TalkTalk Executive chairman named one of London's most influential people
Charles Dunstone, founder and executive chairman of TalkTalk, has been listed as one of the Evening Standard's Progress 1000 most influential people in London. Dunstone took the role of executive chairman after CEO Dido Harding left in February 2017. The businessman refocused the company's image and worked towards the low-cost style of sales the business was founded on, whilst also removing the dividend. However, the telecoms company is still reeling from the large-scale cyber attack it suffered in 2016.

Tina Fordham

Chief Global Political Analyst at Citi

When the stock market wants to know what to make of the latest bust-up in Washington or sabre-rattling in Korea, it turns to Fordham, the political-pundit-in-chief at US banking giant Citi. A single mother of two, the Columbia grad has sharpened her pencil at top-tier organisations like the Aspen Institute and the United Nations. She appears frequently on TV for broadcasters like CNN and the BBC.

Andrew Bailey

FCA Chief Executive

When Bailey assumed the chief executive role at the Financial Conduct Authority in July last year, he was regarded as a safe pair of hands having worked at the Bank of England for 30 years. At the helm of the City watchdog, which is the UK’s most prominent financial consumer protection body, he will be a powerful voice at a time when the City is making preparations for how business will cope in the aftermath of Brexit.

James Bardrick

Head of UK, Citigroup

He sometimes spends his weekends at sea level, racing a 100-year-old fishing boat with his friends, but for most of the year Bardrick is an extremely busy man. Not only is he heading Citi’s huge UK operations, but he also sits on the Banking Standards Board, which was set up in 2015 to improve banks’ behaviour. In addition, Bardrick is a trustee and deputy chairman of Career Ready, which helps young people enter the world of work.

Matthew Barnes

Chief Executive, Aldi UK and Ireland

Barnes is not daunted by the economic wobbles sweeping through Brexit Britain. Far from it: this year he increased his plans to open new stores to take the chain from 1,000 to 1,300 by 2022. That’s a huge expansion from its current position of around 700. Analysts question whether he’ll be able to find enough sites in London to hit his targets as rents here make its cut-price model hard to sustain. This year Aldi’s critics have accused it of losing sales growth. That is a claim he vehemently denies, declaring he doesn’t “lose a millisecond of sleep” over such talk, which he reckons comes from those with vested interests in Britain’s Big Four supermarket chains.

Inga Beale

Chief Executive at Lloyd’s of London

While best known as one of the biggest champions of boardroom diversity in the City, Beale added another string to her bow by banging the drum for the City to get a good deal from Brexit. Though the insurance market faces growing pressure, Beale has been busy stitching up fresh deals to face the growing storm. With new Lloyd’s chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown in place, she opened new offices in Brussels to cope with Brexit and Mumbai to help Lloyd’s chart a fresh course for the 21st century.

Colette Bowe

Chairman, Banking Standards Board

Latterly charged with clearing out the Augean stables of the banking industry, Dame Colette recently admitted that the sector was a “very, very long way” from being fully reformed. Through a lengthy career, the trained economist has had feet in public and private life as both civil servant and chairman of telecoms and broadcasting regulator Ofcom, as well as holding board seats at Thames Water and Morgan Stanley.

Alison Brittain

Chief Executive, Whitbread

One of British business’s livewires, Alison Brittain runs Whitbread, the Costa Coffee to Premier Inn empire. A banker for most of her career, she took over the helm at Whitbread early last year. It’s proved a tough gig for the Derbyshire-raised Cambridge graduate; she joined just as Costa’s sales growth was coming off the boil. However, investors have praised her stewardship so far and fellow business bosses made her Veuve Clicquot businesswoman of the year.

Matt Brittin

President of EMEA Business and Operations, Google

As Google’s European boss, Brittin is arguably the most important person in UK tech. He faced criticism this year for ads appearing on extremist content on YouTube, its video channel, but has vowed to do more to ensure big brands are not funding hate speech. Before joining Google, initially as UK boss, Brittin was in charge of commercial operations at Trinity Mirror, the owner of the Daily Mirror newspaper.

Claire Calmejane

Director of Innovation at Lloyds Banking Group

The French-born tech guru joined the 250-year-old British institution with a brief to shake-up old ways of doing business. A former visiting scientist at MIT, Calmejane had been studying how to disrupt traditional lending when Lloyds poached her to come in-house in 2012 and show them how it was done. Though she grew up in Paris, the 34-year-old says she enjoys nothing more than sitting down for a Sunday roast with her partner after a long week.

Mark Carne

Chief Executive, Network Rail

Running the country’s train network is never a simple task, but Mark Carne will be the first to admit it has been a tougher year than most. The Network Rail chief executive has endured lengthy strikes (and the wrath of commuters) this year, but has done his best to ease their pain with an ambitious £133 million upgrade plan to create an extra 170,000 seats.

Mark Carney

Governor of the Bank of England

The Canadian Governor of the Bank of England has committed to stay on in the job until 2019 and is now gently easing the UK towards its first interest rate rise in a decade. His considered interventions – particularly in defence of the City of London – have meanwhile reminded the politicians of what is at stake as the Brexit negotiations begin, particularly his urging that we should not cast ourselves adrift from Europe.

Stacey Cartwright

Deputy Chairman of Harvey Nichols

The glamorous former Burberry finance boss has tried to stay one step ahead of the consumer game this year in a bid to revive the flagging chain. An overhaul of womenswear, new in-store concepts and a push overseas are certain to keep the chain’s billionaire owner Dickson Poon happy and has earned her a promotion from chief executive to deputy chairman. When the Liverpool FC fan is not on the shop floor, she’s down at Richmond Park cycling with her ex-rugby-pro husband.

Vittorio Colao

Vodafone Chief Executive

Colao has been boss of the telecommunications giant since 2008. Earlier this year his company launched a crackdown on fake news and hate speech, saying that it will prevent its adverts from appearing alongside objectionable content. It is understood to have been the first policy of its kind anywhere in the world.

Iain Conn

Chief Executive at Centrica

In a year when energy prices have topped the political agenda, the straight-talking Scot has become one of the most articulate opponents of the energy price cap plan. Despite facing fire for a 40 per cent pay rise and the ire of British Gas customers, the veteran oil engineer has impressed shareholders by steering Centrica in the right direction. When not grappling with politicians and customers, Conn can be found fly-fishing or listening to his favourite rhythm and blues records.

Mike Coupe

Chief Executive, J Sainsbury

A year on from the merger of Sainsbury’s and catalogue-store Argos, chief executive Mike Coupe’s skills as a retailer are in no doubt. He has managed the merger adeptly, while showing he can respond creatively to the changing nature of the retail landscape. The jury may still be out on whether the combination will deliver long term value to shareholders, but the early signs are that it will work — both for the business and for shoppers.

Jim Cowles

Chief Executive Europe, Middle East and Africa, Citi

The smooth-talking senior banker has championed diversity at the US bank, which has signed up to the Women in Finance charter. The American is planning for a “hard Brexit” although Cowles is confident that he’ll be able to look after his clients come what may. “We have to plan for the worst case from a business point of view,” he says.

Bruce Daisley

European Vice-President, Twitter

Daisley, who has a lengthy tech and media CV spanning Google and Emap, was boss of Twitter’s UK arm before taking on his current role two years ago. Despite a difficult 2016, the profile of Twitter has arguably never been higher, with US President Donald Trump boosting users as well as the influential microblogging site’s push into live video-streaming attracting younger users.

Howard Davies

Chairman, Royal Bank of Scotland

Fresh from dealing with the thorny issue of expanding the UK’s airport capacity, the 66-year-old City grandee is now chairing the UK’s perennial problem bank salvaged by the taxpayer almost a decade ago. RBS could — fingers crossed — turn a profit next year but the firm’s recent $5.5 billion US fine for past misdemeanours merely underlines how big a job Sir Howard has clearing up past messes.

Pierre Denis

Chief Executive, Jimmy Choo

The well-heeled chief executive of Jimmy Choo is currently walking the luxury shoe-maker down the catwalk — as it looks for a buyer. The Frenchman has got the business in shape for a sale and the City has responded by sending the share price up over 70 per cent in a year. Before leading Jimmy Choo’s stock market float, Denis worked his way up through French luxury goods giant LVMH.

Michèle Dix

Managing Director, Crossrail 2

Dix is in charge of one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the UK. Crossrail 2 will run between Hertfordshire and Surrey, alleviating the overcrowding on commuter trains as more and more people commute into London. Her job is to get the funding to complete the £30 billion scheme. Before that, she was responsible for Transport for London’s strategic plans, future projects and policies.

Gillian Drakeford

UK and Ireland Manager, Ikea

Drakeford started her career at Ikea 30 years ago on the shop floor in Warrington. Now she runs the Swedish group in the UK and has probably done more than most retailers to shape the look of homes across the land. Ikea is adapting to new retail trends and wants to open more smaller, easily accessible stores as well as providing click-and-collect, creating 1,800 UK jobs by 2018. Typical of its evolution is a new virtual-reality kitchen store that opened in Shoreditch this summer. Drakeford is a retailer that wants to connect with her shoppers, as anxious to serve the home-owning middle-aged as the renting millennials.

Charles Dunstone

Executive Chairman, TalkTalk

It’s been a year of change for TalkTalk, the low-cost broadband and telecom provider, which in February lost its chief executive Dido Harding. Charles Dunstone, founder of the business and still its largest shareholder, has been parachuted in as executive chairman. Dunstone, one of the UK’s most-respected entrepreneurs, wasted no time in axing the dividend and refocusing the business back to its low-cost roots. But there is still a lot of work to make up the hit the business took from 2016’s massive hack. If anyone can put this telecom company back on track, it’s Dunstone.

Luke Ellis

Chief Executive of Man Group

The hedge fund exec has done more than anyone to overhaul the image of a misunderstood industry. As chief executive of Man, Europe’s largest listed hedge fund, Ellis has managed to juggle the twin demands of keeping clients and markets happy while also attracting new money into a sector often criticised for high fees. The former farmer — he took a break from the City in 2008 — emerged from the shadows of Man’s old boss Manny Roman this year as one of hedge-funding’s most articulate and passionate advocates.

Carolyn Fairbairn

Director-General, CBI

The former BBC executive and adviser to Sir John Major is an influential voice for the UK’s biggest companies as Brexit negotiations get under way, irking Brexiteers by calling for a “bridge” rather than a “cliff edge” for businesses when the country pulls out of the EU in 2019. As a leading female industry figurehead, she’s also been an advocate for more women in the boardroom.

Stephanie Flanders

Head of Bloomberg Economics

Stephanie Flanders / Daniel Hambury: Stella Pictures

Flanders has made a blockbuster return to media this year, in a job surely made for her — the first head of Bloomberg Economics. She comes from a sojourn in finance, where she was as a market strategist at J P Morgan for four years. Before that she was the well-respected BBC economics editor. Her father was Michael Flanders, of Flanders and Swann fame, but she has no need to sing for her gigs: Flanders has real economics and media chops.

Jayne-Anne Gadhia

CEO, Virgin Money

As the boss of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Money, Gadhia is one of the financial services industry’s most senior women. She was named Personality of the Year at the Evening Standard Business Awards 2017, thanks to growing the company to be one of the UK’s main challenger banks. This year, she lived up to her straight-talking reputation with her memoir The Virgin Banker, in which she wrote about her own mental health problems and the old boys’ network at Royal Bank of Scotland under her former boss Fred Goodwin.

Martin Gilbert

Co-Chief Executive, Standard Life Aberdeen

As if managing one £11 billion deal wasn’t enough, Martin Gilbert is juggling two.

As well as merging Aberdeen with Scottish asset management rival Standard Life, he is also helping to steer the takeover of Sky, where he is deputy chairman, by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. Some question how he will cope with sharing the chief executive role with Keith Skeoch at Standard Life Aberdeen, but most in the City have been won round by the deal.

Richard Gnodde

Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs International

The South African-born banking guru has come a long way since joining the investment bank in London in 1987 in the merger department. He rose through the ranks to become co-chief executive of Goldman Sachs International in 2006, and the firm put more faith in him last year when it was revealed that Michael Sherwood — the other co-chief — would be departing the business, leaving Gnodde in sole charge. He is now responsible for the mammoth task of getting the company ready for Brexit.

Gerard Grech

Chief Executive, TechCityUK

Grech has emerged as a key lobbyist for the UK’s tech scene amid worries that Brexit could stem the flow of talent heading to these shores. Grech, who has also worked for Orange, Nokia and BlackBerry before becoming Silicon Roundabout’s champion, has called for more tech visas and recently warned that with rivals such as Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and Stockholm on the rise “the UK cannot take its position for granted”.

Doug Gurr

UK Country Manager, Amazon

The boss of Amazon in the UK has had a good year, with the online retailer continuing its voracious growth in the UK market. Since its parent company has snapped up Whole Foods, which already has a small presence in London, Gurr’s experience in the grocery market is going to be useful. Under Gurr, Amazon has added 5,000 people to the UK workforce this year, taking its total UK employees to 24,000 by the end of 2017. It moves into its new offices in Shoreditch this summer, underlining the retailer’s commitment to the capital.

Christian Hartnagel

Chief Executive, Lidl UK

The shock departure of Lidl UK boss Ronny Gottschlich after six years in the post last autumn meant Christian Hartnagel’s time had come. Although only 34 at the time, he had distinguished himself through a 13-year career at the discount retailer, including running the Irish operation. He started in a store in his native Germany after leaving school with no idea what he wanted to do. He lives in Raynes Park with his partner and three-year-old son.

Stephen Hester

Chief Executive at RSA Insurance

The former Royal Bank of Scotland chief has come into his own helming insurer RSA, slimming down its bloated operations. The 56-year-old Yorkshireman’s turnaround plan has propelled RSA to become one of the best performing insurers in the world this year. With the recovery sealed, the green-fingered Oxford alumnus — he has been a Royal Botanic Gardens trustee — is likely be drawing up plans for his next big target.

Michael Hintze

Founder, CQS

Visitors to see Hope the whale at the National History Museum will have noticed its grand new home is called the Hintze hall. Michael Hintze’s surname will be familiar to London culture vultures, as the hedge funder and philanthropist’s bequests are as numerous as they are generous. The Clapham resident’s hedge fund CQS is one of the world’s best known, investing a cool $12.7 billion of your and my pensions and other savings.

John Holland-Kaye

Chief Executive, Heathrow

At the head of the European hub that saw a record 77 million passengers in the year to September, Holland-Kaye is doing his bit to show that the UK remains open for business. The formal parliamentary vote on the controversial third runway is likely to take place in the first half of next year. Holland-Kaye, who was born in the Lake District, worked in the building industry before joining Heathrow in 2009.

Antonio Horta-Osorio

Chief Executive, Lloyds Banking Group

2017 was a landmark year for the Lloyds chief executive and for the taxpayer as the Government finally sold down its remaining stake, almost a decade after its £20.3 billion bailout of the bank. With Lloyds’ turnaround largely complete, Horta-Osorio has been linked with other big jobs, but Lloyds is adamant he’s staying put. There are still issues to sort out, but the Portuguese tennis-playing banker has got the bank back to a place where future earnings look secure and has gradually won back customer confidence too.

Jonathan “Jony” Ive

Chief Design Officer, Apple

The iPhone turned 10 this year but the sleekly iconic smartphone is still likely to remain the Chingford-born designer’s biggest contribution to consumer culture. Sir Jonathan, whom Apple founder Steve Jobs considered his “spiritual partner” at the US company, has a list of accolades as long as your arm but he made it longer still in July when he became chancellor of the Royal College of Art for a five-year term. Legend is not an understatement.

Tope Lawani and Babatunde Soyoye

Helios Investment Partners

Soyoye and Lawani left successful careers in investment banking and management to pursue their dream of being the catalysts of promoting Africa as a destination for investment. Based in London, perfect for connectivity, Tope and Baba are driven to see the investment money used on projects that improve the lives of fellow Africans. So far their efforts have seen more than £2 billion invested in breakthrough business that’s spreading access to communications and banking services to a wider African population.

Dave Lewis

Chief Executive, Tesco

Lewis arrived at Tesco after a 2014 accounting scandal that shocked the City. Wiry and athletic, he worked tirelessly to simplify the dizzying varieties and ranges Tesco stocked, making it a simpler business with cheaper prices. Although the turnaround is nowhere near finished, this year he embarked on a mega takeover of Booker, the cash-and-carry giant. Tesco director Richard Cousins resigned over the deal, believing it to be too soon into the recovery programme, but recently remarried Lewis sees it as a way to prepare Tesco for a future where shoppers are ditching out-of-town superstores for Booker’s corner shop clients.

Alexander Mamut

Chairman, Waterstones

The billionaire Russian investor bought Waterstones for £53 million back in 2011 and brought in James Daunt to help turn around the struggling high-street book-seller. The turnaround of the 270-store retailer has been steady, but stores have enjoyed a revival in physical book sales as well as offering stationery and traditional games. A float may yet be on the horizon but Mamut has certainly helped the British high-street stalwart claw its way back to life, at a time when the Amazon giant seemed destined to destroy even the biggest book stores.

Charlie Mayfield

Chairman, John Lewis Partnership

Moving from the senior ranks of the army to the cut-throat battlefield of the City is not so uncommon, but Mayfield’s career has taken him from Northern Ireland during the Troubles to the touchy-feely world of the John Lewis Partnership. After stints selling Horlicks and Lucozade for SmithKline Beecham, followed by McKinsey, he started at JLP in 2000, becoming only the fifth-ever chairman in 2007.

Ross McEwan

Chief Executive, RBS

The Kiwi with the most difficult job in the City has finally cleared one huge hurdle — settling a $5.5 billion (£4.2 billion) claim over trading toxic mortgage-backed debt in the US in the run up to the financial crisis. The settlement is likely to be followed by a further $2.5 billion claim from the Department of Justice. 2017 has also seen some progress in cutting staff and settling with shareholders. It has taken some time to haul the taxpayer-owned bank out of its “lost decade”, and it’s not quite there yet, but McEwan finally seems to be making headway.

John McFarlane

Chairman, Barclays

The no-nonsense McFarlane — who lost no time in dispensing of the services of former chief executive Antony Jenkins in 2015 — is also keen to stick up for the Square Mile’s interests after Brexit as chair of TheCityUK lobby group. The 70-year-old banking veteran has been vocal in calling for a multi-year transition deal with the EU but remains confident that London will remain a key financial centre.

Nicola Mendelsohn

Vice-President EMEA, Facebook

Frequently referred to as the most powerful woman in UK tech, Lady Mendelsohn CBE has been leading Facebook’s unstoppable rise in Europe. Like Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, she is a champion of diversity in the workplace. One of Sadiq Khan’s business advisers, Lady Mendelsohn is also a director at spirits giant Diageo and co-chairs the Creative Industries Council, a joint venture between creative industries and the Government.

Peter Miller

Chief Operating Officer UK/ Europe Westfield

The place where 75 million Londoners shop a year, Westfield dictates to a great extent what the capital spends its money on and also how it spends its leisure time. Miller has been in charge since Westfield arrived in 2008 and its latest £1 billion development in Croydon and a new £600 million extension of Westfield London demonstrate how it is turning up the heat on rivals. A Knight Bachelor honour for company founder Frank Lowy in the Queen’s recent birthday honours list shows how significant Westfield has been in rebuilding the capital’s economy since the financial crisis.

Lakshmi Mittal

Chairman and Chief Executive, ArcelorMittal

The 67-year-old steel magnate who was born in India has reason to celebrate: he and his family were ranked number four in the Sunday Times Rich List 2017’s UK richest 1000. They added more than £6 billion to their £13.2 billion fortune. Mittal settled in London in 1995 and he is a shareholder in Queens Park Rangers FC, along with his son-in-law Amit Bhatia, who is its vice-chairman.

Dambisa Moyo

Economist

The Zambian-born international economist is a veteran of the World Bank and Goldman Sachs who currently sits on the board of Barclays. The Oxford and Harvard-educated academic is author of three New York Times international bestsellers including Dead Aid — on the folly of aid to Africa — and is a regular at Davos, arguing this year that workers need to “re-skill” to adapt to globalisation and the jobs of the future.

Marc Nachmann

Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Co-Head

The high-flying new head of investment banking in London originally joined Goldman Sachs in its corporate finance department in 1994 and had struck gold within 10 years by being promoted to partner. He is now seen as one of the “next generation” of leaders at the bank. The married father-of-two was educated at Wesleyan University in Connecticut after joining as an exchange student from Germany. He graduated in 1991 with a degree in physics and mathematics-economics.

Paula Nickolds

Managing Director, John Lewis

The first female boss of John Lewis is a lifer at the department store group beloved by Britain’s middle-classes. She joined 22 years ago in the haberdashery department in Oxford Street and enjoyed a stellar career but reaches the top in tough times for retail, with Brexit and rising inflation sapping consumer confidence. Retail is in her DNA, as some of her earliest memories are of accompanying father Clive Nickolds on store tours at Marks & Spencer where he was a senior director.

Gavin Patterson

Chief Executive, BT

Gavin Patterson / Daniel Hambury / Evening Standard

As the head of one of the UK’s biggest telecoms firms, Patterson has led a bold push into Sky’s backyard, snapping up a host of sports broadcasting rights including Premier League football. But 2017 has been an “annus horribilis” for the FTSE 100 chief executive so far; the lowlight was a shocking profit warning driven by an accounting scandal in Italy and slowing public sector contracts.

Franck Petitgas

Global Co-Head of Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley

The French-born City whizz gave £12,000 to the Remain side in the run-up to the referendum last year. But, with the Leave side winning, he now finds himself helping the Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley prepare for Brexit. Every chairman and chief executive will take his calls, which should help him.

Vis Raghavan

JPMorgan Head of Banking EMEA

Cricket devotee Raghavan grew up in India and studied physics at the University of Bombay before he came to the UK to do a postgraduate degree in electronic engineering and computer science at Aston University. He had fully intended to go into a technology role. But luckily for JPMorgan, he ended up in the financial sector. With that brainpower, it’s no surprise he is the top City bank’s most senior banker in Europe, having just been promoted from deputy to CEO of its Europe, Middle East and Africa division.

Jim Ratcliffe

Chief Executive, Ineos

Ratcliffe grew up in Greater Manchester and now runs one of the world’s biggest chemical companies, which employs around 4,000 people in Britain. He is a fan of adventure sports who has made expeditions to the North and South Poles, but Ratcliffe can also be found in Knightsbridge, where Ineos opened a new headquarters in December. His firm has now transferred a number of the functions from the group’s corporate headquarters in Switzerland to London.

Simon Robey

Co-Founder, Robey Warshaw

The City’s been quiet this year for the megadeals Sir Simon specialises in advising on. But where they have happened, he’s usually been somewhere in the background. This consigliore of the City, like his sidekick Simon Warshaw, is on the speed-dial of every chairman and chief executive in town. Their Robey Warshaw boutique advisory firm saw their profits double to £37 million in figures released at the start of the year. Not bad for a business only four years old. Robey, chairman of the Royal Opera House, became Sir Simon last year for services to music.

Xavier Rolet

Chief Executive at the London Stock Exchange

The French-born stock exchange chief played a pivotal role in one of London's most fraught takeover sagas last year, steadying the ship as the company's merger with Deutsche Borse collapsed. Rolet, who owns an award-winning winery in Provence with his wife Nicole, bounced back by boosting LSE sales and clinching a £500m US takeover. Retirement beckons for this busy bee however after he announced would step down in 2018.

Sacha Romanovitch

Chief Executive, Grant Thornton

Romanovitch has made waves since becoming the boss of the accountancy giant in 2015, with a focus on social responsibility. It is paying off: this year the firm came number one in the Government’s first-ever list of the top 50 employers to have promoted social mobility at work. Changes the company has made in recent years to its school leaver and graduate trainee selection include removing academic barriers to entry.

Peter Ruis

Chief Executive, Jigsaw

His first job was buying shell suits, but dashing 49-year-old Ruis’s latest accomplishment has been putting the pieces back together at Jigsaw. Sales leapt to £105 million in the last financial year, as the former John Lewis buyer steered the intelligent fashion brand off the rocks. Brexit means big challenges, but Ruis is spearheading Jigsaw’s ♥ Immigration campaign, because “none of us are the product of staying put”. That’s what we call fashion forward.

Keith Skeoch

Co-Chief Executive, Standard Life Aberdeen

Although he’s based in Scotland for much of the time, Keith Skeoch’s stewardship of Standard Life makes him one of the City’s biggest noises. And he’s only getting more powerful as he bashes the business together with Aberdeen Asset Management and his opposite number there, Martin Gilbert. Quieter and more contemplative than clubbable Gilbert, Skeoch is more of the details guy in the partnership. A keen fell walker and fly fisherman, he’s as comfortable in the Highlands as he is on Cheapside.

Martin Sorrell

Chief Executive, WPP

The advertising mogul, aka the Sage of Soho, has run WPP for more than three decades. Despite his pay packet plunging last year and his industry facing tough economic times, with relentless cost-cutting by large corporations that are scaling back on advertising, Sir Martin has given no hints that retirement is on his mind. He is more than a mere adman. Clients and the media rate, indeed rely on, his ability to see what’s coming next.

Michael Spencer

Chief Executive of NEX

City trading legend Spencer is prominent as ever in the capital, concentrating on NEX, the electronic division of the Icap empire. Earlier this year, the former Tory Party treasurer split off Icap’s traditional telephone broking arm and sold it to Tullett Prebon in a £1.3 billion deal. The fine wine-loving bigwig is famed for hosting star-studded charity days.

Jes Staley

Chief Executive, Barclays

The American banker who broke company rules trying to unmask a whistle-blower at Barclays and who fell victim to a flattering email prankster has had his reputation dented this year, but he still remains one of the most influential voices in the City. At least Staley will have some fans among the Government, where he has helped by playing down the implications of Brexit and also pledging that only a few hundred or so of the bank’s UK employees will transfer to Dublin to help build an HQ within the European Union.

Tim Steiner

Chief Executive, Ocado

The former bond trader for Goldman Sachs started Ocado 17 years ago with fellow Goldman colleagues and the online supermarket has been delivering Waitrose goods across the capital ever since. The business has finally started to turn profitable, delivers for Morrisons as well, and has even announced its long-awaited international supply deal with an as-yet unnamed overseas retailer. Ocado now pitches itself as a tech company and Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods has helped stimulate interest in it. The former banker looks set to hit a sweet spot.

Ian Taylor

Chief Executive, Vitol

The head of the world’s largest independent oil trader may be facing difficult market conditions, but in March he revealed that the behemoth, run from his millionaire factory in Buckingham Palace Road, had a “solid” performance in 2016. The Royal Opera House chairman said crude and product volumes increased by 16 per cent.

Francesco Vanni D’Archirafi

CEO Citi Holdings

The German-born head of Citi’s “bad bank” did such a good job managing zombie assets dating back to the financial crisis that it now makes a profit. The son of an Italian diplomat spent a peripatetic childhood in Rome, Madrid, Brussels and Buenos Aires. He has worked almost all his career at Citibank, joining in 1983 in New York and transferring to Lima in Peru the following year before taking on a series of more senior roles.

Nick Varney

Chief Executive, Merlin Entertainments

Britain’s biggest tourist operator, Varney is the chief executive of Merlin Entertainments which operates some of the world’s most-famous attractions including Madame Tussauds and the London Eye. Varney is a considered and thoughtful voice over the Brexit challenge to tourism and has also won fans for this humble and swift action in the wake of the Smiler accident at Alton Towers, which exposed terrible health and safety failings.

Willie Walsh

Chief Executive at International Airlines Group

The boss of British Airways owner IAG has faced down a cocktail of problems this year, from cabin crew strikes and IT meltdowns to Brexit threats and low-cost rivals. The 56-year-old Irishman — who once said he would retire at 55 — has come through it all intact, opening a new airline class, Level, to compete with budget rivals and bolstering his statesmanlike role in the industry by holding the chair at global airline body IATA.

Mike Wells

Chief Executive, Prudential

The man from the Pru is no longer an ageing English gent in a bowler hat knocking on your front door. Wells is a tall Canadian, now a US citizen, with Superman good looks. Now two years into the job, he rocked up to London from his beloved Nashville, where he’d built up an enviable collection of rare guitars. Little wonder his son Jackson is now enjoying success as a singer-songwriter in China, where he sings the blues in Mandarin. If country and blues is not your thing, Wells can wax lyrical about everything from cattle (he still owns a ranch outside Nashville), to US politics (he’s a conservative with a gun licence), or world travel.

Alannah Weston

Deputy Chairman at Selfridges

The Progress 1000, in partnership with Citi, and supported by Invisalign, is the Evening Standard’s celebration of the people who make a difference to London life. #progress1000

As the guiding light behind Selfridges’ Oxford Street flagship store, Weston has turned the building into a must-see for tourists and Londoners alike since she was named deputy chairman in 2014. The former Burberry press director was appointed as creative director of the Weston family department store in 2004, adding to her long-running connection with the brand. She is married to architect Alexander Cochrane. The couple have two daughters.

Mark Wilson

Chief Executive, Aviva

The rugby-loving New Zealand-born boss won high praise when Aviva was named Business of The Year at The Evening Standard Business Awards 2017. This firm is almost unrecognisable from the bedraggled insurer it was when he took over in January 2013. A textbook turnaround has been accomplished, with underperforming businesses sold, the structure simplified and core businesses strengthened. He is now looking to the firm’s future, investing heavily in all things digital.

Stewart Wingate

Chief Executive, Gatwick Airport

Stewart Wingate has spent most of the last year making the case to give Gatwick a second runway. The chief executive of the UK’s second-busiest airport is the public face of the airport’s vocal campaign and backed up his argument after increasing the number of long-haul flights from the airport — beyond what Sir Howard Davies predicted it would have. Before running Gatwick, he was managing director of Stansted.

Bill Winters

Group Chief Executive, Standard Chartered

The Wall Street banker has spent much of the past two years trying to straighten out the pan-Asian bank and tighten up compliance and the job is certainly not over. There have been some small signs of progress following a restructuring of the bank’s business model, but there’s also lots of scepticism. Winters, who is something of a showman and is on the board of the Young Vic, favours a low-risk path to recovery but has made one significant decision. The bank’s EU headquarters will locate in Frankfurt, post-Brexit, a move which will probably influence other chief executives facing a similar dilemma.

Simon Wolfson

Chief Executive, Next

The Brexit-supporting chief executive of Next has had a tricky year in his retail empire as the company braces itself for rising prices, wage pressures and a slowdown in consumer spending. Online sales are faring better and rapidly becoming a big deal for the company and the closure of more physical stores seems inevitable. Next has not rediscovered its mojo in 2017 but Wolfson has laser-like scrutiny of the business and will not hesitate to make difficult decisions to win back the fickle British shopper.