Feras Al-Chalabi
Partner, Odey Asset Management
Al-Chalabi joined Odey in 1999 and manages $1.2bn of long-only money. This year he has made returns of 11% for Odey's flagship continental Europe fund, ranking it in the top 10% of peers over one, three and five years. Al-Chalabi has focused on investing in luxury goods, a sector which has aroused fund managers' interests because of its exposure to high-growth emerging markets. He remains bullish on Europe "as focus turns from the pantomime of the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) to the boom times in Germany".

Reza Amiri
Founder, Susa Fund Management
Former Citadel portfolio manager Amiri launched his new fund Susa in March last year and since then it has returned almost 40%. He began his career as an M&A banker in New York before joining private equity firm Bain Capital and moving to London to focus on European buyouts. In 2003 he joined start-up hedge fund Bailey Coates, a spin-off from Perry Capital, then moved to Citadel in 2005. Amiri collects old stock and bond certificates, which decorate Susa's Berkeley Street offices.

Asita Anche
Managing director, Goldman Sachs
High-frequency, quant-driven trader Anche was snapped up by Goldman Sachs in August to help develop its fixed-income market-making unit. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a masters in computer science in 2009 and her first job was in the high-frequency trading group at Citadel in the US. Twenty months later she moved to the HFT team in Europe. In 2009, Anche joined Millennium Capital Management, which is renowned for giving traders a high degree of autonomy.

George Andreadis
Head of European liquidity strategy for advanced execution services, Credit Suisse
Former London Stock Exchange trader Andreadis is spearheading Credit Suisse's dark pool strategy. He works in the advanced execution services group and after four years at the firm has became the face of Credit Suisse on market structure initiatives. He narrowly missed out on winning the most promising rising star at this year's annual Financial News awards for excellence in trading and technology. During his six years at the LSE, he built and ran the Fix Gateway connectivity service.

Danielle Ballardie
Vice-president, equities electronic trading, Barclays Capital
Ballardie joined BarCap last year to run Liquidity Cross, the bank's fledgling anonymous trading platform, and has been charged with making it a market leader in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in the face of stiff competition. Before BarCap, Ballardie spent eight years working for the London Stock Exchange on product development for its alternative trading venue Baikal, technology sales and the exchange's strategy and preparation for the European Commission's markets in financial instruments directive.

Julian Barnett
Founder, Ridley Park Capital
Formerly one of Polar Capital's top-performing managers, Barnett set up on his own last year after seven years at Polar. In the five years to 2008 he clocked an average annual return of 28% for the firm's $875m Paragon fund. And more remarkably, he returned 20% in 2008, when the average hedge fund was down almost the same amount. Ridley Park Capital – the hedge fund firm that Barnett kicked off in June with $200m – has since grown to about $350m. Barnett began managing money in UK equities at Close Brothers in 1999.

James Baugh
Director, client relationship management at Turquoise, London Stock Exchange
Baugh was promoted to his current role in February when the LSE bought multi-lateral trading facility Turquoise. He is spearheading its sales efforts and has already increased Turquoise's share of European cash equity trading from less than 3% to nearly 5%, grown its dark book to a leading position in Europe in terms of volume traded and migrated to a new low-latency technology platform in October. He was previously head of client management for the LSE's dark pool Baikal.

Mark Beeston
Chief executive, portfolio risk services, Icap
Former Deutsche Bank trader Beeston credits his father's influence for his "entrepreneurial spirit and drive". He joined Icap a year ago, charged with expanding its post-trade services division, and got off to a flying start with the acquisition of TriOptima, a post-trade infrastructure provider for over-the-counter derivatives, and is investing in collateral management messaging firm AcadiaSoft. He has also been promoted to Icap's global executive management group. Beeston says his greatest achievement was building credit default swap affirmation platform T-Zero, which is now part of IntercontinentalExchange.

Greg Best
Managing director, cash trading desk, Morgan Stanley
Best was widely regarded as one of Lehman Brothers' top cash equities traders, and was part of the team that built Lehman into a top-five equity franchise from scratch when he started in 1999. He joined Morgan Stanley in July to look after the so-called super sectors, covering technology, media and telecoms, natural resources and utilities. Industry insiders have picked him out as a future head of cash equities trading, because his in-depth knowledge and client relationships give him an edge as an execution adviser.

Stephen Birch
Partner and head of manager research, Hymans Robertson
The pensions industry is undergoing dramatic changes, and Birch is laying the foundations for both himself and his firm to not only embrace that change but thrive on it. Birch has been instrumental in transforming the manager research approach at Hymans, and his team now has responsibility for placing up to £10bn of UK pension fund assets per year with investment managers. Colleagues describe him as "a figurehead for external investment manager relationships in the UK institutional market".

Jeff Blumberg
Chief executive, Egerton Capital
After a decade at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where he was chief operating officer overseeing the manager's external hedge fund investments in Europe and Asia, Blumberg quit this year to join hedge fund pioneer John Armitage's firm Egerton in June. He picked a high-calibre hedge fund to run – Egerton's flagship long/short equity hedge fund has returned 16% annualised since it launched in 1994. Harvard-educated Blumberg has represented the US and Canada at international squash and is also a keen photographer.

Nils Bolmstrand
Chief executive, Skandia Investment Group
A Swede who studied in Spain and has worked in European, Asian, South African and Latin American markets brings a truly international flavour to Skandia's investment arm. Bolmstrand replaced Jamie Macleod in the top job at the UK's biggest multi-manager operation in September last year. He has been at the company since it launched in 2007, responsible for product development, distribution and managing relationships with other fund groups, and was previously in charge of Skandia Fonder, the Swedish fund management business.

Eamon Brabazon
Head of Emea private equity exit business, JP Morgan
Brabazon was named most promising rising star at the Private Equity News advisory services awards last month. Twelve months after he became head of JP Morgan's exit business, the bank has the highest deal tally of any bank this year at 23 either completed or in the pipeline, including the acquisition of Gatwick Airport by Global Infrastructure Partners. Brabazon is also a member of JP Morgan's liability management team. Outside work, he enjoys skiing, biking, boating and visiting his summer house in picturesque Irish coastal town Kinsale with his family.

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