Of the four men in front of the Treasury Select Committee, Sir Ian Gibson seemed to be the most harrowed by the nightmarish recent weeks at Northern Rock. Asked if the bank’s executives could show more humility in the face of Britain’s biggest banking disaster in recent memory, Sir Ian was quick to emphasise that “there’s absolutely no arrogance on my part or on the part of the board; there’s shock and there’s distress”.

The 60-year-old Sir Ian went on: “I’m very sure there are lessons that go beyond this institution. But we can only deal with the world as we know it. And we did that pretty well. But that world has changed and that’s something this board is still coping with.”

Northern Rock is not Sir Ian’s only headache. He took over in May as chairman of Trinity Mirror, where he is presiding over the sale of a number of unwanted titles - a process that so far has met with partial success. Meanwhile, in July it was announced that he would replace Sir Ken Morrison as chairman of Wm Morrison when the 75-year-old founder steps down next May.

After a recent change to tax rules, Sir Ken and his family are expected to go for an early sale of their 16 per cent stake in the company.

Sir Ian is used to tough times. He joined Nissan Motor Manufacturing as production and control director in 1984 after 16 years with Ford. Within three years he was on the board and in 1989 was appointed managing director.

He was known as a hard negotiator in union talks. In 1999 he became the first European senior vice-president of Nissan Motor Company in Japan and the first to run Nissan’s European operations.

The Mancunian has served in the past as chairman of BPB and as deputy chairman of Asda. He holds nonexecutive roles at Greggs and GKN. He was appointed CBE in 1990 and knighted in 1999 for services to the motor industry.