Alberto Ibarguen, CEO of the Knight Foundation and former publisher of the Miami Herald, joined the board of directors of AMR and American Airlines in January. There wasn’t much of a honeymoon.

Texan Tom Hicks made a fortune in leveraged buyouts, won hockey’s Stanley Cup, agreed to give a baseball player the largest contract in sports history, and owns half of one of the world’s most famous soccer teams.

Still, when it comes to impressive resumes, he bows to a founding director of his newest venture, Hicks Acquisition Company I, which completed its initial public offering this week.

Brian Mulroney is a former Prime Minister of Canada and in June became a director of the Blackstone Group, the giant New York-based private equity firm that sold part of itself to the public this year. Mulroney is also a director of Archer Daniels Midland and Wyndham Worldwide, and has been a senior adviser to HM Capital, a successor to Hicks Muse Tate & Furst.