The top 25: Nicola Sturgeon tops Scotland's Power 100 list for 2015

Here is our top 25 - follow the links to find the rest. 

1 Nicola Sturgeon

In her first year as leader of the SNP and First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon’s popularity has shown absolutely no signs of diminishing. Indeed, at times, the SNP has looked all but invincible.

The independence referendum may have been lost, but in the weeks afterwards SNP membership soared (it is now the UK’s third largest party) and 45-year-old Ms Sturgeon’s performance at the General Election turned her into a popular figure across the UK. It also silenced the voices that claimed her predecessor Alex Salmond would still be pulling the strings.

There have been problems for Ms Sturgeon to handle: the Michelle Thomson and Natalie McGarry affairs took the shine off “the 56” and the First Minister did not look as sure-footed as usual when challenged over the possible use of Holyrood’s new powers to restore tax credits.

Scotland's Power 100: 25 to 50 

However, political momentum is still on her side and she is also hugely respected within the civil service, where she is seen as hard-working and reasonable, and across the political spectrum and wider society as a politician. She won this newspaper’s prestigious Politician of the Year award for a record fourth time earlier this month.

The flow of new powers to Holyrood will be a challenge for her though. To some extent, the SNP has defied the usual pattern of incumbent governments by becoming more popular the longer they are in power partly due to the current devolution set-up where the Scottish Parliament has very limited control over how much it can spend; it can also blame funding constraints on Westminster.

However, if Holyrood has greatly enhanced powers to raise the cash it spends, the Scottish Government will have responsibility for difficult financial decisions which may not always be popular. Whether it will dent or damage Ms Sturgeon’s popularity remains to be seen. For the moment, the polls are showing extraordinary levels of support for the SNP, and the party is likely to repeat its success in the election next year.

Watch out for: Another storming performance from the SNP at the Holyrood elections. 

2 Ross McEwan

The 58-year-old New Zealander took over as chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland in October 2013 after a long and successful career in Australian banking and he has proved his hard-nosed credentials in the role. Since the financial crisis, RBS has shed tens of thousands of jobs and Mr McEwan warned recently that there are still significant costs to be removed. With the nature of banking changing too, and more branches closing, the boss of RBS will be in charge of great change that has the potential to affect us all.

Most likely to say: We have a long road ahead of us.

3 Alex Salmond

He may no longer be First Minister, but the influence of Alex Salmond goes on. His gifts as a leader, a tactician and an antagonist of Westminster politicians ensured that his party and the cause of independence steadily gained ground in post-devolution Scotland when many predicted the advent of Holyrood would spell their demise.

Scotland's Power 100: 50 to 75 

He resigned as First Minister and SNP leader after he lost the referendum last year, but he now has a new role at Westminster after he was elected MP for Gordon in May. Some assumed the 60-year-old would become the party’s leader in the Commons but instead he was appointed the SNP’s International Affairs and Europe spokesman and he remains one of the most important and listened-to voices in Scottish and UK politics. He is by no means a spent force in British politics.

Most likely to say: “Never say never again.”

4 Sir Tom Hunter

He is Scotland’s best connected businessman and was the founder of the high street chain Sports Division, but his influence extends way beyond business. Not only does he have the ear of Scotland’s most powerful politicians, his charitable organisation, The Hunter Foundation, has also donated millions to good causes.

The influence of the 54-year-old entrepreneur also extends to the next generation. He now spends much of his time encouraging others to start new businesses in the way he did himself from the back of a van and has called on schools to do more to prepare young people for entrepreneurship.

Most likely to say: “If I can do it, so can you.”

5 Lord Carloway

We don’t know yet who will succeed Lord Gill as Lord President and Scotland’s most senior judge after his retirement in May, but in the meantime, his former number two, Lord Carloway is doing the job and as such is the country’s most powerful lawyer.

And even if he is not appointed Lord President, his influence on justice in Scotland will remain significant. His proposal to abolish corroboration in Scotland may have been shelved, but he has started work as chairman of the new Scottish Sentencing Council. Its aim is to bolster public confidence in the courts by tackling the problem of inconsistent sentencing.

Watch out for: Whether Lord Carloway gets the top job.

6 JK Rowling

The most influential novelist in Scotland, Rowling’s Harry Potter books were not only a literary phenomenon but helped shape a generation’s reading habits, and gave a kick-start to the children’s publishing industry which has never looked back.

Scotland's Power 100: 75 to 100 

Rowling has also become increasingly vocal on social and political issues, including most recently the Middle East. Last year, her £1million donation to the Better Together campaign was also significant in helping influence the referendum outcome. She is also a generous philanthropist and patron of charities.

Watch out for: The new stage play focusing on what happened to Harry Potter after the final book in the series.

7 John Swinney

The Deputy First Minister John Swinney, 51, is affable, able and effective. As SNP leader between 2000 and 2004, he was a safe pair of hands rather than a trail-blazer, but he has impressed as Finance Secretary since 2007.

The challenge in the coming months will be how he responds to opposition calls for him to use the new powers coming to Holyrood – on the right, Ruth Davidson will be arguing for low tax; on the left, Kezia Dugdale will be keeping up the pressure on him to restore tax credits in Scotland.

Least likely to say: “I agree with George.”

8 Jim McColl

Like Sir Tom Hunter, Jim McColl is one of the great mentors of Scotland’s business community and has plans for a new college in Glasgow that will offer career opportunities to young people who have struggled in the traditional academic system.

He has also brought new life to the shipbuilding industry with plans to take on more staff at Ferguson Shipbuilders, which Clyde Blowers, the engineering giant he founded, acquired last year. McColl, who is 63, also sits on the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Watch out for: The first graduates of McColl’s college.

9 Angus Robertson

Before the General Election, he was the SNP’s main man at Westminster and was well-respected as a heavyweight, speaking for the party on defence and foreign affairs. After the election, with many more MPs standing behind him, he has become one of the most influential nationalist politicians.

The English-born former journalist, who is half German and bilingual, ran the SNP’s 2011 Holyrood campaign which delivered a landslide majority and he was also the director of its impressive referendum campaign.

Against the Tory government in the Commons, he has proved himself a passionate, witty and effective speaker.

Watch out for: His confrontations with David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions.

10 Kezia Dugdale

Kezia Dugdale, 34, may have dreamed of one day leading Scottish Labour, but she could never have expected that it would be a party in such a state: decimated at Westminster and expected to do just as badly at the Holyrood elections next year.

However, she has had a confident start, asserting that her party is no longer the “branch office” of London, and she had the SNP genuinely rattled with her calls for the Scottish Government to restore tax credits.

Watch out for: How well she and her party does at the Holyrood elections in May.

11 Sir Angus Grossart

The 78-year-old veteran merchant banker and founder and chairman of Edinburgh-based merchant bank Noble Grossart is influential in business and the arts.

A former vice-chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland and currently chairman of the Scottish Futures Trust, set up to improve public infrastructure investment, he chaired the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Museums of Scotland.

Last year he brought his weight to bear in the referendum debate, indicating he was relaxed about the prospect of independence.

Major achievement: Steering Noble Grossart through the recession.

12 Frank Mulholland

He has led some of Scotland’s most high-profile cases as a prosecutor, including the prosecution of killer Peter Tobin, but he is also at the centre of government.

As Lord Advocate, he has the dual role of heading the prosecution service but also acting as legal adviser to ministers. He successfully prosecuted the World’s End murder trial following the end of the double jeopardy rule, finally bringing Angus Sinclair to justice for the murders of Christine Eadie and Helen Scott in 1977.

Least likely to say: “Case closed.”

13 Ruth Davidson

Ms Davidson broke the mould when she became Scottish Conservative leader in 2011 and she has since proved herself as a debater both in Holyrood and during the General Election campaign, where she showed passion and energy.

Now 37, the question is whether she can increase the Conservatives’ share of the vote at next year’s Holyrood elections. Also expect much more from her on taxation when the new powers come to Holyrood.

Greatest achievement: Maintaining her credibility after that infamous “line in the sand” remark.

14 Sir Tom Devine

He is the country’s pre-eminent historian and one of our most influential intellectuals over the last four decades. From proudly working-class Catholic roots, he was an academic tornado from early in his career.

Works such as The Scottish Nation and Scotland’s Empire reshaped the way Scotland’s past is viewed.

Sir Tom was knighted earlier this year, but his services to what he calls the “queen of disciplines” had been acknowledged long before that, as has his inspirational example for younger historians.   

He recently called for Scotland to atone for decades of slavery in sugar plantations in Jamaica by launching an economic and educational link-up between the two countries

Watch out for: His new book Recovering Scotland’s Slavery Past: The Caribbean Connection.

15 Kate Frame

As the woman with responsibility for undertaking independent investigations into serious incidents involving the police, Kate Frame is likely to be highly influential on the future of Police Scotland as well as the public’s, and the government’s confidence in the force.

Ms Frame was appointed as the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner for Scotland in June 2014, after a career in the Crown Office, where she was head of the Criminal Allegations Against the Police Division. She started her new job in August and has already confidently asserted her independence from the police.

Watch out for: The result of the investigation into the death of Fife man Sheku Bayoh, who died after being restrained by officers in May.

16 Andy Murray

His fans may pine for a repeat of his win at Wimbledon in 2013, but there’s no doubting the status of Britain’s No 1 tennis player and the fact that the 28-year-old has won over many of those who did not initially warm to his deadpan personality.

In 2013, he was BBC Sports Personality of the Year and GQ Man of the Year. He was even awarded the freedom of Stirling and attracted crowds to the streets of his home town of Dunblane earlier this year when he married Kim Sears. Murray believes it’s far from over yet.

Most likely to say: “I shouldn’t have sent that tweet should I?”

17 Lord Smith of Kelvin

Glaswegian Robert Smith, 71, had the momentous responsibility of cajoling Scotland’s parties to agree proposals for further extensive devolution, but now that MPs have backed the Scotland Bill, do not expect him to disappear from the sphere of influence.

The trained accountant and cross-bench peer was hospitalised in August after falling ill at an official dinner with the First Minister, but he is recovering and has his mind on the privatisation of the Green Investment Bank, which he chairs.

He also chaired the organising committee of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, the global engineering company the Weir Group, and the National Museums of Scotland, and is Chancellor of Strathclyde University.

Least likely to say: “I’d like a quiet life.”

18 Anna Dominiczak

One of Scotland’s most eminent scientists, Professor Dominiczak, 61, is a world-leading cardiovascular expert whose research has focused on identifying genetic factors which may predispose people to heart disease, hypertension and strokes.

Regius professor of medicine, vice-principal and head of the college of medical, veterinary and life sciences at Glasgow University, she oversaw for the university the building of state-of-the-art facilities at the new Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. She said recently that doctors at the hospital who are working with researchers from Glasgow University on developing medicines tailored to individual DNA could be ready to help patients in as little as five years.

Least likely to say: “I’m knocking off early today.”

19 John Curtice

Revered by politics students and journalists alike for his rigorous impartial analysis of social and political attitudes and electoral behaviour, the Strathclyde University professor of politics is also known to TV audiences UK-wide as a commentator.

His authoritative blog on What Scotland Thinks, run by the Scottish Centre for Social Research, was required reading during the referendum campaign and his influence will only increase with next year’s Holyrood elections and the campaigns for the EU referendum. Professor Curtice, 61, from Cornwall, is co-director of the influential Scottish Social Attitudes surveys and president of the British Polling Council.

Least likely to say: “That last poll changes everything.”

20 Patrick Harvie

The Scottish Green Party saw its membership leap to more than 6,000 after the referendum last year, making the environmentalists much harder for their opponents to ignore.

This rise also boosted the profile of its hard-working figurehead Patrick Harvie, 42, MSP for Glasgow and the party’s co-convener.

The former charity worker has a strong track record on gay rights and social justice as well as the environment and was willing to take an independent line from the SNP during the referendum. He has more recently been a strong voice on welfare reform and tax credit cuts.

Least likely to say: “I’m not cycling in this weather.”

21 Keith Cochrane

The downturn in the oil and gas industry has taken its toll on Glasgow-based engineering giant the Weir Group (it has trimmed a net 1,500 jobs over the past 12 months, equivalent to almost 10 per cent of its global workforce) but its 50-year-old chief executive remains a formidable force.  

He was formerly group chief executive of Stagecoach and then group director of finance of ScottishPower.

Watch out for: How low oil prices continue to affect Weir Group.

22 Peter Murrell

One half of the most powerful couple in Scotland, Peter Murrell, the chief executive of the SNP, is, with his wife, the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, right at the centre of the party’s inner sanctum.

Mr Murrell, 52, was widely seen as the driving force behind the transformation of the SNP from a fringe party into one of the most fearsome political machines in Europe, but after Ms Sturgeon became First Minister, she was forced to deny suggestions that she and her husband would hold too much power.

Least likely to say: “Leave the housework to my wife.”

23 Chris van der Kuyl

The internationally renowned digital entrepreneur Mr Van der Kuyl, 46, is chairman of 4J Studios, the game development studio that took the award-winning Minecraft game on to consoles such as the XBox and Playstation.

Mr Van der Kuyl is also an adviser to the board of DC Thomson, the owners of brightsolid, the online publishing company of which he was chief executive until 2013. Its genealogy division findmypast.co.uk has 18 million users.

But it’s the future Mr Van der Kuyl is most interested in – he recently said Scotland’s video games industry could make North Sea oil look like a drop in the ocean.

Least likely to say: “Anyone for a game of Cluedo?”

24 Nicola Benedetti

The virtuoso violinist, 28, is a performer but she is also an activist. She is as committed to music education as to performing, being associated with Sistema Scotland which encourages children in deprived communities to take up music.

The winner of Best Female Artist at both the 2012 and 2013 Classical Brit Awards, her album, Homecoming: A Scottish Fantasy, entered the charts top 20.

Listen to: Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto in D, written for her.

25 Ian Murray

As the only Scottish Labour MP in the House of Commons after hanging on to his Edinburgh South seat at the General Election in May, Ian Murray has sometimes been called Labour’s last man standing. It has also given him a platform he might not otherwise have had.

As shadow Scottish secretary, he has supported moves to make Scottish Labour more autonomous, and said it can hold a different position to the UK party on Trident.

Watch out for: What he calls the “big challenge” for Labour at next year’s Scottish elections.