Key 2008 Financial Crisis Players Are Back for CoronavirusIn Throwback to 2008, Familiar Faces Emerge in the Virus Crisis

Steven Mnuchin

In early 2009, Mnuchin led a group of investors who purchased failed subprime mortgage lender IndyMac and ran the bank until its sale in 2015. Mnuchin is now leading President Donald Trump's economic response to the pandemic.

Ben Bernanke

Bernanke's Fed created almost a dozen lending facilities to pump cash into the financial system when it nearly froze during the last crisis. Current Chairman Jerome Powell has dusted off many of those programs to support liquidity and put a floor under falling securities prices, which have helped financial firms cope with fallout from the pandemic.

Tim Geithner

Geithner was the third leg of the powerful trio managing the government's response during the last crisis, and became Treasury Secretary in 2009 under President Barack Obama. Now he helps manage the investment process at a private equity firm.

Larry Fink

During the last crisis, as banks crumbled and lost credibility, Fink emerged as a trusted adviser to the government and the Fed, helping to value esoteric securities they'd purchased or guaranteed. He's doing the same this time around, aiding the Fed with a bond-buying program aimed at putting a floor under market prices.

Jamie Dimon

Dimon's JPMorgan took over Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual during the last crisis, when it was one the few lenders strong enough to make major acquisitions as rivals failed. JPMorgan is now the largest U.S. bank, and while Dimon still has the ears of policy makers, he had emergency heart surgery in early March and only got back to work in recent days.

Hank Paulson

Paulson was President George W. Bush's point man during the financial crisis of 2008, directing the government's response in coordination with the Fed. He's now focused on improving China-U.S. relations. Last week he warned the leaders of the Treasury and Fed that it will be difficult and messy to get the financial support Congress provided to where it's needed most.

Tom Montag

Montag joined Merrill Lynch just before it was sold to Bank of America on the same weekend Lehman Brothers failed. The purchase led to Bank of America needing a government bailout. He ran the investment-banking arm at BofA for years, and remains an influential voice at the second-largest U.S. lender.

Neel Kashkari

Kashkari designed and ran the Treasury's $700 billion TARP program to bail out banks and carmakers during the previous crisis. He then became one of the harshest critics of big banks, asking that their capital levels be increased to improve safety. One lesson from the financial crisis was that people who lost their jobs took a decade to recover, he said in an interview last week with the Wall Street Journal. That means fast intervention is needed to make sure as many workers as possible keep their jobs this time, he said.

Rodge Cohen

Cohen got involved in the government's response to the 2008 crisis because of his client, Fannie Mae, and ended up becoming a key broker in most efforts trying to merge, sell or rescue financial firms. He's still considered the dean of Wall Street lawyers.

Alan Schwartz

Schwartz was named CEO of Bear Stearns just a few months before it became the first investment bank to collapse when the subprime-mortgage bubble burst. His new firm, Guggenheim, will likely be working on many of the corporate restructurings spurred by the current crisis.

Jim Millstein

Millstein joined the Treasury in 2009, and oversaw the restructuring of American International Group Inc., the insurance firm that made big bets on the subprime market. He'll likely be working on a raft of new restructurings in the current crisis as firms struggle with the economic fallout.

Gary Parr

Parr advised Bear Stearns in its sale to JPMorgan. His current employer, Apollo, has the biggest credit business among its peers, taking on lending that banks don't want.