Craig Mundie

hen Craig Mundie isn't powering his 63-foot Sea Ray around Puget Sound, Microsoft's chief technical officer is on a plane headed to Washington, D.C., or another nation's capital-or he can be found working inside the company's headquarters in Redmond, Wash., dreaming up the next generation of computer software products.

Mundie, 54, has the unusual task of being not only Microsoft's chief of technology but also the lead strategist on public policy for the company-a job that brings him to the nation's capital every six weeks. While in D.C., Mundie often attends meetings of the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, a group of 30 industry executives who advise the White House on communications security policy. He also meets with lawmakers and officials throughout the administration to evangelize on computer security, given that most government agencies, businesses, and consumers use Microsoft's operating system.

Mundie says that Microsoft's greatest influence on administration security policy lies in passing along what the company has learned about protecting its own computer systems and programs. "I'd like to believe that the work we did under [our computer security] initiative inside the company has had a spillover effect, in that we have been able to explain to people how we are approaching this problem inside," Mundie said. In addition, Howard Schmidt, a former Microsoft employee who worked directly for Mundie, was in charge of the White House's national cyber-security plan, which was released at the end of 2002. One of Mundie's favorite aspects of his job is being able to work on policy and technology and to discuss both topics with leaders worldwide.

Mundie, a Cleveland native, graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in electrical engineering. Besides boating, another favorite hobby is digital photography.