3. Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide

Having fortuitous timing for share sales.

Angelo Mozilo, wily C.E.O. that he is, managed to net $132 million by selling Countrywide Financial stock before it became public knowledge that half of the lender's business had evaporated in the first six months of the year.

Mozilo's luck caught the attention of one investor in particular: The state treasurer of North Carolina, Richard H. Moore. In an October 8 letter to Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox, Moore wrote: "As an investor and a Countrywide shareholder, I was shocked to learn that C.E.O. Angelo Mozilo apparently manipulated his trading plans to cash in, just as the subprime crisis was heating up and Countrywide's fortunes were cooling off."

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating. Mozilo denies impropriety, saying the stock sales were part of a routine series of transactions planned without reference to nonpublic information about the company.

4. Satoru Iwata of Nintendo

Beating out Sony and Microsoft with the Wii.

Nintendo's latest entertainment system, the Wii, introduced an innovative concept in gaming while rivals produced by Sony and Microsoft were still following the same old rules.

Nintendo's system, which sells for nearly half the price of the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, has seen tremendous successes and more than doubled the company's sales since it came out last year. 

Holiday sales of the Wii are already off to a breakneck start, and the company warned of shortages as the Christmas holiday approached.