People: The names and faces destined to become more familiar this year

Published on Friday 2 January 2009 21:47

It is going to be the toughest year for business in more than two decades.

Confirmation that the UK is in recession, expected this month, will only tell business leaders what they already know – that the economy is in deep trouble.

The severe economic contraction has thrown up challenges that few of the current crop of business leaders have ever had to deal with.

Here we highlight some of the executives who will be prominent as they take their companies into treacherous times.

Stephen Hester

Chief executive, Royal Bank of Scotland

The new hand at the helm of RBS has some very big decisions to make.

Most crucially, will he cut back RBS's foreign operations to concentrate on righting the ship at home, now that the UK government is the majority shareholder in the bank?

Another crucial question is whether Hester will go ahead with – or pull – the sale of RBS's insurance business, fronted by Direct Line and Churchill.

Will he sell the Royal's 4.3 per cent stake in Bank of China to beef up the balance sheet or stay in for the long term?

And what sort of axe will he take to costs – and jobs – to try and further reposition the bank?

The City will be keen to discover the answers to all these questions.

Sir Sandy Crombie

Chief executive, Standard Life

With the departure of RBS's Sir Fred Goodwin, Sir Sandy Crombie is now Scotland's pre-eminent financial services leader.

His Edinburgh-headquartered company has performed relatively well amid the market turmoil, recording solid though not sensational figures. The City will be watching to see whether that continues through a recession.

There is also the question over how long Crombie, 60 this year, will remain in charge.

Archie Kane

Chief executive, Scottish Widows

As the head of Lloyds in Scotland – and a member of the board of the company that has taken over HBOS – Archie Kane is a key player.

He will be watched carefully to see if he is Scotland's man at the Lloyds boardroom table in London, or Lloyds' man in Scotland.

Blair Nimmo

Head of restructuring, KPMG

The trickle of troubled and failing companies – Bowie Castlebank, Beanscene – that fell into Blair Nimmo's hands in 2008 is likely to turn onto a cascade in 2009, if not a flood.

Katherine Garrett-Cox

Chief executive, Alliance Trust

One of the FTSE 100's few women chief executives, Katherine Garrett-Cox is also one of the market's best asset-pickers. Will Dundee-based Garrett-Cox's suitably bearish investment strategy finally pay impressive dividends?

Mike Hickey

chief executive, Wolfson

The new boy from Motorola took charge on the first day of this year. Can he stem the decline in Scotland's favourite semiconductor chip maker? His predecessor, Dave Shrigley, did not impress during his brief tenure. Founder David Milne's shoes have proved hard to fill.

Consumer electronics specialist Mike Hickey faces a tough job selling premium products in a sector that is going resolutely mass market.

John March

Chief executive, Big DNA

Could 2009 be the year in which John March's Big DNA gets big? With 1.5 million raised in its most recent funding round, the bioscience company looks set to expand. Big DNA has also signed former minister Lord Freeman as its chairman.