The Business On... Bob Benmosche, Chief executive, AIG

(BLOOMBERG)

America's most aggressive chief executive?

Tough competition for the title, but possibly. He will need all his fight in the coming months, because now his No 1 battle is not with intractable business problems or an angry public: he is battling cancer.

Sorry to hear that

His friends and foes had encouraging words, and Mr Benmosche was in typically belligerent mode. He told AIG employees he had started an "aggressive round of chemotherapy" and would be at his desk throughout.

Fighting talk

You would expect it from the Brooklyn-born 66-year-old, who clawed his way up the financial industry to the helm of MetLife, and was pulled out of retirement to run AIG.

You have to admire the grit

He says the diagnosis has made him more determined to speed up AIG's transformation from credit-crisis catastrophe to revamped insurance giant, and to pay back the $180bn (£113bn) bailout.

And there's progress on that?

The US Treasury mapped out an exit route, which could even land the government a profit.

How do we rate his role?

His aim appears to have been to boost morale, rounding on the company's critics. Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney-general who investigated AIG's oversize bonuses, "doesn't deserve to be in government" and Congress is full of "crazies", Mr Benmosche said in pep talks.

I see why he was called 'America's most tone-deaf CEO'

He even threatened to quit. Twice. Once because he didn't want the Obama administration interfering with his bonus, the second time in a "it's him or me" ultimatum forcing Harvey Golub to resign as chairman.

So, yes, aggressive

He will need it as he tries to stick to his plan to head AIG until 2012, even while he urges the company to "prepare for any alternate plan that fate may have in mind".