in 1977, and for the past 22 years LaPierre has been the organization's executive vice president, steering it through a transformation from a clubby marksmanship group into a political movement adept at beating back efforts to tighten firearms regulations.

NPR: NRA's LaPierre: Wonk With Million-Dollar Megaphone

In my current responsibilities I am responsible in leading a team of 7000 consultants spanning across Management Consulting Services, Package applications consulting in sap, oracle, best of breed packages and Systems Integration to enable business transformation for clients in the Manufacturing Industry group.

FORBES: What businesses can learn from consumer social networks

Rawn Shah is a business transformation consultant in the Social Software Adoption team in IBM's software group and is the author of Social Networking for Business: Choosing the Right Tools and Resources to Fit Your Needs, newly published by Wharton School Publishing.

FORBES: Magazine Article

There are home-grown successes, too witness the transformation of a doddery East German combine, Carl Zeiss of Jena, in Thuringia, into the technology group Jenoptik, with world sales of DM2.6 billion and a first public share issue last month that was one of the hits of the season.

ECONOMIST: Germany��s east