So when someone asked about the Heat's reputation for meltdowns, James neither flinched nor shied from the issue, saying simply and convincingly, "I'm a confident guy".
Activists in Europe firebombed Shell stations, there were questions raised in parliaments around the world and the company's reputation was in meltdown.
Woolnough made his reputation during the 2007/08 financial meltdown, selling out of bank bonds and positioning his funds to take advantage of falling interest rates.
Jamie Dimon, at the helm of JPMorgan Chase, seems to be the one banker who has emerged from the financial meltdown with his reputation enhanced yet earlier he lost his job at Citi when his former mentor, Sandy Weill, turned on him.
Byrne is talking with the authority of a celebrated dramatist, best known for Tutti Frutti, the epic 1987 comedy TV series about a Scottish rock'n'roll band in meltdown that sealed the reputations of Emma Thompson and Robbie Coltrane.
The financial industry isn't famous for transparency, yet the economic meltdown didn't cause the reputation of financials to sink much lower than they already were.
Even then, G4S will have to live with the reality that the firm's reputation is one more cock-up away from meltdown.
The financial meltdown may have shattered Iceland's reputation as a place of Nordic rectitude and caused deep soul-searching among its leadership and citizens, but this crisis — they gladly point out — was not one of their own making.
About the only corporation I can see hiring me is one that is in a meltdown situation and trying to revamp its reputation.
From Blair we predictably go to Bush, a man who on leaving office had started two catastrophic wars, set his country's global reputation back decades and presided over the start of an economic meltdown.
