Banking: Man at the top

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No Mouthpiece. At work, Rockefeller is an unruffled, soft-spoken executive. "I make some outrageous boners," says key Aide Dick Dana, "but the worst David ever says to me is, 'I'm a little disappointed, but I can understand what happened.' " To another aide, who he sensed was disheartened by the failure of a pet African project, David scrawled a note: "Don't feel bad. You must expect disappointments when you are pioneering in an area such as this." Although he is surrounded by expert and expensive advice, no one ever accuses David of merely mouthing his advisers' ideas—a charge that has sometimes been leveled at Brother Nelson. David went against all his aides to buy into Banco Lar: "If things were good in Brazil," reasoned he, "they wouldn't need us. Besides, the terms are very good." And it was his own decision to invest $130 million in the new, 60-story glass and aluminum Chase office building, which opened last year in Manhattan's financial district.