Money Winners of 2007: HP's Mark Hurd, firing on all cylinders

When it comes to corporate leadership and stewardship, there is no better example in recent memory than Hewlett-Packard's (NYSE: HPQ) CEO, Mark Hurd. After presiding over a very public corporate spying scandal in 2006, the former NCR lifer has brought HP back from the confused, muddling days of Carly Fiorina and into the tech and business spotlight.

HP has had a tremendous year in 2007 from a sales and profit perspective, which -- for a hardware company -- is no small feat. But also, Hurd has engineered larger sales from HP's software side with the Mercury Interactive acquisition, and has made the HP consumer PC business energized again with fresh designs, more retail exposure, and a solid marketing effort. In a manner of speaking, HP has thumped competitor Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) this year, as the latter has struggled with profitability, an accounting scandal, market share losses, and out-of-control costs. The exact opposite has happened to HP under Hurd's hand.

In surpassing IBM (NYSE: IBM)as the world's largest tech company this year (by sales), HP seems to be firing on all cylinders. Having covered many quarterly conference calls this year, there is not a single CEO I can think of that articulates company vision, strategy, sales prowess, and operational efficiency better than Hurd. All those variables and more are what makes a company successful, and a leader successful at leading the charge on all fronts.

For his efforts at turning around HP into the huge success it currently enjoys, Hurd is listed by Forbes as having been compensated to the tune of $15.14 million (2006 figures), which ranks him #91 on the overall list regarding total amount paid annually. Is he worth it? In terms of a CEO bargain, yes. Many (many) other CEOs have made way more than this for middling or disastrous performance. Hurd is definitely not one of them, and from this writer's perspective, he's earned every penny.

Be sure to check out more Money Winners of 2007.