36. Lionel Barber

Job: editor, Financial Times Age: 56 Industry: publishing, digital media Circulation: 356,194 Staff: 590 2010 ranking: 49 While the Financial Times's print readership drifts gently down, albeit at a slower rate than many other UK nationals, Lionel Barber's online following is growing. With 224,000 subscribers, up 60% in a year, ft.com is – pardon the pun – in the pink. Our panel's verdict: "Hugely influential among opinion formers and even if you don't read the FT during the week it's a fantastic read on Saturday." The paper is back in profit too, with income up tripling last year (although the FT's parent declines to give out any numbers in millions of pounds). Barber had been at the FT for 20 years when he was appointed to replace Andrew Gowers as editor in 2005. He began his career at the Scotsman and the Sunday Times, and has reported from New York, Washington and Brussels. Barber took on the rest of Fleet Street in January, using his Hugh Cudlipp lecture to accuse other papers of a "conspiracy of silence" over the phone-hacking issue, "almost certainly because they too were involved in similar practices". He warned editors they risked political "retribution" in the form of statutory regulation if they did not reform. The undoubted highlight of the former student cricketer's year was a trip to Pakistan, written up for the FT. The great retired sportsman Imran Khan was persuaded to take a pause from politics and bowl six of his best at Barber's bat.