In 1984 Sly began her career on the Guardian Media Sales training scheme before moving to The Independent newspaper in 1987 as Advertisement Sales Manager. By 1989 Sly had joined the sales team at IPC Media, the leading consumer magazine publisher in the UK. As well as possessing natural business acumen she was known as a real team player and progressed rapidly in IPC to become the youngest ever Board member at the age of 31. Now 42, Sly Bailey has been chief executive of the UK's largest newspaper publisher, Trinity Mirror plc, since February 2003. As well as being a director of Trinity Mirror, she is also a director of The Press Association limited.

Alasdhair Willis started off as an advertising sales executive at Dennis Publishing and, after honing his sales and business skills, set up the ultra chic design title Wallpaper in 1996 alongside journalist Tyler Brule. Alasdhair was the driving commercial force, cleverly constructing the Wallpaper image (as well his nickname is ‘Mr Gucci') and directly approached media planners with ideas. He excelled at face-to-face presentations and networking at parties and launches. They sold Wallpaper to IPC (owned by AOL Time Warner) for $1.5million. Alasdhair now runs his own company and married Stella McCartney in 2003.

Branson's business career began in 1968, when he was still at Stowe School, with the magazine, Student. He used to ring up potential advertisers from the phone box outside the school, pitching to various companies. He was a natural entrepreneur and used to barter companies off against one another in order to close deals. With the same skills he built up the Virgin Music Group with great success and now has his finger in around 250 pies and has been a millionaire for the last 30 years. Even the Sunday Times Rich list can only estimate his value, conservatively putting it at over 1bn.