1 Giles Thorley

chief executive, Punch Taverns (1)

Why he is on the list:

The boss of Britain's biggest pub company retains his number one spot in our Top 50 for 2008. Punch runs an estate of 8,400 pubs, which includes 850 Spirit managed pubs. Thorley joined the company in January 2003. He is a qualified barrister but spent his early career with Japanese banker Nomura.

What the past year has held:

It has been a remarkable 12 months for Thorley. His surprise offer to merge with Mitchells & Butlers highlights the breadth of his ambition in becoming the UK's "pre-eminent pub company".

Eventually, Punch, whose own shareholders wondered whether the merger was a good use of the company's equity, withdrew its plan, with negotiations appearing to end in a degree of acrimony.

Elsewhere, Punch has been busy bolstering support for its tenants and lessees in a bid to help them trade through the current economic downturn.

Business relationship managers (BRMs) joined forces with head office staff at the start of April in an intensive eight-week drive to focus on maximising support for licensees as the smoke-ban combined with poor weather to put a squeeze on beer volumes.

Innovation included the introduction of an operations manager tier above BRMs to offer improved front-end support.

Average licensee income rose 11% to £40,000 in the past year, thanks to Spirit conversions to lease boosting overall tenanted estate quality.

Challenges ahead:

Thorley has ruled out any large disposals of pubs, whether they be managed units or bottom-end leased houses, in what he calls "the bottom of the cycle".

Significant churn of the estate seems to be out of the question for the time being as Thorley believes Punch needs to remain about its current size if it is to maintain its support infrastructure for licensees.

Disposals would only happen if Punch had something better to replace the offloaded pubs with, he insists.