Tony Hughes

managing director, Mitchells & Butlers Restaurants (new entry)

Tony Hughes is responsible for Mitchells & Butlers' chain of 671 restaurants, of which 575 are branded under names such as Harvester, Vintage Inns and Toby Carvery.

M&B's latest venture, the new Project Orange gastro pub concept, is a typically Hughesian project. It was Hughes who spotted the potential of entrepreneur Paul Salisbury's Orange Tree pub in Chadwick End near Birmingham. He also wisely invited Salisbury and his partner, Paul Hales, to help M&B develop the project.

Some of M&B's finest sites ­ such as the Saxon Mill in Warwick ­ havebeen converted to the new concept. And, although numbers are still small, confidence and expectancy remains high that there is huge untapped demand for this offer. Sales gains at the rather more unglamorous Toby Carvery and Harvester remain M&B's key engines of growth.

Hughes joined Bass 10 years ago. Managing director of the Restaurant Group since 2000, he has also worked in management roles with B&Q, Devenish and Whitbread.

He is a past winner of the prestigious Martin Information Retailers' Retailer of the Year award for his work on M&B's many household-name restaurant brands.