22. Adam Crozier

Job: chief executive, ITV Age: 47 Industry: broadcasting Turnover: £2bn Staff: 3,947 Pay: £1.6m (including share awards) New entry When Royal Mail boss Adam Crozier, with no previous experience of broadcasting, was brought in to turn around ITV last April, his chairman, Archie Norman, described him as "willing to put his head where the bullets fly". Quite. At 31, Crozier was catapulted into the role of joint chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi a week after its founders were ousted. At 36, he shook up the Football Association. By the time he left, revenues had increased and Sven-Göran Eriksson had arrived as the England team's first foreign coach. After joining the Royal Mail at 39, he closed thousands of post offices, took on the unions and found a way to make a profit. Since arriving at ITV, however, Crozier has formulated a not-so-revolutionary five-year rescue plan. In essence, he has espoused the same strategy as his predecessors Charles Allen and Michael Grade: reduce dependence on advertising from 75% to 50% of revenues by increasing income from online, pay TV and production for other broadcasters. In his first year, Crozier has reaped the benefit of a rebounding advertising market and cost cutting had begun before he joined: ITV is back in the FTSE 100, and debt has been slashed by two thirds. Now begins the hard work of succeeding where television royalty failed.