Thoughts about Shanghai’s Monday morning rush hour traffic are enough to make anyone want to go back to bed. Your bus could be hours late, your orders ignored on Uber, your wish to ride a bike could be cut short by a sudden downpour, and even if you’re driving your own car you’ll probably get mad as it’s moving only two inches a minute.

How did a young criminal lawyer doing pro bono work from his hometown in Barcelona end up running fashion label Mango’s East Asia & India operations in Shanghai? It all began when he broke up with his girlfriend.

Every autumn, CEIBS welcomes new students for the Global EMBA programme. This year, sixty business elites, highly successful but still facing challenges from both their personal and professional lives, come to the same life-changing decision: to come back to academia, where they can explore ways to make new breakthroughs.

There is a Chinese saying: at the age of forty, one understands the world. For the new students, the true understanding is about themselves - to stop worrying about the “challenges” and “crises” and to better manage their own lives and careers.

He was on board during Caixin’s transition from a traditional media company, to China’s most influential new media brand; he is one of the most successful distributors of European and American financial magazines in China; he was the first person to introduce English newspapers and magazines, including the Wall Street Journal, to Chinese business schools.

He is of course Wang Hongbin.

Matthew Brosenne came to China in 1995 and joined China’s TV industry when it was still in its infancy. In 2013, this Old China Hand started a completely new career by joining an international head-hunting firm. With all his knowledge about China, Matthew thinks that, though China's economy has entered a “slow growth" phase, the demand for high-end labour is actually rising. In the future, Matthew suggests employees who have digital skills and know how to survive the “slow growth” will become increasingly popular.

Tony Tang got his first teaching job in a university twenty years ago. A year later, however, he left the education sector, and became a freshman in the Chinese financial sector. Since then, he has witnessed China’s stock market grow out of nothing and develop to today’s enormous scale.

When she was still a newcomer to her role, Julie Wong, a CEIBS Global EMBA 2011 graduate, once helped her belated boss to hold a plane’s departure for 15 minutes. After that, Julie learned what she calls the “plane-holding” skill: never surrender to the challenges and try every possible way to deal with them. Currently the HR head for a Fortune 500 company, Julie has maintained this courage ever since.