Name: Martin Taylor

Title: Group CIO

Company: LCH Clearnet

What they say about him: "A legend among CIOs who specialises in turning around chaos. He can handle the most difficult or even dysfunctional situation. A key strength must surely be the ability to see the wood for the trees, make sensible decisions and drive them through."

A true heavy-hitter, Martin Taylor took on the group CIO role at clearing-house LCH Clearnet at the turn of this year after filling the interim post for six months.

Taylor started his varied IT career at British Airways in 1976 and then spent a decade at Mars during the 1980s - including a year in the US - where he drove materials resource planning-enabled change at the company's US manufacturing plants.

Back in the UK Taylor joined textiles company Courtalds as group CIO, reducing UK costs and standardising its IT infrastructure in the Far East. In 1996 he became group CIO at EMI, where he took the music company through the Y2K project and led early forays into the internet and digital downloads.

Taylor took time out from CIO work in 2001 for a mixture of work that included personal investment, consulting to Microsoft founder Paul Allen's European private equity business and a non-executive position on the UK government's police and security IT boards.

He then returned to the FTSE100 in 2003 as group CIO for telco Cable & Wireless to help turn around the business by in-sourcing the IT from IBM, exiting the US, overhauling its UK IT infrastructure and in-sourcing international billing for radical cost reduction.