Age: 39,
Nationality: German
www.bertelsmann.com

He's the architect of Bertelsmann's audacious new deal with Napster, which could redefine content distribution.

Schmidt, who until last summer headed AOL Europe, believes that Napster's technology — a peer-to-peer file-sharing service — can be applied to all types of media distribution, with fees coming from users.

The choicest bits of Bertelsmann's media empire are being moved into Schmidt's e-Commerce operation. These include BMG's music, its 12 million music club members and online music retailer CDNow, online book retailers barnesandnoble.com and bol.com, and the broadband operations of the RTL Group.

Schmidt also wants to distribute Bertelsmann's content over cell phones.

The vision thing: "The principal goal is digital distribution, to define the standards and the business model over the various pipes available."

Forward spin: Peer-to-peer file-sharing could be an effective distribution system for Bertlesmann, but digital copyrights remain a prickly issue. And the company still faces the difficult task of getting others in the media industry on board.

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