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.

When Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) bought Mercury Interactive a little over a year ago, the company probably did not know that a pretty large settlement would be forthcoming from several pension funds that accused the now-subsidiary of stock-option backdating. The settlement reached earlier this week was $117.5 million, the largest of its kind.

The second-largest out-of-court settlement due to accusatory stock options backdating was $18 million, so the Mercury case seems unique: why such a large settlement here? HP knew of the shenanigans when it purchased the company in 2006, although the extent was probably unknown at the time. Even with the $4.5 billion purchase price and the $117.5 million settlement, Mercury was still a wise investment for HP moving forward, as it's already become a lucrative area within the company.

HP wants this situation and settlement to quickly be swept under the rug, which is no surprise. HP is shining these days under operational CEO Mark Hurd and from all appearances, can do little (or no) wrong on its march to continue crushing sales numbers and margins from competitors like IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL). Oddly, the company has done an admirable job of taking focus away from the corporate spying situation from a year ago and other problems by using its core business strengths to perform very well quarter to quarter.