CANADIAN JUDSON MARTIN, a greying, soft-spoken former accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and retired business executive is a likeable guy, but he must have felt like the captain of a passenger liner heading towards an iceberg in his latest role. In late August, Martin was handed a job that few in their right minds would accept. Following the suspension of the beleaguered Toronto-listed, Hong Kong-managed, Chinese timber resources firm Sino-Forest Corp from the Canadian bourse and the resignation of its founder and CEO Allen Chan, Martin, a long-time director of the firm, was asked to temporarily lead the firm while investigators tried to determine whether there were deliberate corporate wrongdoings and if there was anything left to salvage in the company.

MORE THAN TWO decades ago, actor Tom Cruise in the 1980s epic action movie Top Gun popularised Aviator sunglasses. Strategic product placement was a key marketing tool for the sunglasses brand Ray- Ban at the time. Indeed, Cruise had worn Ray- Ban’s Wayfarer sunglasses years earlier in another movie, Risky Business. The two movies apparently helped spark a renaissance of sorts for sunglasses. Outsized sunglasses became a fashion statement of the era. Millions of Ray- Bans were sold years later because everyone wanted to have a Cruise look.