Dennis Doughty of Booz Allen Hamilton

Asked to discuss career milestones, it's not uncommon for a top consultant to slice his career history into two distinct chapters: one before making partner, the other after.

Dennis Doughty, president of Booz Allen Hamilton's worldwide technology organization, divides his career with the Berlin Wall or, rather, the year it fell. Prior to the fall, one of his primary clients was the National Communication Systems, a federal organization created to deal with the communication challenges posed by everything from hurricanes to nuclear war.

After the fall, Doughty found himself in Eastern Europe helping governments and companies put in place the processes required to procure technologies critical to their fragile economies. From there it was on to Latin America, where he focused largely on helping companies develop strategic plans for building telecommunications infrastructure.