Annette Thomas | MediaGuardian 100 2012
Job: chief executive, Macmillan
Age: 47
Industry: publishing, digital media
New entry
American by birth and a biologist by training, Thomas will have enjoyed this year more than 2011, when Macmillan Education was ordered to pay £11m for paying officials to win an education deal in South Sudan.
This year the publisher promised a "major investment" in a new King's Cross campus, which will unite divisions in Basingstoke and Oxford with London-based Pan Macmillan. Its imprints include Pan and Picador.
Put in charge of the company after eight years running its science publishing division, Thomas has an impressive scientific background, having spent four years at a Yale research lab. She joined Macmillan in 1993 as an editor at Nature magazine, after rejecting the research scientist's path.