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Headline:

Dealmaking Influential who won’t take no for an answer

Synopsis:

When we come to deliberate the candidates for the Evening Standard's Influentials — the 1000 people who most influence the lives of Londoners — some are automatic choices. A few are streets ahead of anyone else and are propelled to the head of their particular category.

One such in Business this year is Matthew Key. He shares a place in the top five with Lakshmi Mittal, Sir Martin Sorrell, Sir Richard Branson and Richard Lambert. At 45, Key, the new boss of O2, the mobile phone company, is their junior by at least 13 years.

He gains his pre-eminence by having pulled off three remarkable deals. It was Key who struck the exclusive link-up with Tesco Mobile that has brought the firm 1.5 million customers, negotiated with Apple founder Steve Jobs personally in California to land the iPhone tie-up and persuaded his then boss, Peter Erskine, to allow the network to put its name to the former Millennium Dome.

Publish date:

8 October 2008

Author:

Chris Blackhurst

Source:

Evening Standard

Media:

Access Interview