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Who's in and who's out
Gideon Spanier, Evening Standard17 Mar 2008
The energy of London is nowhere more reflected than in the shifting balance of power among its thoughtmakers, trendsetters and leaders. Every week, Gideon Spanier looks at who's in and who's out.
MAKING MOVES
NEW MEDIA
MICHAEL BIRCH, 37
FOUNDER OF BEBO
Now spectacularly rich after selling the social networking website to AOL for £425 million, netting 70 per cent for himself and wife Xochi, just three years after founding it. Hertfordshire-born Birch is based in California but has strong links with London. He and his wife, who met at Imperial College, have a house in Richmond and his brother Paul, a founder investor in Bebo, lives here.
RETAIL
KATE BOSTOCK, 50
M&S HEAD OF CLOTHING
Tipped as the front-runner to succeed boss Sir Stuart Rose after he promoted her to the board as part of a reshuffle. This is her chance to learn the financial side of the business if she is to become chief executive. Already described as "the most powerful woman in British retail," she sacked half the womenswear department at M&S when she arrived. She needs to turn around the firm's sales, which are down for the start of this year. Bostock, a mother-of-two, split from her first husband because, she said, he didn't understand fashion so "had to go".
UP AND COMING
POLITICS
JENNIFER MOSES, 46
NO 10 ADVISER
The former Goldman Sachs banker has been appointed to Downing Street by Gordon Brown - despite doubts she not might take the role because her husband Ron Beller's hedge fund Peloton has just crashed. The couple, who live in Hampstead, became notorious when they didn't realise Goldman secretary Joyti De-Laurey had stolen £1 million from their bank account. US-born Moses is no Leftie and set up CentreForum, a liberal thinktank. No 10 won't say what her exact role is but she is sure to wield influence. She is also a former non-executive director for Agent Provocateur.
NEW ON THE LIST
ART & DESIGN
MARK JONES, 57
V&A DIRECTOR
London's most reticent museum director, Jones has been at the helm since 2001. While the V&A was something of a poisoned chalice for his three most recent predecessors, he has revamped the once dusty galleries, although some accuse him of populism. Jones is in the spotlight with this week's opening of China Design Now and there is another crowd-pleaser in the pipeline on The Supremes.
UNDER PRESSURE
HEALTH
LORD DARZI, 47
HEALTH MINISTER
Acclaimed surgeon who is ranked in the top five of our Influentials in Health. He has found it less easy being one of Gordon Brown's GOATS - a member of the Government Of All The Talents. Given the daunting task of mapping out the future of the NHS, Darzi is in danger of becoming a scapegoat after only 3,500 Londoners replied to a £1 million consultation on his plan to replace GPs' surgeries with "polyclinics" and super-surgeries.
