A job in corporate development can mean different things in different settings, with the structure and responsibilities of the position varying -- sometimes widely -- from company to company and industry to industry. Some jobs include major strategy responsibilities, others financial ones. Still others may be as much about licensing deals as they are about M&A.

As the profiles of M&A executives below highlight, the career paths that corporate dealmakers travel to the field are as diverse as the jobs themselves. All told, we interviewed nearly a dozen dealmakers for this section and for "Building a winning deal team," the article that begins on page 52.

We found a couple of executives who had made a career of corp dev at their companies, rotating through development jobs at the corporate and operating levels or leading hyper-acquisitive teams. Others came to the profession from law, consulting, investment banking, engineering, sales and marketing, and the military. There was a common thread, though, and that was a desire to be involved in developing and executing the high-level growth strategies that would shape their companies for years to come.

• Making a career of corporate development at J&J
• Moving to a line business at Pitney Bowes
• Colonel Tapp and Northrop Grumman's new flight path
• From Shearman & Sterling to the middle of the Bristol-Myers makeover
• PepsiCo to Lehman to Campbell Soup
• On the inside at Brocade, but with roots in consulting
• Internal networking at ATMI
• Finding a faster ship at Glam Media
  

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