Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last September, one of the largest bankruptcy filings in US history. Its impact was enormous, causing the Dow Jones to plummet by more than 500 points, the largest drop in a single day since the days after the September 11 attacks.
People were losing jobs around the world, creating panic and showing the first signs of the recession that lay ahead.
While many were not prepared, Hong Kong-born Chung Tak-wai, who was then working in the private equity division of Lehman Brothers, said his MBA experience was one of the key things that helped him handle the situation.
'It was unexpected for all of us, so I think a lot of people didn't know what to do or didn't know how to react,' Mr Chung, an alumnus of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in the US, said.
'To deal with that situation it was the soft skills I acquired at school which helped me a lot. Some of it is hard to quantify, but self-reflection, communication and negotiation are huge. You have to be able to confidently reach out to people to find solutions and opportunities and rally the troops, and that was important.'
Mr Chung explained that having lived in a close-knit community at Tuck, and having gone through many study group sessions and case studies in an MBA setting meant that problem-solving and communication skills were further enhanced, better preparing candidates for real-life challenges, which was especially helpful for situations as tough as the ones faced in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse.
'It's the ability to take a step back, assess the situation and look at the macro environment, and work your network to create opportunities that in ordinary times would be unthinkable,' he said.