New bosses: the movers and shakers

António Horta-Osório

Background: As the folly of the HBOS merger became clear, Eric Daniels' departure looked fairly certain. He leaves new boss António Horta-Osório – formerly Santander's UK head – with a host of challenges, ranging from competition concerns over the HBOS deal and finding growth, to a growing regulatory burden and the need to navigate the bank back to private hands once the government sells its stake.

Mr Horta-Osório's top priorities

Avoiding onerous disposals: In 2008 former prime minister Gordon Brown, keen to save HBOS from collapse, promised Lloyds that he'd waive competition concerns arising from a merger. But that promise couldn't be kept. EU competition regulators required Lloyds to sell its Scottish branches, its Intelligent Finance online bank and its Cheltenham & Gloucester branches.

While the interim findings of the Independent Commission on Banking, established by the new Tory-led government, means a full break up looks unlikely, worries over Lloyds' dominant market position remain and Mr Horta-Osório will need to work hard to avoid being forced to dispose of more than the 600 branches originally ruled by the European Commission.

Managing privatisation: During the financial crisis Lloyds, like RBS, had to be recapitalised through a government bailout. The state currently owns 40.6 per cent of Lloyds and there's considerable uncertainty over when and how that stake will be privatised. On timing, it's hard to see progress being made before the Independent Banking Commission releases its finding in the autumn. Selling at above the average 72.2p a share average cost of the government's investment looks politically essential – the current share price is 60p.

But until the state exits Lloyds, setting a clear strategic direction, or even paying dividends again, is going to prove hard going for the new chief executive.

Improving credit quality: With the group's full-year figures, Lloyds reported that its impairment charge had fallen 34 per cent in 2010 to £10.95bn. Clearly, credit quality is improving – but that's still a hefty bad debt charge and largely explains the bank's still anaemic profits. And some parts of the loan book, notably in Ireland and Australia, saw bad debts rise heavily. With the UK's economic recovery faltering amidst a squeeze on state spending, credit quality could yet deteriorate.

A growing regulatory burden: All banks face the extra cost of the government's banking levy – designed to raise £2.5bn a year from the sector. What's more, Basel III requirements will force banks to hold more capital and it's likely that UK regulators will set requirements that substantially exceed Basel III's minimum capital ratios. Lloyds looks reasonably well-placed to meet these extra capital needs – but it will involve extra cost and could inhibit Lloyd's ability to grow its loan book.

Finding growth: Capital constraints and a weak UK economic backdrop already point to limited growth prospects. It doesn’t help that – unlike some UK rivals – Lloyds has relatively little overseas exposure where, potentially, growth rates are higher and longer-term prospects better. A big challenge, then, will be generating decent long-term earnings growth – even after recovery becomes entrenched – given Lloyds’ heavy reliance on slow-growth UK retail banking and an inability to buy UK rivals due to competition constraints.

John Adams

BP – beyond panic

INCOMING: Bob Dudley

Outgoing: Tony Hayward

"Bob Dudley, the new CEO, is determined to mend the company's fences with the current US administration." David Buik, at BGC Partners.

Bob Dudley

Background: The terrible irony at the heart of Tony Hayward's tenure as chief executive is that he had originally taken on the role with the express intention of rehabilitating the group's health and safely record. That had already been brought into question following a series of incidents that culminated in the explosion at the Texas City Refinery in March 2005 that killed 15 workers. But the Gulf of Mexico disaster had become overtly politicised and the US media needed a suitably inept fall-guy to take the heat, so Mr Hayward duly obliged. Enter Bob Dudley.

Bob Dudley's top priorities

Win hearts and minds: It was Hayward's leaden attempts to deal with outraged public opinion that were his undoing, rather than BP's operational response to the disaster. Bob Dudley appreciates that he needs to rehabilitate the group's public profile, in order to ensure that it isn't squeezed out of any future exploration licences through political expediency.

Introduce subtle operational reforms: The new chief executive has already linked the board's future bonus compensation scheme to safety and risk management, while temporarily closing down a number of offshore production wells. Small measures – true – but Mr Dudley cannot realistically call for root-and-branch reform of BP's safety procedures lest it is seen by US regulators and lawyers as a tacit admission of 'gross negligence', which would expose the company to punitive damages amounting to $40bn, instead of a maximum of $18bn for the lesser charge of 'negligence'.

Rebuild the balance sheet: Last year BP unloaded around $12.6bn-worth of non-core assets in order to build up a cash buffer to insulate against long-term costs connected with Deepwater Horizon. But these divestments will also help Mr Dudley and his board to crystallise BP's new business model.

Forge emerging market links: Under Mr Dudley's steam, BP has already announced two major deep-sea exploration joint ventures in India and Siberia, forming part of wider strategy to form regional partnerships in global emerging markets. However, the latter of these is now in serious doubt following a successful legal appeal by TNK-BP – the group's Russian joint-venture partnership – which brought into question the legality of the proposed exploration tie-up and share swap with Russian energy giant Rosneft.

Mark Robinsion

Rolls keeps climbing

INCOMING: John Rishton

Outgoing: Sir John Rose

"Fundamentally, I don't think the new CEO will make any drastic short-term changes, but the business will throw off a lot of cash over the next few years and he needs to decide what to do with it." Andrew Gollan at Investec.

John Rishton

Background: Rolls-Royce was always a 'feast-to-famine' business that moved in step with the fortunes of the aerospace sector as surely as autumn followed summer. Sir John will be remembered for finally dragging Rolls-Royce away from a reliance on selling aero engines to the volatile airline sector by increasing the proportion of sales generated by predictable service contracts. Those have gone from almost nothing in 1996 to more than £3bn in 2010, making it hard to conceive what a miserable experience holding its shares was during much of its modern history.

John Rishton's top priorities

Diversification: Under Rose's leadership Rolls has had notable success in selling into new and emerging markets. These efforts have been so successful that around half of the company's £58bn order book originates from countries experiencing real economic growth. John Rishton is expected to continue the diversification policy. He certainly understands the airline business – he was a one-time British Airways chief finance officer – and will need to work hard to maintain the relationship with Rolls' customers after the experience with the Qantas engine blowout. Considering he was chief financial officer during the 9/11 attacks, nothing much should faze him.

Taking market share: After struggling through most of the period after its privatisation in 1987 to stay independent, Rolls is now the world's second-largest engine maker. The question here is how much money Rolls is prepared to spend in order to expand into new areas such as power generation and maritime engines – the recent bid for Tognum, a German ship engine-maker, for a mooted Ä3bn (£2.64bn) is a good example. Mr Rishton will have approved the approach in his current role as a non-executive director. Intriguingly, in his previous role at Ahold, a Dutch retailer, he oversaw a Ä1bn share buy-back programme. Given that Rolls-Royce dividends are solid, rather than spectacular, could that policy conceivably change?

Technological edge: Sir John also ensured that Roll-Royce continued spending big on research and development and with engineering is embedded in Rolls' DNA and there's no way the company would ever dilute its skills base. There might be room for some production to be expanded in overseas markets, but given the problems aerospace companies such as Boeing have had in managing outsourced procurement, Rolls's management might baulk at too radical changes.

Julian Hofmann

M&S still needs a major makeover

INCOMING: Marc Bolland

Outgoing: Sir Stuart Rose

"The new strategy outlined by Marc Bolland may not have been as radical or exciting as some investors had hoped, but it is certainly what consumers want to see from M&S, according to our survey results." Caroline Gulliver at Espirito Santo.

Marc Bolland

Background: You wouldn't think that Sir Stuart Rose had achieved quite so much while at the helm of M&S, given how keen shareholders ultimately seemed to see the back of him. Parachuted in to see off retail raider Philip Green, he then undertook a no-expense spared revamp of fusty stores that had weakened the group in the first place. Inspirational hires like Kate Bostock helped overhaul ranges and the 2020 strategic review he initiated provides a strong platform for successor Marc Bolland to improve efficiencies, reduce costs and build sales growth from. The new man will be keen to prove Ken Morrison, the founder of the supermarket group he left behind, wrong when he said that "we worked together for a couple of years but I wasn't too disappointed when he left – he patently wasn't a retailer", dismissing the popular view that Mr Bolland was the architect of an impressive turnaround after the acquisition of Safeway.

Marc Bolland's top priorities

Catch up with the market online: In his strategy update in November, Mr Bolland acknowledged that M&S had been slow to move online, and set a target of doubling internet sales to £1bn a year by 2014, including the launch of a number of international sites starting this year. Considering he conspicuously avoided moving online at Morrison, it seemed like a bold promise to make, that is, until the appointment of Laura Wade-Gery, architect of Tesco's successful online drive, was announcement. She may even work out how to make the economics of M&S's smaller average shop size work in an online environment.

Make international work: M&S's flirtations with international retail haven't always been particularly successful, but that hasn't stopped successive leaders from venturing overseas, keen to reduce the reliance on the UK's economic wellbeing. In some ways Mr Bolland's international strategy is a continuation of that put in place by Stuart Rose, targeting the rising-affluent in markets such as India and China. As with online, Mr Bolland's international experience derived from Morrison's adds up to precisely zero, but once again a shrewd bit of talent poaching – Jan Heere, former Russian chief at the successful Inditex – means a similar sales growth target to online is achievable.

Make grocery great again: Mr Bolland has already acted to rekindle the focus on innovation that once characterised the food business, crediting the strong fourth-quarter food performance to the introduction of 320 new lines. But the grocery market remains challenging and, with household finances likely to weaken this year, Mr Bolland must avoid the temptation to cave into consumer pressure and sacrifice quality to chase volumes.

Avoid the emperor's new clothes: Most younger shoppers wouldn't be seen dead in Marks & Spencer's clobber, but that doesn't mean the retailer should abandon its more mature demographic to chase a more fashionable audience. Older shoppers still have cash to spend, and an increase in 'affordable luxury' lines is helping M&S pick up share in a tough market. Marc Bolland has already simplified the offer by culling many of the countless – read pointless – sub-brands but he must not let them spiral out of control again.

John Hughman

No easy ride for new easyJet chief

INCOMING: Carolyn McCall

Outgoing: Andy Harrison

"The airline industry isn't easy at the best of times. With the self-inflicted problems at easyJet on top of that, the new CEO-CFO team had a hell of an introduction." Gerald Khoo, Arbuthnot Securities.

Carolyn McCall

Background: Andy Harrison, now chief executive of Whitbread, probably won't look back on his days at easyJet as the happiest in his career. He spent much of his time in a well-publicised battle over strategy with Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the airline's founder and principal shareholder. Ms McCall arrived from the Guardian Media Group into this poisonous atmosphere less than two months after Sir Stelios's resignation "to pursue shareholder activism".

Carolyn McCall's top priorities

Fix crewing problems: Last summer easyJet's services from Gatwick airport were subject to chronic delays as a result of staffing shortages. It was eventually forced to charter extra planes complete with crew. Ms McCall's most pressing priority was to fix these costly problems. Whether she has succeeded without diluting margins by hiring excess staff will be tested in the coming high season.

Keep shareholders (particularly Sir Stelios) sweet: Ms McCall announced a new dividend policy alongside the company's annual results in November. easyJet will pay its first dividend with respect to the current full-year 2010-11, based on an ultra-cautious dividend cover of five times.

Improve margins: One of Sir Stelios's main complaints was that the growth strategy had decimated underlying pre-tax profit margins, which were 6.3 per cent last year. Ms McCall wants to increase profit per seat to £5 from a long-term average of about £3, and has ditched Mr Harrison's old return-on-equity (ROE) target of 15 per cent in favour of a return-on-capital-employed target of 12 per cent "through the cycle". She thinks margins can be improved by targeting business travellers more aggressively, by growing ancillary revenues such as baggage fees and by trimming operating costs.

Take market share in European short-haul: This was the basis of easyJet's past success, and Ms McCall shows no intention of reversing the strategy. She has fixed capacity growth, measured in seats flown, at 7 per cent until September 2013 – just a tad below Mr Harrison's controversial 7.5 per cent target. That will require expanding the fleet by a total of 24 planes to a total of 220. At the same time, Ms McCall tried to keep Sir Stelios on her side by stressing the need for flexible capacity planning in a notoriously cyclical industry. That means not committing to bullish long-term plane deals when times are good – as Sir Stelios accuses Mr Harrison of doing with Airbus in November 2006.

Stephen Wilmot

Tesco top of the shops

INCOMING: Philip Clarke

Outgoing: Sir Terry Leahy

"Mr Clarke has a very strong pedigree, not just learning the ropes under Leahy but taking leading roles in UK grocery, logistics and most recently Tesco International. Clarke took on the mantle of David Reid in International and has delivered." Clive Black, Shore Capital.

Philip Clarke

Background: A notably orderly succession saw Tesco veteran Philip Clarke take over from Sir Terry Leahy in February, but there's little doubt that the new man has a very tough act to follow – few would dispute the popular view of Sir Terry as Britain's best grocer. But there's no reason to doubt that shareholders won't be just as happy under Mr Clark's tenure. One of many talented executives that have risen through the ranks at the supermarket group, he's held important positions including international chief. That's particularly important because international expansion is key to Tesco's future success, given the maturity of its domestic market.

Philip Clarke's top priorities

Keep UK market share steady: Despite Tesco's ever-expanding global footprint, many analysts remain hung up on the UK, pointing out that it still accounts for 70 per cent of group profits. It's no small challenge given the level of aggressive competition fighting for a share of shrinking household budgets in an inflationary environment – Asda alone plans to open 168 UK stores this year, the largest space expansion in its history.

Get US business profitable: Tesco doesn't get many things wrong, but its venture into the US hasn't worked out as planned. Exposure to the sub-prime crisis has seen it rack up heavy losses and mothball stores, and while it is apparently now on track to break-even by the end of 2012, that it will achieve that target shouldn't be taken for granted in a market where aggressive local rivals are quick to snipe at its unfamiliar grocery model.

Keep the brain drain under control: Mr Clarke's appointment meant some inevitable departures among other senior executives passed over for the role. The most high-profile loss was the defection of e-commerce strategist Laura Wade-Gery to M&S, prompting a quick reshuffle to prevent more of the same. Given Tesco's investment in talent and promotion from within, it can't afford to lose the next generation of leaders to rivals keen to tap into its extensive know-how – especially those that could undermine its retail services initiatives such as online and banking.

Drive Asian growth: South Korea is Tesco's international success story and is doubly important, because its profits – and learnings – can be recycled into claiming a bigger prize: China. So far, Tesco's duel grocery and property strategy there appears to be working well, generating rapid growth and providing a future-proof strategy to expand. But Asia is Mr Clarke's specialist area, and any slip-ups would be frowned upon by the market.

John Hughman