They are hugely influential in London, but who are they?

London is the world's most influential city. Others have prowess in certain fields but if you examine the sum of its parts, London occupies a remarkable position.

It is a renaissance period. Financially it's a global capital, our art world sizzles, our property markets soar and politically we remain a considerable force on the world stage.

Then there are our thrusting media industries, our inventive fashion, our pioneering theatre and film-making and our inspiring literary life; we even enjoy an extraordinary rise in the quality of restaurants.

We demand attention for our work in the less glamorous but no less important fields of health, charity and social reform, too.

But none of this would have been achieved if we did not have the people. The people who not only make the right decisions but have the nous, energy, creativity and power to see those decisions through.

That is the essence of influence and why the Evening Standard is publishing The 1000: London's Most Influential People, aka The Big Black Book, which will be free with tomorrow's paper.

Our panel has looked at the worlds of art, finance, sport, music, film, food, fashion, literature, social London, business, education, law, the environment, television, theatre, radio, new media, society, property, retail, politics and running London.

An external panel and a team of specialists in each field contributed to nominating the names.

The aim of the publication is not to reel off London's richest, glossiest and most famous residents. Yes, some are wealthy and some well known, but many are people whose work takes place behind the scenes.

Is not the man who goes into schools every day to teach London's teenagers the dangers of knife crime as influential as the person who funds that school?

We are fortunate to live in this city during such a flourishing period. It is the influence - some hidden, some prominent - of people from all backgrounds that makes it so.

Here, to whet your appetite for tomorrow's The 1000: London's Most Influential People, we reveal the number one most influential person in each category and one other major figure.

Nikesh Arora
GOOGLE (UK), EUROPEAN VICE-PRESIDENT
Indian-born Arora landed the job after the Google founders interviewed him at the British Museum while walking around the artefacts.
Mark Zuckerberg
FACEBOOK FOUNDER
Wunderkind who dreamed up the social networking website at Harvard. It now has half-a-million users in London and he is inundated with big-money offers (£10bn). Microsoft is circling.

Prince William
ARMY OFFICER AND FUTURE KING
Every girl wants to try her luck with this polo-playing Old Etonion. He and Kate Middleton seem to be well and truly back together but he's still the world's most eligible bachelor.
Sabrina Guinness
HEIRESS
The queen of Ladbroke Grove's boho Anglo-Irish contingent knows everyone - Mick Jagger, Prince Charles, Paul McCartney, and Michael Douglas are all pals. She founded Youth Cable Television to rehabilitate troublesome youths by getting them involved in making documentaries.

Ken Livingstone
MAYOR OF LONDON
First elected in 2000, his influence has grown beyond his legal powers. Internationally famed for the congestion charge. His Achilles' heels are the Tube and increases in the cost of the 2012 Olympics.
David Higgins
OLYMPIC DELIVERY AUTHORITY, CEO
An Australian with British citizenship, Higgins arrived at the ODA from regeneration quango English Partnerships. Big question: can he keep the 2012 Olympics on budget?

Sir Nicholas Serota
TATE, DIRECTOR
Eminence grise of the art world enjoys high political trust and has an inside voice on policy and art appointments. Vast role in converting Britain to a love of contemporary art. He now has to run to make up lost time in growing the Tate Modern's collections.
Ivor Braka
DEALER
The Chelsea art dealer is a prominent dealer of Bacon, Freud, Spencer and Auerbach. Baghdadborn, Manchester-bred, he's London's leading LKBC (Least Known but Best Connected).

Charles Dunstone
CARPHONE WAREHOUSE FOUNDER
Noticed mobile makers supplying corporate users, not the man in the street, and expoited the gap in the market. Lives in Holland Park and races yachts but dresses in M&S and shops at Tesco. Advised Blair on his post-retirement plans.
Sir Nigel Rudd
BAA, CHAIRMAN
Boots chairman until he sold it, then Pilkington until he sold that, Rudd thrives on tough decisions. Now deputy chair of Barclays ,he is about to take on the toughest yet: transforming Heathrow as BAA chair.

Shami Chakrabarti
LIBERTY, DIRECTOR
Dubbed "an anarchist in a barrister's wig", Chakrabarti beat Blair, Cameron and Geldof in a public poll of Britain's most inspiring political figures. Anti-ID cards and increased detention periods for terror prisoners.
Camila Batmanghelidjh
KIDS' COMPANY, FOUNDER
Politicians talk a lot about helping dysfunctional children but this woman actually does something. Every year the charity raises £5m to help 500 children. She has saved thousands from a life of crime, violence and drug abuse but is now battling for new funding.

Lucian Grange
UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP INTERNATIONAL, CHAIR AND CEO
He's already got Amy Winehouse, Razorlight, Snow Patrol and Keane, and buy-ups of labels Sanctuary and V2 are imminent.
Thomas Ades
COMPOSER AND CONDUCTOR
Won fame with his opera Powder Her Face with its oral sex theme and respectability with Shakespeare's Tempest at Covent Garden.

Gordon Brown
PRIME MINISTER
Potentially even more powerful than his predecessor, he inherited a Whitehall tamed by Tony Blair and a Labour Party eager for new leadership - and, of course, there is no awkward Chancellor next door. Yet the Brown bounce faded dramatically at the weekend and he backed out of calling a snap election. Watch this space.
Gus O'Donnell
CABINET SECRETARY
Known affectionately as GOD, the Catholic head of the civil service wears power lightly. Informal and intellectual, Sir Augustine has a steely ambition that belies his quiet image. He is the first Cabinet Secretary to work two days a week in an open-plan office. With the arrival of Gordon Brown, he was signed up as a member of the inner circle by Ed Balls, who allegedly said: "Stick with us and you'll go to the top."

Kate Moss
SUPERMODEL
Frequently tops the best-dressed lists and has spawned hundreds of trends. Two years after her cocaine scandal she has fewer contracts but her multimillion pound earnings remain intact. A shrewd businesswoman, she launched her Kate Moss Top Shop line this year. A perfume is next.
Karla Otto
KARLA OTTO PR, OWNER
The Seventies model set up her PR company in Milan in 1982. First clients included Gaultier and Prada. She opened in London in 2001 and represents Pucci, Dior Couture and Nike. Revered and feared.

Amanda Ross
CACTUS TV, MD, AND PRODUCER OF RICHARD & JUDY
The woman who chooses the titles for Richard & Judy's Book Club, which accounted for 26 per cent of all books sold last year. Publishers will do almost anything to get in her good books.
Tim Hely Hutchinson
HACHETTE LIVRE UK, CEO
Created Headline 20 years ago, later taking over Hodder and John Murray. In 2006, French mega-firm Hachette bought Time Warner to become the largest publishing group in the UK and appointed Hely Hutchinson to run it.

Liz Peace
BRITISH PROPERTY FEDERATION, CEO
Heads an extremely powerful organisation lobbying the Government and regulators on property issues. Peace joined the Defence Research Agency in 1990 and saw it through its privatisation as QinetiQ. Claims never to have encountered a glass ceiling.
Malcolm Kerr
DP9, SENIOR PARTNER
Svengali to the London skyline, pushing almost every major planning application including the Helter Skelter, the Walkie Talkie, Smithfield and Barts. A Mr Fixit for developers who keeps a very low profile.

Peter Morgan
SCREENWRITER
Much-in-demand writer whose screenplay for Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal and Stephen Frears's The Queen added to many television successes. Considered Britain's blue riband film and television writer.
Helen Mirren
ACTRESS
Monarch of all she surveys after her Oscar for Stephen Frears's The Queen. Her work history includes television's Prime Suspect and Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. As a young thesp, she was the sexiest since Diana Dors.

Nicholas Hytner
NATIONAL THEATRE, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
His early hits at the National (his off-to Iraq Henry V, Jerry Springer - the Opera and Elmina's Kitchen) put a fresh stamp on the place. Vociferous cultural ambassador in the battle to convince the Government to maintain its level of subsidy to performing arts.
Judi Dench
ACTRESS
The theatre-world's own winsome queen mother figure, with a touch of the eternal ingénue and the grande dame. She can still be relied to take on anything and make the most of it. Can do no wrong in the dazzled eyes of most critics and audiences.

Lord Bingham of Cornhill
SENIOR LAW LORD
Regarded by fellow judges as the most brilliant mind on the Bench - though they often disagree with his decisions, as does the Government. A keen supporter of the Supreme Court plan.
Baroness Scotland QC
ATTORNEY GENERAL
Born in Dominica and raised in north-east London, she was told by the supermarket where she had a part-time job that if she worked hard she might make supervisor. Became the first black woman QC at just 35.

Susan Greenfield
ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN, DIRECTOR A professor of pharmacology at Oxford, she is also a noted entrepreneur. She often talks of a poll which describes her as the 14th-most influential woman in the world and then adds, after a perfectly judged pause: "Dolly Parton came ninth."
Sir David King
GOVERNMENT'S CHIEF SCIENTIST
The driving force behind the Government's climate change policies. Most famous for saying climate change poses a bigger threat to humanity than terrorism.

Lord Darzi
IMPERIAL COLLEGE, CHIEF OF SURGERY; HEALTH MINISTER
Chosen by Gordon Brown to bring his vision of a modern NHS to the public, he has masqueraded as a hospital porter to confirm his belief that frontline staff are undervalued. There is growing opposition to his proposals.
Dr Jane Collins
GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN, CEO Heads the most influential children's hospital and is fighting for it to become a foundation trust.

Stanley Fink
MAN GROUP, DEPUTY CHAIRMAN
The UK's senior hedge fund player after transforming Man from sugar trader to global hedge fund manager. A health scare in 2004 prompted him to devote more time to charitable work and he is now a major philanthropist.
Michael Spencer
ICAP, FOUNDER AND CEO
Has built the world's largest interdealer broker. An astrophysicist at Oxford, he has a brilliant mind and is the City's richest self-made man. Famous for wild parties but more staid now he is treasurer of the Tories.

Ed Balls
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES
Gained ministerial experience schmoozing the City, so teacher union conferences will be a bit of a culture shock. Started well with a pledge to overhaul maths in primary schools. First Education Secretary to admit there are concerns over exam standards.
William Atkinson
HEADMASTER PHOENIX SCHOOL, SHEPHERD'S BUSH
Head of a comprehensive classed as among the eight in England facing the most "exceptionally challenging circumstances" who is now consulted by ministers on how to raise standards in the inner city.

Sebastian Coe
LONDON OLYMPICS ORGANISING COMMITTEE, CHAIRMAN
The Tory peer's priority is to ensure he delivers on the promise that 2012 will create a legacy to remedy decades of under-investment in British Olympic sport. Expect his notorious determination to kick in if the Government tries to economise on the main Olympic Park venues.
Vic Wakeling
SKY SPORTS MD
Since 1993, he has been the force that changed televised sport, buying the rights to many major events, including the crown jewel of home Test cricket. On his watch, Sky has introduced Sky sports News, five dedicated sports channels and high-definition broadcasts.

Mark Thompson
BBC, DIRECTOR-GENERAL
Ferociously bright, determined and largely affable. Was Channel 4 CEO, editor of Panorama and controller of BBC2. Has presided over highly controversial budget cuts, losing 3,500 staff. Also blighted by recent phone-in scandals. A committed Catholic family man, he controls the biggest train set in the industry.
Jeremy Clarkson
PRESENTER
Clarkson's fashionably contraire tone on Top Gear has made it one of the most successful BBC shows in the world. If he said he wanted to do a show about trouser presses, it would get commissioned.

Delia Smith
TV CHEF, COOKERY BOOK AUTHOR
The nation's mummy - she has no children of her own - Delia taught us how to boil an egg. Leaving school at 16, she trained as a hairdresser before taking up cookery writing, including an Evening Standard column in the Seventies. Book sales of more than 14m show there is a lot to be said for what snootier practitioners call "cooking with one hand in the flour jar".
Chris Hutcheson
GORDON RAMSAY HOLDINGS, CO-OWNER
With all Gordon Ramsay's TV shows, he can't be overseeing any of his many restaurants. This is where Chris Hutcheson, Ramsay's rather terrifying father-in-law, steps in. Hutcheson helped open Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road in 1998 and continues to help his mini-me to stay focused.

SO WHO ARE THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN LONDON? FIND OUT IN THE 108-PAGE GLOSSY MAGAZINE FREE WITH TUESDAY'S EVENING STANDARD