Leaders.com

Jake Winebaum

Chairman
Buena Vista Internet Group
Burbank, California

From a creative and business viewpoint, only about 25% of the Internet has been invented. If you want to be a leader who has a significant share in creating the remaining 75%, you have to build an organization that's full of people who are not only hungry but also capable of capitalizing on the opportunities that arise in a constantly shifting landscape. As a leader, that means getting as many people as possible to feel as if they're running their own businesses: It means giving them entrepreneurial freedom.

Beyond giving every initiative its own P&L, my job as part of a 120,000-person traditional media company is to remove impediments, to give teams every resource that they need to respond to opportunities quickly -- and to ensure that they have enough capital to create an environment that's going to attract the best talent.

Jake Winebaum (jake.winebaum@disney.com) has led Walt Disney's Internet initiative since its inception. Today he oversees services that range from Disney.com to ABC news and ESPN.com. He recently brokered Disney's equity investment in Infoseek and arranged a partnership to create a portal called Go Network.

Chan Suh

Cofounder, chairman, and CEO
Agency.com
New York, New York

Despite all of the talk about change in the business world, many companies still see change as a one-time event. They take the new-sheriff-in-town approach: Just follow my tracks, and you'll get to the river. What people have to understand is that change caused by Internet technology is a change in state, not just a change in situation. As a leader, you have to create a comfort zone within a high level of change. For us, that means getting very good at the basics.

We have a common set of values that are ingrained in all of us, along with a highly detailed, highly consistent methodology, so that when someone says we're in phase 2.5, everyone from Portland to London understands exactly what that means. We're also constantly creating new modes of internal education. We have a quarterly curriculum called "Inspire U.," in which we offer night classes on everything from database design to "50 ways to screw up a project" to the science of aromatherapy.

People who work here are already motivated, because they understand that we're involved in an incredible moment of change for society as well as for commerce. We want to make it as comfortable as possible for people to operate in an environment where email is popping up, new technical knowledge needs to be absorbed, and new competitive models need to be tolerated.

Chan Suh (chan@agency.com) and his partner, Kyle Shannon, built Agency.com into one of the world's top interactive consulting firms In less than four years. The company has 700 employees, $80 million in revenues, and a client list that includes Gucci and British Airways. Born in Korea, Suh grew up in Paris and attended college in New York.