Because of their youth, these young men and women have no preconceived notions of how things "should" be done, and are not constrained by a traditional mindset.

Feras Al-Chalabi

Partner, Odey Asset Management

Al-Chalabi joined Odey in 1999 and manages $1.2bn of long-only money. This year he has made returns of 11% for Odey's flagship continental Europe fund, ranking it in the top 10% of peers over one, three and five years. Al-Chalabi has focused on investing in luxury goods, a sector which has aroused fund managers' interests because of its exposure to high-growth emerging markets. He remains bullish on Europe "as focus turns from the pantomime of the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) to the boom times in Germany".

Reza Amiri

Founder, Susa Fund Management

Former Citadel portfolio manager Amiri launched his new fund Susa in March last year and since then it has returned almost 40%. He began his career as an M&A banker in New York before joining private equity firm Bain Capital and moving to London to focus on European buyouts. In 2003 he joined start-up hedge fund Bailey Coates, a spin-off from Perry Capital, then moved to Citadel in 2005. Amiri collects old stock and bond certificates, which decorate Susa's Berkeley Street offices.

Asita Anche

Managing director, Goldman Sachs

High-frequency, quant-driven trader Anche was snapped up by Goldman Sachs in August to help develop its fixed-income market-making unit. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a masters in computer science in 2009 and her first job was in the high-frequency trading group at Citadel in the US. Twenty months later she moved to the HFT team in Europe. In 2009, Anche joined Millennium Capital Management, which is renowned for giving traders a high degree of autonomy.

George Andreadis

Head of European liquidity strategy for advanced execution services, Credit Suisse

Former London Stock Exchange trader Andreadis is spearheading Credit Suisse's dark pool strategy. He works in the advanced execution services group and after four years at the firm has became the face of Credit Suisse on market structure initiatives. He narrowly missed out on winning the most promising rising star at this year's annual Financial News awards for excellence in trading and technology. During his six years at the LSE, he built and ran the Fix Gateway connectivity service.

Danielle Ballardie

Vice-president, equities electronic trading, Barclays Capital

Ballardie joined BarCap last year to run Liquidity Cross, the bank's fledgling anonymous trading platform, and has been charged with making it a market leader in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in the face of stiff competition. Before BarCap, Ballardie spent eight years working for the London Stock Exchange on product development for its alternative trading venue Baikal, technology sales and the exchange's strategy and preparation for the European Commission's markets in financial instruments directive.

Julian Barnett

Founder, Ridley Park Capital

Formerly one of Polar Capital's top-performing managers, Barnett set up on his own last year after seven years at Polar. In the five years to 2008 he clocked an average annual return of 28% for the firm's $875m Paragon fund. And more remarkably, he returned 20% in 2008, when the average hedge fund was down almost the same amount. Ridley Park Capital – the hedge fund firm that Barnett kicked off in June with $200m – has since grown to about $350m. Barnett began managing money in UK equities at Close Brothers in 1999.

James Baugh

Director, client relationship management at Turquoise, London Stock Exchange

Baugh was promoted to his current role in February when the LSE bought multi-lateral trading facility Turquoise. He is spearheading its sales efforts and has already increased Turquoise's share of European cash equity trading from less than 3% to nearly 5%, grown its dark book to a leading position in Europe in terms of volume traded and migrated to a new low-latency technology platform in October. He was previously head of client management for the LSE's dark pool Baikal.

Mark Beeston

Chief executive, portfolio risk services, Icap

Former Deutsche Bank trader Beeston credits his father's influence for his "entrepreneurial spirit and drive". He joined Icap a year ago, charged with expanding its post-trade services division, and got off to a flying start with the acquisition of TriOptima, a post-trade infrastructure provider for over-the-counter derivatives, and is investing in collateral management messaging firm AcadiaSoft. He has also been promoted to Icap's global executive management group. Beeston says his greatest achievement was building credit default swap affirmation platform T-Zero, which is now part of IntercontinentalExchange.

Greg Best

Managing director, cash trading desk, Morgan Stanley

Best was widely regarded as one of Lehman Brothers' top cash equities traders, and was part of the team that built Lehman into a top-five equity franchise from scratch when he started in 1999. He joined Morgan Stanley in July to look after the so-called super sectors, covering technology, media and telecoms, natural resources and utilities. Industry insiders have picked him out as a future head of cash equities trading, because his in-depth knowledge and client relationships give him an edge as an execution adviser.

Stephen Birch

Partner and head of manager research, Hymans Robertson

The pensions industry is undergoing dramatic changes, and Birch is laying the foundations for both himself and his firm to not only embrace that change but thrive on it. Birch has been instrumental in transforming the manager research approach at Hymans, and his team now has responsibility for placing up to £10bn of UK pension fund assets per year with investment managers. Colleagues describe him as "a figurehead for external investment manager relationships in the UK institutional market".

Jeff Blumberg

Chief executive, Egerton Capital

After a decade at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where he was chief operating officer overseeing the manager's external hedge fund investments in Europe and Asia, Blumberg quit this year to join hedge fund pioneer John Armitage's firm Egerton in June. He picked a high-calibre hedge fund to run – Egerton's flagship long/short equity hedge fund has returned 16% annualised since it launched in 1994. Harvard-educated Blumberg has represented the US and Canada at international squash and is also a keen photographer.

Nils Bolmstrand

Chief executive, Skandia Investment Group

A Swede who studied in Spain and has worked in European, Asian, South African and Latin American markets brings a truly international flavour to Skandia's investment arm. Bolmstrand replaced Jamie Macleod in the top job at the UK's biggest multi-manager operation in September last year. He has been at the company since it launched in 2007, responsible for product development, distribution and managing relationships with other fund groups, and was previously in charge of Skandia Fonder, the Swedish fund management business.

Eamon Brabazon

Head of Emea private equity exit business, JP Morgan

Brabazon was named most promising rising star at the Private Equity News advisory services awards last month. Twelve months after he became head of JP Morgan's exit business, the bank has the highest deal tally of any bank this year at 23 either completed or in the pipeline, including the acquisition of Gatwick Airport by Global Infrastructure Partners. Brabazon is also a member of JP Morgan's liability management team. Outside work, he enjoys skiing, biking, boating and visiting his summer house in picturesque Irish coastal town Kinsale with his family.

Charlotte Burkeman

Co-head of prime brokerage, Emea, UBS

Burkeman is a driven saleswoman. Having started her career in Goldman Sachs' capital introduction team, she joined UBS seven years ago as part of the Swiss bank's push to break Goldman's and Morgan Stanley's stranglehold over European prime brokerage. In 2006 she moved to the US as UBS's global head of capital introduction and was promoted to co-head of US prime brokerage sales. In May, she moved back to London into her current role alongside Ashley McLucas.

Liam Camburn

Director, private equity transaction services team, Deloitte

An avid sports fan, Camburn credits his senior school economics teacher for diverting his attention from tennis and rugby to the world of business and finance.

He trained as an accountant at Arthur Andersen and for the past 10 years has provided financial due diligence for private equity deals. He worked for Andersen, Deloitte and KPMG, then spent a year as an investment manager at mid-market buyout house Rutland Partners before returning to Deloitte in July 2008.

He has worked on some of the biggest buyouts of the year, including three for US private equity giant KKR – the €1.3bn acquisition of a majority stake in Nordic software services firm Visma, a €700m investment in aviation firm Grupo Inaer and the £995m acquisition of Pets at Home.

Despite the delicate state of the economy, Camburn says he is an optimist on macro issues, and believes uncertainty leads to opportunity. He follows the mantra of "getting the basics right and keeping things simple, or you end up building on weak foundations".

He still plays rugby every week, although he expects that will change in the new year with the birth of his first child.

Tavis Cannell

Managing director, special situations group, Goldman Sachs

Promoted to managing director last month, Cannell manages the private capital business of Goldman's special situations group, focused on investing in a range of opportunities across different industry sectors, including performing and non-performing debt, hybrid and junior financing, structured equity, and rescue finance – both debt and equity. Before joining Goldman in 2005 he worked in Morgan Stanley's equity capital markets, M&A advisory and real estate private equity businesses and also as director for a logistics company in Kenya.

Maxime Carmignac

Portfolio manager, Carmignac Gestion

The daughter of the founder of €33bn French asset manager Carmignac Gestion, Carmignac this year returned to the firm she is tipped one day to lead. She manages the firm's only hedge fund, the €120m market-neutral fund she helped set up in 2007 before quitting to gain analyst experience at Cheyne Hedge Fund in London and Visium Asset Management in New York. She is applying a high-conviction approach at stock, sector and macro level to chase double-digit return targets.

Rose Chamberlayne

Senior associate, Lawrence Graham

Chamberlayne works for some of the world's richest families on dynastic structures for wealth preservation. She recently advised a high-profile family in the Middle East on a sharia compliant structure and is also focusing on asset protection, particularly for wealthy Russian clients. She has been liaising with Bahamian authorities on new legislation soon to come into effect, and is on course to become a partner next year. Her first baby is due in January.

Esther Chan

Portfolio manager, emerging market debt, Aberdeen Asset Management

Singaporean Chan's childhood ambition was to join the army, and although she hasn't fulfilled it she certainly enjoys gruelling physical challenges. This year she completed the Tough Guy race, an assault course through eight miles of mud, underwater tunnels, barbed wire fences, broken glass and fire walks, and has recently done a 134-metre bungee jump.

Chan applies her competitive nature to her work. She joined Aberdeen's Singapore office in 2005, helping to manage more than $3bn of hard currency assets in Asian bonds. She joined the emerging market desk in London in 2007 and works on a team managing nearly $5bn of emerging market bonds, specialising in Latin America and Asia corporate bonds. In the past 12 months she has driven the launch of a dedicated emerging markets corporate bond fund. Before Aberdeen, Chan worked for John Moore Associates as a corporate finance analyst, advising companies undergoing debt restructuring in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Tony Chedraoui

Founder, Tyrus Capital

Chedraoui's hedge fund firm Tyrus Capital was one of the biggest launches of last year, rapidly raising $1.8bn and closing to new money. He cut his teeth at Lehman Brothers, initially on the sellside and then running a proprietary trading strategy, before moving to Deephaven Capital, where he was in charge of its European event-driven business. Chedraoui studied at the American University in Beirut before winning a scholarship to do a masters degree at the elite Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris.