When Edward D. Breen was named chairman and CEO of scandal-plagued Tyco International in July 2002, one national magazine reasoned that he had taken on a job that would make “lesser CEOs quake in their wingtips.” But Breen’s footsteps to the top were not just steady; they also tracked a new pathway to the executive suite, one no longer dictated by the older, company-trained, academic-elite candidates. Breen was 46, a graduate of a non-Ivy League school and, to everyone’s relief, had moved up the corporate ranks of another company entirely, never holding a job at Tyco until he was named CEO. As one of the top human resource executives at EDS, Tracey M. Friend found that her entrepreneurial background was a plus when she interviewed for the job of portfolio manager for recruitment services. A graduate of the University of Florida, the 35-year-old Friend had already built and sold her own Internet recruitment and training company and worked for two competing technology companies before joining EDS last August.…