In his non-descript office overlooking the u-shaped campus of Delphi, the car parts supplier based in Troy, a suburb of Detroit, Steve Miller, the company’s 67-year-old executive chairman since July 2005, uses a colourful metaphor to describe his career as a corporate troubleshooter. “I’m always at the scene of a fire,” he says. “Half the world thinks I’m a fireman and the other half thinks I’m an arsonist.”