The captains of industry awarded Sir Richard 13% of the vote, reflecting his rapid esteem in the business community - last year he mustered just 4%.

The survey, by Mori for the Financial Times, asked 149 top executives from all walks of industry.

Deal of the decade

Sir Richard's climb up the pharmaceuticals ladder has not been without its dramas - this year has been one of the most sensational but maybe not the most impressive.

The big event, the deal of the decade as it came to be known, was the failure of a merger with pharmaceuticals rival SmithKline Beecham.

Had the £100bn merger been successful, and it still could be, it would have formed the world's biggest corporate union.

Sir Richard and his market rival Jan Leschly, head of SmithKline Beecham, have blamed each other ever since for the collapse of the merger.

Lost opportunity

Sir Richard shrugged off criticism to win the vote

The failure by Sir Richard and Mr Leschly to hatch a deal even provoked criticism from a select committee of MPs who thought it a lost opportunity.

Behind the board room doors however the two men were locked in a bitter power struggle which eventually backfired.

MPs on the Select Committee on Science and Technology concluded: "Either way, the judgement of the senior executives must be called into question.

"It must be a cause for public concern as well as concern to shareholders that neither of the chief executives nor the boards of the two companies have been held publicly accountable for this course of events," it said.

Wellcome buy-out

Born in 1942 outside Huddersfield, Sir Richard later attended the same school as the former Labour prime minister Harold Wilson. Having left school at 16, he pursued a career in science and by the age of 30 was head of antibiotic research unit at Glaxo Research.

In 1995, after just two years as Glaxo's chief executive, Sir Richard shook up the pharmaceuticals industry by snatching up rival Wellcome for £9bn.

The takeover was perfectly timed. Sir Richard knew that sales of Glaxo's anti-ulcer blockbuster Zantac would nosedive once it came off patent in 1997 and he wanted to cut the costs.

He says Glaxo is still learning a lot from the merger with Wellcome. "We are getting efficiency and productivity up and we will continue to evolve and change," he said earlier this year.