Now that Tony Angel has stepped down as managing partner of Linklaters, David Cheyne, the senior partner, is unchallenged at the top of the UK's second most profitable law firm (behind Slaughter and May). Linklaters has had a swagger in its step lately, and justifiably so: its strategy of global expansion has paid off handsomely, with revenues of more than £1 billion a year. A trusted adviser to some of Britain’s top corporate executives, Cheyne, 59, has a reputation as a brilliant, ruthless dealmaker rivalled only by that of Nigel Boardman, of Slaughter and May. He is the son of Brigadier William Watson Cheyne, a distinguished soldier who commanded several battalions in the British Army and was appointed MBE, OBE and DSO. Cheyne studied at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire and Trinity College, Cambridge, before joining Linklaters & Paines, as it was, in 1972. He became a partner in 1980 and was head of the corporate department from 2000 until 2005. Married with three sons, his hobbies are shooting, fishing and collecting antiques.

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