David Yu, Betfair CEO
Position: 18 Last year: Not ranked
Why? The techie who made it to the top
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The man at the heart of the unfolding Betfair success story, David Yu is the techie who made good, after rising through the organisation from CTO, becoming CEO following a boardroom shake-up in early 2006.
Betfair's betting exchange is based on a phenomenal infrastructure that Yu was instrumental in building in his previous tech roles at the company. The platform now serves a staggering two billion page impressions per week.
The betting exchange - which allows punters to take and place bets directly with each other - is now valued at about £1.5bn, with revenues rising steadily to £145m and a healthy operating profit of £35m.
Since taking over the hot seat, Yu has defied City market-watchers who feared the untested techie wasn't up to the job and has led Betfair's continued expansion into new territories, such as Australia and Malta, and into new products including online poker.
His next challenge will be getting the timing right for Betfair's much-rumoured and hotly awaited stock market flotation.
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