18 months into the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, which countries seem to have made the grade? And how have they done so? Thomas Mirow is president of the European Bank for Reconstruction Development. He took up this position on 3 July 2008. The EBRD Board of Governors nominated Mr Mirow on 19 May 2008 to replace Jean Lemierre as President of the EBRD.

Jim O'Neill, head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the crisis and its impact on the emerging giants of the world economy, the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

Antal International is a global headhunting firm with over 50 offices in 20 countries. The organisation has been operating in China for around 10 years, introducing countless foreign professionals to the country. Our reporter He Fei talked with Robert Parkinson, Antal International's Managing Director for China, regarding the employment market in China and how the country can attract even more international talent.

What can we learn from the way business is done in Asian cultures? The dominant management philosophy in the Asia-Pacific region is a Chinese one, emphasising Confucian values, the family and respect for authority. Does the enduring success of this approach have important lessons for us in the West, or is this management style increasingly redundant, as economies and companies internationalise and mature?

The global emerging market, which did not exist 25 years ago, now has an input of about 50% into the world economy and attracts more than 40% of foreign direct investment. The economic dynamic of emerging market countries has a strong and positive influence on the world economy and, as such, has to be re-evaluated during this development of a new global order.