From the editor.

• Position: Letter to the Editor

Needless to say, it's a challenging time for top finance executives. Scandals and intense scrutiny of financial reporting have created a witches' brew of pressures and angst, and the weak economy has triggered a slew of missed earnings forecasts. Yet CFOs, in particular, are often finding new opportunity to step up and provide leadership within their often-struggling companies.

We asked some prominent executive recruiters to talk about the roles that CFOs are playing, as well as their thoughts about important skills and qualities. Ability is always vital, but the intensive focus on accountability has raised integrity -- an important issue at FEI -- to unprecedented importance. Both hiring companies and would-be CFOS are doing their own forms of due diligence to make sure there is a match.

Just what issues are on the minds of treasurers at major companies? Managing Editor Ellen M. Heffes interviewed two top treasurers, Jan P. Berger of Autodesk Inc. and Michael P. Dastugue of J.C. Penney Co., and heard a great deal about liquidity. But the two companies also have quite different needs that shape their day-to-day concerns.

Cyber-terrorism is something of a stealth issue: It isn't in the headlines every day, and the war on terrorism tends to focus more on threats of physical attacks. But cyber-terrorism is more threatening than malicious "hacking," since it has overt political overtones and carries the danger of exploiting technological weakness. Christopher Keegan, a vice president at Marsh Inc., looks at the current climate and at ways of understanding and managing the threat.

As more and more companies take up eLearning, the number of providers has swollen as well, providing ample choice involving everything from huge software companies like Oracle and...