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Quite how he plans to boost business’s reputation is not clear. Nobody likes being lectured on society by unelected millionaire bosses — Sunderland earned £1.3m last year — however socially inclusive their agenda. He has already encountered this in his wrangles with health campaigners over how much protection should be given to the vulnerable in society.

Cadbury, like other manufacturers, has agreed to withdraw its jumbo-sized chocolate bars, but Sunderland plainly thinks choice should be left to consumers, and that the accusations thrown at confectionery makers are ridiculous.

“Cadbury Dairy Milk has been going 100 years, it is a staple part of the diet, part of relaxation, a bit of luxury that people are taught how to deal with from an early age. The idea that it can be suddenly transformed into something that has prime responsibility in making this nation overweight is absurd.”

His counter-argument, that personal accountability is being eroded by the nanny state, and that “de-risking” the nation is undermining entrepreneurial drive — “we’re protected if we’re unemployed, we’re protected if we’re ill, every incident begets a regulation” — may play well with business audiences, but is likely to set off warning klaxons with others. What’s he advocating? Workhouses? “Of course not,” he says quietly, “we will never again live in a world where there aren’t safety nets for people, but I would suggest there is more room for greater accountability, more risk and more enterprise.”

Friends say these views are what makes Sunderland such an interesting mix of old and new Cadbury values. “As chief executive, John brought a harder edge to what was already a very good organisation at Cadbury,” says one. “He was much tougher on people than his predecessor, Dominic Cadbury, but at the same time he’s very loyal.”

Cadbury’s deputy chairman, Roger Carr, says Sunderland will add something fresh to the CBI. “John is an understated character, not an ego-driven personality — his focus is on issues and he will try to carry people with him. And now he has made the move to chairman at Cadbury’s, I think he just wants to broaden his vision.”

That vision, combined with his dialectical skills — he was a social-sciences graduate from St Andrews university with ambitions to be a teacher — will certainly be a change in style for the CBI. Previous presidents, such as Inchcape chairman Sir John Egan and Rentokil boss Sir Clive Thompson, have been more bullish. Insiders hope that Sunderland will be a calm foil to Digby Jones’s exuberant ubiquity.

Jones himself says Sunderland’s “fund of knowledge” on issues such as globalisation is already proving invaluable. “John’s strong, he’s inquisitive and underneath he’s tough as old boots,” says Jones.

The toughness was engendered young, in a postwar Lancashire upbringing where hard work was encouraged. Born the eldest child of a property surveyor, Sunderland was expected to earn his own money from an early age. “My father’s view was simple: you were raised, educated, and you made your own way.”

So as a teenager he worked as a porter at Blackpool airport and sold chickens door-to-door. Later, when a temporary slot in a Dundee school persuaded him that teaching was not the career he wanted, he leapt at an offer from Cadbury, because he liked the company’s values. His rise through the firm included stints in Ireland and apartheid South Africa, where, he says, he saw first-hand how business could be a positive force for change.

Colleagues say that he, too, changed as he got closer to the top — his suits got sharper, his beard was shaved off, his ability to make long, scriptless presentations became more pronounced. Yet he has always been a private man, shooting being his only known hobby. The fact that he has now voluntarily pitched himself into the firing line at the CBI has surprised more than a few, although it does send a clear signal to his chief executive, Todd Stitzer, that the reins have now been truly handed over.

That leaves Sunderland free to deal with the bigger issues. He tells me about a dinner he held last month for the latest graduate trainees at Cadbury.

“I was talking to them about globalisation, and as far as most of these graduates were concerned, they see it in a negative way. But if you look at history, if it’s done at the right speed, with the right protections, globalisation is a force for good in developing countries. Yet the graduates’ verdict on it was coloured by what they had heard, or read, or had been taught at school. We are not very good at getting our voice heard on this.”

Has he seen The Corporation, the new American documentary film about the evils of corporate capitalism? Not yet, but he will make a point of going.

I’d be interested to know what he thinks of that in the battle for hearts and minds — and the growing tide of films and books questioning business’s purpose.

“Then maybe we should meet again,” he smiles, before hoisting a satchel onto his shoulder and walking me out, already deep in thought about his next appointment.