Professor Newkirk: ”If swine flu takes off, people are going to be very nervous about getting in a plane to meet a group of people they don’t know”. Photo: AP

In the first week of March Michael Collins attended Harvard Business School for a three-day programme to analyse the economic crisis. As an executive vice-president at the Federal Reserve Bank, Mr Collins says the beauty of the programme was that he could mix with entrepreneurs and managers from industry and government. “What I expected to get out of the programme was something about how people outside the banking system viewed the crisis.”

The timeliness of the programme did not disappoint. “You have to learn as fast as the world is changing around you.”