(FORTUNE Magazine) – KIMERLY MONTOUR, 35 NEWS CORP. What does it take to go up against not only the big three networks' nightly television news but PBS, CNN, and all the others as well? Montour, vice president for news development at News Corp.'s upstart Fox TV, is finding out. She hopes to launch a Fox news program in January 1991. One plan is to provide affiliated stations with an hour-long news smorgasbord -- they could take just the pieces they want. Says Montour: ''We want to make it very flexible to blend in with their needs.'' Any worries about News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch putting in his two cents editorially? ''Not at all,'' she says. ''He's an excellent journalist.''

ROBERT FUGATE, 29 MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES CORP. Here's one chief financial officer who knows how to give his beeper a workout. Soon after joining this nationwide paging concern a year and a half ago, Fugate helped Mtel spin off from its parent, now part of BellSouth, and then oversaw the successful secondary offering of Mtel stock, the acquisition of a British paging company, and a hookup with a Singapore outfit. So far the Jackson, Mississippi, company has seen its number of worldwide pager subscribers grow from 18,000 in 1988 to 74,300 so far this year. Fugate's biggest challenge: ''I spend my time trying to get the same respect from Wall Street as we do from our customers.''

CAROL L. BERNICK, 38 ALBERTO-CULVER CO. Psst! Wanna learn how to keep an industrial secret? Bernick, who heads new- product development at Alberto-Culver, the consumer products company, isn't telling -- though once while working on a new offering to be delivered via aerosol can she arranged for a snooping competitor to get a case of cans filled with a bogus product. She'll reveal no more, admitting, ''I've been accused of being too security conscious.'' But it has paid off. Under Bernick's guidance, Alberto-Culver has introduced Static Guard spray (1989 sales: $11 million), Mrs. Dash salt substitute ($25 million), and Molly McButter nonfat butter flavoring ($20 million). At least Bernick can speak openly with her family. Her father, Leonard H. Lavin, is Alberto-Culver's CEO; her husband, Howard B. Bernick, its president. What's it like working at a family-controlled business? Says she: ''I used to be underpaid and underpromoted. It took me 15 years to live it down.''