WHO ARE THE INFLUENTIALS?

London is the world's most influential city. Other cities have prowess incertain fields but if you examine the sum of its parts, we live in a time when London occupies a remarkable position.

It is a renaissance period.

Financially it's a global capital, our art world sizzles, our property markets soar and politically we remain a considerable force on the world stage. Then there are our thrusting media industries, our inventive fashion, our pioneering theatre and film-making and our inspiring literary life; we are even fortunate enough to enjoy an extraordinary rise in the quality of restaurants.

We demand attention for our work in the less glamorous but no less important fields of health, charity and social reform too. But none of this would have been achieved if we did not have the people. The people who not only make the right decisions but have the nous, energy, creativity and power to see those decisions through. People of influence do not follow, they lead.

That is the essence of influence as we see it.

As such, our panel has decided that the actions of the people featured in The 1000 have the most profound effect on our lives as Londoners. But the aim of this publication is not to simply reel off London’s richest, glossiest and most famous residents.

Yes, some are wealthy and some are well known but many are people whose work takes place behind the scenes.

Is not the man who goes into schools every day to teach London's teenagers the dangers of knife crime as influential as the man who funds that school?

We are fortunate to live in this city during such a flourishing period. It is the influence - some hidden and some prominent - of the people we reveal here, from all backgrounds and immersed in all walks of life, that makes it so.