THE Herald’s Power 100 list is not just about who holds power in Scotland but also about how power has shifted – and in the year since the last Power 100, it has shifted profoundly. 

The greatest change can be seen in politics where the consequences of the referendum and the General Election are there for all to see. The top of the list is now dominated by the leading figures of the SNP with Labour politicians sliding down the list or disappearing altogether.

The Herald:

Here we list the entrants from 50 to 75 - follow the links below to find the rest.

51 Laurie Sansom

From the moment he arrived in Scotland to direct the James trilogy, written by Rona Munro and performed at the Edinburgh Festival in the weeks before the independence referendum, Sansom has been centre stage in Scottish cultural life.

Scotland's Power 100: The top 25 

The 42-year-old took over as artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland from its founding director Vicky Featherstone in 2013 after a string of jobs in regional English theatres. He now has the responsibility of directing the national theatre’s 10th year.

Watch out for: The NTS presenting theatre in London, the US, Australia, and South Korea, as well as re-staging previous successes.

52 Professor Sir Jim McDonald

Principal and vice-chancellor of Strathclyde University since 2009, Professor Sir Jim McDonald, 58, has wide experience in the worlds of academia and industry and in his time at Strathclyde has focused on improving the educational opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

His influence extends well beyond the campus though: he is a member of the Scottish Enterprise Board, and he co-chairs, with the First Minister, the Energy Advisory Board in Scotland.

Watch out for: His new role as leader of Weir Group’s newly created Technology Advisory Board.

53 Amanda McMillan

One of the country’s highest-profile businesswomen, 46-year-old McMillan has been the managing director of Glasgow Airport since 2008. The airport supports more than 7,300 jobs including its supply chain and the business challenges in running it are multi-faceted, made more so during McMillan’s tenure by the economic downturn.

Scotland's Power 100: 25 to 50 

Recently, McMillan, a mother of two and a chartered accountant, has been celebrating a 14 per cent year-on-year jump in passenger numbers. Earlier this month, she declared her airport had attracted an additional one million travellers in total over the year to October.

Watch out for: More routes and more passengers.

54 Ian Rankin

If not the father of the Scottish crime novel, he is at least its most tenacious and best-selling front-man. With their focus on Edinburgh as well as its hoodlums, his Rebus novels took the genre into new territory, on to which the horde has since stampeded, writers and readers alike.

The significance of his melancholy hero can be judged by the way Rebus’s opinions are quoted in newspapers as if he were real: in some ways that is what he has become. Even Dogs in the Wild, his 20th Rebus novel, has just been published

Watch out for: Rebus coming back to life yet again.

55 Ann Budge

Budge, one of Scotland’s most formidable businesswomen, took ownership of Heart of Midlothian FC in May 2013, becoming its chief executive and chairwoman.

Scotland's Power 100: 75 to 100 

The co-founder of IT services company Newell and Budge, she bought out her partner in 2001 and sold it in 2005, netting more than £25 million. Budge, 67, was then named Entrepreneurial Exchange Entrepreneur of the Year.

She wasted no time laying the foundations to rebuild Hearts following the Vladimir Romanov years and has managed to reduce the club’s debt by more than £1.5 million.

Watch out for: Returning Hearts to financial health.

56 David Greig

Greig, 46, is Scotland’s pre-eminent contemporary playwright and will take over as the artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company in Edinburgh next year.

Greig’s works, such as 2002’s Outlying Islands and The Cosmonaut’s Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet Union, are performed in Scotland and extensively overseas. He has been commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and was the National Theatre of Scotland’s first Dramaturg. He is also a passionate supporter of developing theatre on new platforms, including performances online.

Watch out for: Plans for the Lyceum.

57 Christopher Kane

The fact that the Duchess of Cambridge has been seen wearing his creations underlines the influence of the Bellshill-born fashion designer with a distinctly Scottish, quirky aesthetic.

He has always had the power to create trends and set the season’s tone. But after entering a partnership with the massive industry player Kering, he has expanded his brand further with a new store in Mayfair. The 33-year-old also has a strong partnership with Scottish industries, particularly the cashmere business.

Watch out for: More Kane on his most famous fan, the Duchess of Cambridge

58 Anne-marie O’Donnell

In becoming the first female chief executive of Glasgow City Council a year ago, 50-year-old Ms O’Donnell took on one of the biggest and most influential jobs in Scotland.

With a multi-billion-pound budget, she will be trying to balance the books and help some of the country’s most deprived communities. A former solicitor, she has worked for Glasgow since 1991 and was formerly the council’s executive director of corporate services.

Watch out for: The new chief trying to capitalise on the success of the Commonwealth Games by attracting other major events to the city.

59 Ken MacQuarrie

Ken MacQuarrie’s influence on Scotland’s cultural and political life has always been great but the profile of BBC Scotland’s director rose considerably during last year’s referendum campaign when the corporation was accused by “Yes” supporters of bias.

MacQuarrie, a former producer on TV and radio, defended the BBC’s independence absolutely but is also in charge of the promise that the proportion of BBC money spent in Scotland should be equivalent to Scotland’s share of the UK population. He also supports the idea of a “Scottish Six” news programme.

Greatest achievement: His promotion of Gaelic programmes and culture.

60 Leo Cushley

The Catholic archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh arrived in inauspicious circumstances after Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the previous incumbent, confessed to sexual misconduct.

Archbishop Cushley, 54, is Pope Francis’s man in Scotland and his experience as a Vatican diplomat is seen as having given him the right skills to deal with the fallout and stabilise the church.

He brings a softer, more inclusive tone to the Scottish Catholic Church. Having moved jobs frequently during his 35-year career, however, it remains to be seen how long he will stay in Scotland. He recently offered his home to refugees fleeing war-torn areas like Syria.

Watch out for: A cardinalship is not out of the question

61 Neil Baxter

Neil Baxter, 55, is the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland’s main man, and a passionate and dynamic advocate for architecture and design. Formerly principal of his own architectural consultancy, he has overseen the launch of the coveted and prestigious RIAS architectural awards and next year’s Festival of Architecture in Glasgow will raise his profile even further.

Mr Baxter is willing to be combative when he feels it necessary, as he showed when he roundly criticised an investigation into the behaviour of former Glasgow City Council leader Gordon Matheson during the aborted George Square redesign competition.

Watch out for: The rebuilding of the Glasgow School of Art.

62 Bob Keiller

After three years as chief executive of the Wood Group, arguably Scotland’s most successful home-grown oilfield services business, Bob Keiller will step straight into another influential role: chairman of Scottish Enterprise.

Keiller, 51, has nearly 30 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry, but he says that in his new job he will be keeping his ears wide open and his mouth well shut. One of his priorities will be ensuring that public money is spent efficiently.

Watch out for: Keiller “putting something back” into the Scottish economy.

63 Jeffrey Sharkey

Jeffrey Sharkey became principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in September 2014 after a long spell as director of Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute in Baltimore.

A talented pianist himself, one of his main aims has been to lead the conservatoire’s vision of getting students out of their silos and encourage a much greater mixing of the disciplines.

Watch out for: Sharkey working on his aim to make Scotland an international conservatoire in every area.

64 Liz Lochhead

Scotland’s Makar, and one of the influential group of writers that included Alasdair Gray, James Kelman and Tom Leonard, she has been acknowledged as the inspiration for countless women writers who followed in her wake.

A witty, irreverent poet and performer from an early age, she was an art teacher before turning full-time to writing.

Outstanding works include poetry collections Dreaming Frankenstein and True Confessions and New Cliches, and the internationally applauded play Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off.

High point: Her appointment as Makar in 2011.

65 Gareth Williams

Norwich-born entrepreneur Gareth Williams established his flight comparison site Skyscanner because he wanted to “democratise long distance travel” and its reach, and his influence, have soared.

Headquartered in Edinburgh, the company now has ten global offices, a five-fold increase in just three years. There is also a staff of 450 in the capital and Glasgow, as well as a further 250 worldwide and one of its early backers, Scottish Equity Partners, called it Scotland’s first $1 billion web company.

Most likely to say: “Get on with it.”

66 Ferdinand von Prondzynski

The 61-year-old principal of Robert Gordon University chaired what turned out to be a controversial review of how Scottish universities are organised and run.

In the end, Von Prondzynski proposed elections for the chair of the governing bodies, greater involvement of students and trade unions, and an end to bonuses for senior staff, among other reforms. The aim, he said, was to make universities more democratic, but also to achieve a higher level of public confidence. The plans have been heavily criticised by other principals but are contained in the Higher Education Governance Bill which is currently going through Holyrood.

Watch out for: His reforms in action.

67  Professor Lorne Crerar

Possibly Scotland’s highest-profile solicitor, he is also much more. He founded and co-chairs the law firm Harper Macleod, which has continued to explore new areas of business in difficult economic times for lawyers. But he has also been a visiting lecturer at the University of Glasgow since the early 1980s, and was at the centre of one of the most controversial legal reforms of the last ten years: the introduction of the single survey for property sales. The 61-year-old is also chairman of Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Least likely to say: “Can’t be done.”

68 Shirley Spear

The self-taught cook and early local food campaigner was named this year as the chairwoman of the Scottish Food Commission. The aim is ambitious: to improve our attitude to eating fresh and healthy food.

Spear founded the Three Chimneys restaurant in a remote part of Skye with her husband Eddie in 1984 and, 30 years on, it attracted its first Michelin star. The Three Chimneys now has bedrooms, and is in the top 10 per cent of quality places to stay in the UK and Ireland.

Spear continues to work with the Scottish Tourism Alliance in promoting Scottish hospitality and campaigns for the reintroduction of air links to and from Skye.

Watch out for: Spear turning Scotland into a “Good Food Nation”.

69 Nigel and Lesley Eccles

One of the fastest rising stars of the Scottish tech scene, fantasy sports gaming provider FanDuel was founded by husband and wife Nigel and Lesley Eccles and the couple have presided over an extraordinary and rapid success.

The company is focused for now on the American market, but there are longer-term plans to launch products in the UK and Europe. FanDuel has been called a “unicorn” (a tech start-up worth $1 billion or more) but has run into legal trouble in the US. New York state’s top prosecutor has filed for a temporary injunction that would shut down the company in the state.

Watch out for: New York developments.

70 Limmy

Recently named as one of the most influential writers on Twitter in Scotland, the comedian Limmy (real name Brian Limond) has been a pioneer in using the internet and social media to increase his influence – it was how he landed his TV show and he was one of the early users of the video sharing site Vine.

He also has old-school influence too: his recent book Daft Wee Stories was a best seller.

Biggest achievement: The Limmy Show on BBC Scotland.

71 Aamer Anwar

The 48-year-old civil rights lawyer and campaigner came to prominence campaigning on behalf of the family of murdered Indian waiter Surjit Singh Chhokar and has since been at the centre of some of the most high-profile legal cases in Scotland.

At one point, it looked like the obvious next step for him was politics and he was a leading voice in the “Yes” campaign in the run-up to the independence referendum. He ruled himself out as an SNP candidate for the General Election in May.

Watch out for: Anwar’s handling of the Sheku Bayoh campaign.

72 Katherine Garrett-Cox

One of the highest-profile figures in Scotland’s financial sector, it was recently announced that mother-of-four Katherine Garrett-Cox, 48, would be stepping down from the board of Alliance Trust but remain at the helm of the Dundee-based institution.

Her new role is chief executive of the Alliance Trust Investments subsidiary. She is also vice-chair and trustee of the charitable Baring Foundation.

Least likely to say: “I don’t have time for that.”

73 Sir Brian Souter

The son of a bus driver and a former conductor who became chairman and chief executive of Stagecoach, the influence of Sir Brian is beyond doubt, even if it has sometimes been controversial.

In 2000, he funded the Keep the Clause campaign to maintain anti-gay legislation in Scotland, and was one of the million-pound backers of the “Yes” campaign.

He also runs a charitable trust, which he set up with his wife Betty, which supports causes in the UK and abroad. He also recently backed the Mary’s Meal charity, which feeds children in Africa.

Greatest achievement: Building Stagecoach into one of the UK’s leading bus and rail companies.

74 Fergus Linehan

It is rare to see a critical consensus in Scotland, let alone over the Edinburgh International Festival, but its new director Fergus Linehan achieved it with a remarkable and experimental first year.

One of his decisions was to move the festival’s dates to line up with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, but it was Linehan’s decision to mix the popular and the classical more overtly that brought the greatest success. There was a concert by Franz Ferdinand and Sparks and a huge outdoor spectacle projected on to the Usher Hall that attracted 20,000 spectators.

Watch out for: Year Two.

75 Gordon Dewar

Highly regarded, the chief executive of Edinburgh Airport has overseen particular growth in long-haul flights with Qatar Airways, US Airways, Air Canada and Turkish Airlines all launching services at Edinburgh under his watch.

Formerly a managing director of Glasgow Airport, he has been a strong campaigner for a cut to Air Passenger Duty, which he says restricts Scotland’s ability to compete with European airports. “Our economy is footing the bill in lost jobs and lost opportunities,” he says.

Watch out for: Edinburgh being named Best European Airport of its size for a fourth time.