Last year's position : 5

The arguments over whether Dell (the company) will win the PC market are now done and dusted. It won. Similarly, arguments over whether Dell (the man) would rest on his laurels never really got going. This is a man focused on growing past that tricky $50bn per year sales mark to $60bn in annual revenue, on the way having a major say in areas such as servers, storage, networking, printing, services and consumer electronics. Still not 40, Dell maintains expectations of rapid growth and innovation in processes. It may not sound sexy but it's effective - when he speaks, it's not just his staff or the industry that listens.