On the web and on the walls

Bright, young thing: Charles Muirhead, 24-year-old boss of Orchestream

Their reputation and riches precede them, but would you recognise an internet millionaire if you brushed past one in the street?

With a couple of exceptions, probably not. But now the National Portrait Gallery has captured some of Britain's brightest young business minds for a new photographic exhibition.

Non-net tycoons rub shoulders with rising company stars in the line-up of 23 faces. But given the media's current hunger for new media success stories, it is the internet entrepreneurs who dominate.

And among the latter, the dress code is highly informal with not a neck-tie to be seen.

Boo who? Kajsa Leander

Kajsa Leander and Ernst Malmsten, the Swedish founders of online "street and sportswear" e-tailer Boo.com, are featured; she in sober black suit, he in open-neck shirt.

Tim Jackson, the former Financial Times journalist who set up online auction house QXL, made a fortune through its flotation and then returned to writing, stands aside his reflection in an office window, decked out in baggy trousers and a fleece top.

Martha Lane Fox is there, of course, happily reclining on a scarlet sofa with Lastminute.com partner Brent Hoberman.

Dan Wagner, who founded market analysis and information business Maid in 1985 and is now chief executive of digital content and search technology provider, Dialog, also features.

John Pluthero, MD of free ISP Freeserve, is fozen in mid-step, briefcase in hand, while Mike Lynch, founder of Autonomy, an e-commerce business which advises others on how to manage the internet, sports a crocodile skin-style sports jacket.

Tim Jackson has gone back to writing

Youngest of all is 24-year-old Charles Muirhead, who heads Orchestream, a profitable software-selling business.

The list was compiled by gallery staff, the magazine Management Today, and headhunters Spencer Stuart.

Jan Hall from Spencer Stuart says those included were chosen not necessarily for their riches, but for other shared characteristics.

"They are totally dedicated to driving their companies and setting a new speed and pace of change for business," she says.

"They may not create a new type of capitalism," says Matthew Lynn in Management Today, "but they will certainly help shape the version we already have."

It appears to mark a change to a world dominated by internet entrepreneurs, clothing retailers and PR executives.

Familiar faces: Martha and Brent

Those working in fields such as the City, management consultancies and advertising were not considered after it was decided that, despite the influence of these businesses, the people involved will not be the names history remembers.

Other figures, from outside the world of the net, include entertainment moguls like BSkyB's managing director Elisabeth Murdoch and Stelios Haji-Ioannou from Easyjet

Also featured is Reuben Singh who, at 17, started a clothing chain called Miss Attitude and sold it three years later for about £21m.

And PR guru Matthew Freud, who masterminded the "affair" between Chris Evans and Geri Halliwell, is also there, as is mobile phone retailer Charles Dunstone.

Rufus Olins of Management Today also pointed out they all shared a similar style of management, which he says is "younger, more glamorous and less formal."

Photographs are copyright of the National Portrait Gallery, where the exhibition will be held until 17 September.