John Edwards has been chief executive of Advantage West Midlands, the regional development agency, since November 2000.
Previously the organisation's director of regeneration, he took over in difficult circumstances.
Mr Edwards was appointed to succeed Tony Cassidy, AWM's first chief executive, who quit after losing the confidence of business interests in the region. AWM stood accused of being over-bureaucratic, slow to reach decisions, secretive and lacking any deliverable strategy to drive forward economic regeneration.
The allegations continue to dog AWM today, even though the organisation is meeting the targets for job creation and job protection set by the Government. Mr Edwards, even now, is regularly asked by critics to justify the way AWM goes about its business and spends its £300 million annual budget.
On his first day in the job he admitted the agency had not performed as well as it might, and he gave this pledge: "We must be open and have clear targets about what our role should be. We must have clarity and simplicity of purpose. There will be no fudge or fog, but clarity.
"We are business-led. We are a regional organisation led by a businessman. We want to use our funding to help create initial opportunities for business."
AWM, under Mr Edwards' control, played a major part in organising the Rover Task Force following the collapse of MG Rover. The organisation has acquired a huge land bank, thought to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds, and is actively seeking inward investors to bring new jobs to the West Midlands.
Mr Edwards began his career as a trainee chartered surveyor with Taylor Woodrow and G Percy Trentham before spending ten years with the Development Commission on rural development projects in the West Midlands, Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire.
He spent a year as regional managing director of Business in the Community before joining AWM.
