Corporate dealmaking skills can take you a lot of different places in a big organization. Just ask Christian Schulitz. In eight years at Pitney Bowes Inc., he's had three very different M&A roles. He spent four years in corporate development as a manager and director. From there he took over biz dev for the document messaging technologies business, where he led five acquisitions, including the $408 million deal to buy MapInfo last year. His latest assignment: London-based vice president of global business development and operations for the mail services unit. He's working to establish the business in Europe and Asia through acquisitions and other growth initiatives.

Moving from corporate-level development into a line business is the "logical next step inside the company," says Schulitz. "Integration is run at the line level. When you think about the whole [M&A] process, you're getting the operational flavor on the back end, and you get that in the unit versus corporate. If you want to get on the path that may lead to a GM role, you have to step out into the line business at some point." - Suzanne Stevens

• Making a career of corporate development at J&J
• 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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