Job: editor, Sunday Telegraph
Age: 54
Industry: publishing
Circulation: 673,528 Jan-June 2006 (down 1.9% year on year)
2005 ranking: new entry
Patience Wheatcroft had long been tipped as a future national newspaper editor. But instead of one day succeeding Robert Thomson at the Times, Wheatcroft unexpectedly took over the reins at the Sunday Telegraph.
Unexpected because Sarah Sands had only been appointed to the job eight months earlier. But when Sands' feature-led relaunch failed to hit the spot, Wheatcroft was hired in March to restore the paper's hard news agenda.
Previously business and City editor of the Times, Wheatcroft's task is nothing less than boosting the Sunday Telegraph's circulation in a cut-throat and declining market.
A lifelong Tory who has embraced the Cameron regime, Wheatcroft is variously described as tough, hard-working, and a news animal who is driven by scoops. She is also immaculately well-connected, her annual Somerset House party attended by the likes of Stuart Rose, Philip Green and Sir Martin Sorrell.
Wheatcroft described Sunday Telegraph readers as "Tories who love their country, their family, and take responsibility seriously". She has said she wants her paper to be "seriously entertaining" with a "strong editorial voice".
She immediately restored the paper's old Gothic masthead, which had been axed by Sands, and introduced a new columnist - herself, debuting with an 800-word piece about the NHS. Two other columnists were not so lucky, AN Wilson and Griff Rhys Jones, who were both dropped.
Wheatcroft began her career on the Daily Mail before moving to the Sunday Times and then the Times, as deputy City editor. She proved her business acumen by launching Retail Week with her Tory councillor husband and selling it for a tidy profit.
Returning to the Times after a stint as the Mail on Sunday, she was credited with delivering on Thomson's mission of beefing up the paper's business coverage.
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