Rod Aldridge, founder, Capita and Aldridge Foundation

Rod Aldridge is one of that very rare breed of entrepreneur to lead a company from formation all the way to the FTSE-100. The founder of the Capita Group in 1984, he headed the business through its buy-out and flotation until 2006. The Aldridge Foundation, which he established after retiring from Capital, is focused on education and the effects of educational underachievement and social exclusion on the young.

Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder, Kids Company

Camila has become one of the principal faces of social enterprise in the UK. Her Kids Company helps some of London’s most desperate and damaged children. It’s achieved through massive energy – last year, the operation’s £4.5m costs had to come from 4,700 different sources of funding – and personal bravery – her staff wear bullet-proof vests to continue their work.

Oli Barrett, founder, Connected Capital

Oli Barrett runs Connected Capital, an innovation company, and is the founder of Make Your Mark with a Tenner (the national competition in which 10,000 school pupils are given ten pounds and one month to see what they can achieve.) Other companies he has helped to launch, and remains a shareholder in, include SockRush.com (the sock subscription service), Soflow (the business networking site which merged into Wis.dm), and FriendsAbroad.com (the world’s largest language learning exchange).

Oliver Bishop, CEO, Steak Media

Oliver set up Steak Media at the age of 28, seeing the opportunity to create an independent digital agency with search at its heart. It is now one of the fastest growing of its kind and has garnered clients including John Lewis and FCUK.

Seb Bishop, president, MIVA

Seb is one of the pioneers of pay-per-click advertising in the UK. He successfully built his Espotting business across Europe and then merged it with the NASDAQ listed FindWhat.com in 2004 in a deal that valued the company at $186m. Subsequently rebranded as MIVA, Seb is one of the UK’s most dynamic contributors to the growth of the new media sector and in particular online advertising.

Grant Bovey, CEO, Imagine Homes

Grant built his buy-to-let property company Imagine Homes from scratch in 2003. "I've come from a background of media, where you don't survive unless you're creative,” he says. “I applied that to the property sector. I didn't reinvent the wheel but I changed the shape of it."

James Caan, chief executive, Hamilton Bradshaw

Twice in 20 years, he has built large, multinational HR and headhunting businesses. He’s sold both – one to private equity, one to a US listed corporation. Now he is firmly in the spotlight as one of the five Dragons in Dragons’ Den.

Sir Ronald Cohen, chairman, Bridges Ventures

“Start young, think big, stick with it” – that’s the mantra of the doyen of British venture capitalism and one of the most influential business figures of his generation. Sir Ronald was a co-founder of the mighty Apax Partners - now he is at the forefront of the social entrepreneurship movement. Sir Ronald has also written a book about entrepreneurship called The Second Bounce of the Ball.

Gary Dutton, chairman, Synseal

Gary Dutton, Chairman of Synseal is the leading entrepreneur in manufacturing. He has again been listed in the top 100 entrepreneurs by Management Today. This prestigious list is filled with British success stories and reads like a who's who in business. This is the fourth year in a row Gary has made the rankings. This year he's at number 17 on the list, and the highest in manufacturing.

John Elkington, founder & chief entrepreneur, SustainAbility

John is one of the UK’s gurus on sustainable development and corporate responsibility. He founded SustainAbility in 1987. Today, he enjoys the title of Founder and Chief Entrepreneur. “It signals that I’m not the only entrepreneur here,” he says, “and also gives me a license to pursue some of the more speculative ideas and projects that to date I have been tackling mainly in the evenings, at weekends and on long-haul flights.” 

Dr Jan Hruska, co-founder, Sophos

Dr Jan Hruska co-founded Sophos in 1985 and has built it into one of the UK’s exceptional companies – a world leader in the field of anti-virus software with more than 100 million users in more than 150 countries. Still privately owned, Sophos employs more than 1,000 people worldwide.

Richard Lambert, director-general, CBI

Richard Lambert became director-general of the CBI, Britain’s most influential business membership organisation, in July 2006. He was editor of the Financial Times for more than ten years where he weathered the recession of the early nineties and in 1997 launched a US version of the FT, remaining in overall charge of the UK version, too. “It was a great time – the nearest I’ve ever been to being involved in a start-up.” In 2003 he became the first non-economist member of the Monetary Policy Committee.

Steve Leach, CEO, Bigmouthmedia

Steve is the Real Business/CBI Entrepreneur of the Year, 2007. His Bigmouthmedia, which he launched in 1997 with a first year turnover of £200,000, is now the world’s largest digital marketing agency with 11 offices worldwide and more than 200 employees.

Kevin Matthews, CEO, Oxonica

Kevin is the CEO of Oxonica, the AIM-listed, Oxford-based nano-materials company. It has rapidly gone from being a university spin-out to a transatlantic operation, developing nanotechnology-based solutions in a wide variety of markets.

Jim McColl, chairman and chief executive, Clyde Blowers

Jim McColl started his career in engineering, working in the pumps and power equipment industries. In 1986, he bought a stake in a £14m-turnover quoted Scottish company, Clyde Blowers. Today, Clyde Blowers has a 55 per cent world market share in its original product line, factories in eight countries and a portfolio of global engineering companies.

Dan McGuire, managing director, Broadbean Technology

Dan McGuire, the CBI/Real Business Young Entrepreneur of the Year, has taken Broadbean Technology from start up to the world’s fastest growing distributor of online job adverts in just 5 years. Broadbean employees 41 staff and is responsible for processing in excess of 1.5million online job adverts and 2million candidate applications every month on behalf of 750 clients including Google. Broadbean appeared in 27th position on the Deloitte Fast50 list of the UK’s fastest growing technology companies and has won two awards for innovation in the last year.

Jamie Mitchell, managing director, Innocent Drinks

Jamie Mitchell is managing director and head of well-being at Innocent Drinks. He's also responsible for ensuring that the smoothie company gets all aspects of its work-life balance right. So far so good: Innocent was recently named 'The Best Place to Work in the UK' and aspires to be "the most talent-rich company in Europe. We want people of all ages, and from diverse cultural backgrounds, and, most importantly, we want people who inspire and deliver change around them".

Doug Richard, chairman, Library House

Few people know as much about the UK’s technology, software and venture scene as Doug, the founder and executive Chairman of Library House. He is also a co-founder and Chairman of Hotxt and co-founder and vice-chairman of Cambridge Angels. And, of course, he had a successful TV stint on Dragons’ Den.

Levi Roots, founder, Reggae Reggae Sauce

Is this the most famous recipient of investment from the Dragons’ Den? From a Brixton kitchen and a stall at the Notting Hill Carnvial, Levi’s Reggae Reggae Sauce suddenly became one of the best-selling food products of the year after his dazzling television appearance. And he remains a great musician!

Sir Robin Saxby, ex founding CEO and Chairman of ARM Holdings

Sir Robin Saxby is one of the UK’s leading technology entrepreneurs. The founding CEO and chairman of ARM Holdings, he led ARM from a 12-man spin-out joint venture to a global force in the semi-conductor industry. “We’re the global leader in what we do,” he says, “and in technology, unless you’re the global leader, life’s very hard.” Today his personal mission is to inspire the young to be passionate about science, engineering and technology.