A - header contains company contact information
B - shaded area contains critical company characteristics at a glance
C - it's entitled "Executive Summary," for the benefit of the potential audience: decision-makers, who have to decide whether to read the rest of the business plan
D - the company points out specifically what it's seeking from executives and potential investors
E - highlights of the previous year are listed
F - footer contains copyright information and confidentiality notice

Of course, the executive summary isn't the only type of summary -- not even the most common, as it's found most commonly in reports for investors and relied on heavily by start-ups.

The more common type is the report summary, which differs from the executive summary in the following ways:

• it's for a more general audience, or for an audience of specialists in a technical field;
• it's usually at or near the end of the document, rather than at the beginning;
• it usually offers no information that can't be found in the body of the document.

Apart from these differences, the methods you'd use to create either type of summary are pretty much the same:

• Finish the report first!
• Make sure you know the primary audience for the report!
• Make sure all your terms are defined!
• Make sure you've picked off the important points!
• After you've done the rest, do a sanity check!

References

Rew, L. Introduction to Technical Writing. NYC: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1993. ISBN 0-312-06781-X