Abdallah Jum’ah
President and chief executive officer, Saudi Aramco
If there is one man on whom the future of global prosperity rests, it is Abdallah Jum’ah. As chief executive of Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, he is responsible for delivering the planned increase in the country’s oil production that consuming countries hope will make the most important contribution to meeting their growing needs. Saudi Aramco has embarked on the biggest capital investment programme in its history, and is working on projects that are supposed to add an extra 3m barrels a day of potential output, taking its total capacity to 12m b/d. If it fails, the world is likely to run short of oil. Born in 1941, Mr Jum’ah has spent his entire career at Saudi Aramco since graduating from the American University in Beirut in 1968. He took over from Ali Naimi, who was made minister of petroleum and mineral resources in 1995, having been the head of Aramco’s international operations. As chief executive, he is credited with having led the company’s successful expansion into refining, and the rapid growth of its gas business.

Victor Khristenko
Industry and energy minister, Russia
Victor Khristenko has led Russia’s energy policy when the country, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, has pursued a strategy of taking control of strategic energy projects. Government pressure helped secure controlling stakes for Gazprom, the state-controlled gas company, in Royal Dutch Shell’s Sakhalin 2, which was operated on an agreement signed under Boris Yeltsin, Mr Putin’s predecessor, and in the Kovykta gas field, which was controlled by BP’s 50 per cent joint venture TNK-BP thanks to a deal done in the early years of Mr Putin’s presidency. Now observers detect a more conciliatory approach from Mr Khristenko and the rest of Mr Putin’s administration, as evidenced by the offers to let Total of France and StatoilHydro share in Gazprom’s vast Shtokman project. Nevertheless, he is still outspoken in support of Russian interests, recently criticising the European Union for its plans to restrict Russian ownership of energy assets in the EU. Born in 1957, he was an academic before moving into local politics in 1991 and national politics in 1997. He is spoken of as a future chairman or chief executive of Gazprom, where he has been on the board since 2002.