I’ve only met Bruce Sheppard once — at a Howick school gala one wet Saturday, but I’ve read his columns and long admired his outspoken advocacy for small shareholders.

Now, apparently, he’s been snaffled up to be part of the new Financial Markets Authority’s establishment board and is leaving the Shareholders’ Association.

Sheppard said he learned New Zealand’s corporate leadership was “greedy, grasping and self-serving but frightened when challenged”.

Good on him. We need more straight-shooting truth-tellers like him.

And WikiLeaks.