Aberdeen-based energy and offshore engineering specialist Wood Group had a respectable 2009, with its shares rising steadily after hitting a low point in the stock market turmoil of late 2008.

First-half profits and revenues have held up, too. Although the company is still worth £1bn less than it was at its peak, this recovery is good news for Sir Ian Wood. The firm's chairman, and widely seen as the architect of the oil boom enjoyed by the granite city over the past couple of decades, Wood was in on North Sea oil from the start, having taken over the running of a family-owned fishing operation in 1964.

Destined for an academic career after taking a first-class honours degree in psychology at Aberdeen University, he agreed to help his father on a temporary basis after graduating. He never left, and went on to transform the Wood Group into an international energy services outfit employing 29,000 people in 50 countries. The company was floated on the stock market in 2002 with a £1bn valuation. In a trading statement late last year, the company declared that its bread-and-butter work in the North Sea was going well and that it was on target to meet City profit expectations.