Megan Smith has a knack for driving change. As an MIT mechanical-engineering student, she built a solar car and drove it in the first Cross-Continental Solar Car race across the Australian outback. In her business career, she's managed strategic acquisitions that produced Google Earth. In between, Smith has challenged world leaders to address hatred of gays.

As director of new-business development at Google since 2003, Smith enjoys "experimenting with new ideas to find out what's most useful to the most people." She led acquisitions that created Google Earth and Google Maps, two of the company's most popular tools.