FOR a man who is so much in demand, Richard Huntingford, chief executive of Chrysalis, comes in a pint-sized package: short, skinny, still boyish despite thinning grey locks and a clutch of laughter lines. Perhaps it’s the black designer jeans and ready smile. At 47, he could be Peter Stringfellow’s better-looking younger brother.

But when it comes to building a media group, Huntingford is one of the hottest acts in town. So much so that next week, at Chrysalis’s annual meeting, shareholders are going to be asked to approve an “exceptional” award to bump up his £508,000 pay package.

The award, a new long-term incentive plan that could be worth up to £1m, is to replace a current plan that has gone “under water”. Some read it differently: Chrysalis, a radio to music and books group that has been outperforming the media market recently, is desperate to hold on to its man.

Flattering? “Look,” grins Huntingford, “I am not going to talk about what I earn.”

Let’s put it another way. Has he got itchy feet? “No, I’m passionate about Chrysalis and what we have going here.”

But he can’t blame me for asking? No, of course not, he laughs, and bobs his straggly grey head. Somewhere deep down, you suspect, there is a tough side to Huntingford, but he can make even a rebuff feel mink-lined.

Sitting in his trendy, brick-walled office at Chrysalis’s converted-brewery base in west London, bouncing round behind a vast modern desk, Huntingford acts like the ageing imp who got control of the chocolate factory. He loves radio, he says — he used to listen to the pirate stations as a kid growing up in Suffolk — and he loves music and books. So he is delighted to be sitting in a job that plays to so many of his strengths and interests. Why would he leave Chrysalis? Point taken. Those strengths — a methodical mind (he used to be an accountant) and an eye for strategy — have enabled him to reshape the former record company into a media vehicle whose radio brands Heart and Galaxy are among the most successful in Britain, and whose music-publishing arm is leaping ahead.

Last year Chrysalis reported the best financial results the group had ever seen: pre-tax profit of £24m on turnover of £250m. This year, with all kinds of takeover action expected in the radio market after recent changes in ownership rules, he could be a very busy man.

In truth, Chrysalis, one of four big players in the British commercial-radio market along with Capital, Emap and GWR, could be buyer or bought, especially if an American major comes sniffing. Its mix of mainstream music stations plus a bit of speech — it bought London’s loss-making LBC two years ago — plays well over the Atlantic. And Heart in particular, the “adult contemporary” music station that has been duffing up Capital in London of late, is a prize catch for anyone.

Three months ago Heart nudged ahead of Capital in the audience-listener figures for the first time. Last Thursday the latest audience statistics showed that Capital had regained the lead. Huntingford shrugs it off. “We were 18 months ahead of schedule overtaking Capital. Just give it time.”

The real opportunity, he adds, is in April, when Capital loses Chris Tarrant, who hosts the crucial morning slot, and replaces him with fellow television presenter Johnny Vaughan. “Tarrant’s audience is a lot of over-35s, that’s much more our guys.” Vaughan, he predicts, will struggle to hold on to them.

Such shifts in audience numbers can be hugely profitable in the radio business — “5% top-line growth in radio leads to 20% bottom-line earnings growth,” he says. The flip side is true, too, he adds, throwing out more numbers, incremental cost figures, possible margin targets.

Beneath the wrinkly rocker image, the accountant’s heart still beats. A conversation with Huntingford can either be charmingly brief — ask him about his salary — or so precisely numbered that he probably wins arguments by endurance. Phil Riley, head of Chrysalis’s radio division, calls him “a terrific persuader”.