This Stanford-educated Brit is well-connected, well-respected and arguably sitting in one of the hottest of hot seats in an industry that remains, well, hot. It's a while now since Symbian was singled out by Bill Gates as a key long-term threat but the mobile operating system provider is now, especially with 3G gathering pace, starting to make waves.

Levin is at the centre of the Symbian ownership politics and manoeuvring with other industry players, especially device makers. That makes him powerful.

You could say he will be key in deciding whether Microsoft is at the centre of our most personal of personal devices over the coming 20 years or more, though that's a construct those at Palm and in open source may disagree with.