Richard Strang, Senior general manager, Bear Stearns, London

Richard Strang has spent almost all his 20-year City career at Morgan Grenfell (latterly Deutsche Morgan Grenfell), and appears, in demeanour at least, a very English banker. A tall, commanding presence, opera-loving Strang is known for his intense loyalty to his clients, for his unusual capacity for hard work and for tempering his politeness with determined persistence.

But Strang is by no means a typical UK corporate financier. Over the years he has grown steadily more international in outlook, pursuing cross-border M&A deals, most notably for AT&T and for a number of other big US corporations.

Increasingly at home with the more aggressive marketing-oriented culture of US banks, he was a logical addition to the payroll of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns, where he recently took on responsibility for extending its telecommunications advisory and...