Direct action at the IoD: As director general of the Institute of Directors, Tim Melville-Ross is on a mission to project a more positive image of business to a cynical public. Rob Gray reports

When the Institute of Directors (IoD) was established in 1903, Queen Victoria had only been dead a couple of years and attitudes towards commerce were very different from those today. Half a decade shy of its centenary, the IoD which was set up to represent and further the interests of business, is confronted by a public that is more informed about, and more critical of, large companies’ actions than would have been conceivable in the Edwardian era.