Steve Case
Chairman AOL Time Warner
Born: Honolulu, Hawaii
Education: BA Williams College

Case founded AOL in 1985, and took it public in 1992, floating on the NYSE in 1996, transforming it into the world's largest internet access provider and the first internet company to be to be listed in the Fortune 500. The company has more than 200m members and registered users of its services between AOL, Compuserve, ICQ and Netscape that it purchased in 1999.

In January 2001, just a year after public disclosure of the deal, AOL succeeded in merging with the media company Time Warner and Case became chairman of the combined entity.

AOL Time Warner is large enough to mount a serious challenge to Microsoft, over which company will control the dominant channel through which online consumers entertain and inform themselves. In January this year, AOL filed a private legal claim against its rival seeking damages for Microsoft's assault on Netscape, that was deemed illegal by the US court of appeal, and an injunction preventing Microsoft from continuing in this vein.

For more on AOL Time Warner and Microsoft click here