Top 50 most influential pub people

Now in its 8th year — The Morning Advertiser ranks the trade's movers and shakers on the impact they've had on the industry in the past 12 months — and how they're likely to affect it in the year ahead.

1. Tim Martin chairman, JD Wetherspoon (3)

Why he is on the list: Larger-than-life Tim Martin climbs to the number one spot in this year's Top 50. Martin is perhaps the pub trade's highest profile personality and certainly the man who claims more press column inches and media appearances than any other industry leader. Martin has an opinion on most issues and, sometimes, he is out of kilter with rank-and-file trade opinion. But when he talks, people invariably listen and he remains a precious flag-waver and talker-up of pubs and beer.

What the past year has held: The recession failed to halt JDW's new openings programme with 38 the current target for the financial year. The company's share price has been surprisingly buoyant as the City decided its bargain meal deals and a 99p-a-pint beer offer was likely to grab market share in bombed-out economic times. Martin had plenty to say on a plethora of different topics, not least the trade's culpability in bringing about excise duty increase by focusing too much on cheap supermarket booze. Martin is unsurprised by the outcome of the Bec report asserting that Punch and Enterprise were "addicted to financial engineering" and had not paid enough attention to their tenants.

Challenges ahead: There's the small matter of refinancing a private US placement later in the year. The company could also be gobbling up more second-hand sites sitting in the administration junkyard if things were not a little less tight in the credit markets. Holding your own in sales terms in the current marketplace is no small achievement, but Wetherspoon will want to press home its value advantage by carving out more market share as consumers remain mindful of using their spare cash wisely.

Top 50 most influential people in the pub industry

1. Tim Martin chairman, JD Wetherspoon (3)

2. Giles Thorley, chief executive, Punch Taverns (1)

3. Ted Tuppen, chief executive, Enterprise Inns (2)

4. Gordon Brown, Prime Minister (new entry), Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer (6)

5. Rooney Anand, chief executive, Greene King (5), Ralph Findlay, chief executive, Marston's (5)

6. Gary Landesberg, owner, Admiral Taverns (7)

7. Michael Turner, chief executive, Fuller's (35)

8. John Hutson, chief executive, JD Wetherspoon (10)

9. Adam Fowle, acting chief executive, Mitchells & Butlers (17)

10. Simon Townsend, chief operations officer, Enterprise Inns (11)

11. Willie Crawshay, managing director, Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises (new entry)