Top 50 most influential: a case of men on top

I began to realise, however, that some people take it more seriously than that, when the lobbying started in earnest last month. Various PRs contacted PMA​ journalists to ensure we were fully appraised of the contribution their clients had made to the trade, and to ensure we named the organ grinder and not the monkey (however noisy that monkey had been) in our listings.

But the perils of using undue influence on industry awards have been well documented in recent weeks, and the PMA​ team would not be swayed by begging, bullying or bribery.

At times, we have wondered whether this exercise was worth the hassle — but we have been brave and bold, and produced a magnificent list of power-players to entertain and inform you, our readers.

Thanks to our position as a communication channel between hosts, their representatives and their suppliers, the PMA is well-placed to make the sorts of judgement calls needed to separate position 27 from 28, for example — though it remains just one perspective.

To make the Top 50 a little less subjective this year, we have rewritten the judging criteria. I’m not going to go into forensic detail about the process, but some quantitative research was involved, together with qualitative sense-checking procedures.

You will disagree with our list in part or in full. But that’s because it’s our list. By all means draft your own league table and share it with us.

Some notable features of this year’s list include the lack of women. In that regard, our Top 50 resembles the shortlist at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards. Just three ladies made the cut (Brigid Simmonds, of the British Beer & Pub Association, licensee Karen Murphy and Inge Plochaet of AB InBev), though Drake & Morgan’s Jillian MacLean, Jackie Bateman of Batemans Brewery, Jo Clevely of Geronimo, the BII’s (British Institute of Innkeeping’s) new Licensee of the Year Mahdis Neghabian and new Hospitality Guild executive director Suzanne Jackson were not far behind. And of course Kate Nicholls, of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, was mentioned in dispatches alongside Nick Bish.

The top of our industry remains very blokey — some may say male, pale and stale. As someone who is at least two of those things, I am probably not the best person to call for more diversity at the pub trade’s summit.

But it would be good to see more XX chromosomes represented in next year’s roll-call.