Top entertainment marketer: Ron BertramGamechanger

As the old adage goes, with risk comes reward. And in the case of Nintendo of Canada's GM [Ron Bertram], impressive rewards. "Ron has led Nintendo of Canada through a remarkable turnaround," says John Azevedo, Nintendo of Canada's senior marketing manager. "It required a very clear vision of the future, and involved considerable risk. He deserves much of the credit for the success we are enjoying now." "Ron has a finely tuned sense of cutting through the noise to get to the relevant insights," says Pierre-Paul Tr panier, who worked with Bertram for four years at Nintendo of Canada and is now consumer marketing director at Nintendo's California office. "He gets internal and external teams aligned in understanding them, transforming them into strategy and executing with excellence." The numbers prove it. "Two Christmases ago, everyone was writing Nintendo off as a bit player in the video game industry," says Bertram from Nintendo's Vancouver-based HQ. "We were in third place. Over the past two years, especially last year, we've turned that around. Now we're the market leader in a business that has almost doubled in size in two years." That equates to profits that have jumped to $500 million from under $250 million over fiscal 2007.