Paul Taubman had no sleep on Columbus Day weekend in October 2008, but it wasn’t because he was brooding over Lehman Brothers’ failure a month earlier. Rather, he was trying to avoid a Lehman-like fate for his own bank, Morgan Stanley, by brokering a $9 billion capital infusion from Mitsubishi UFJ. His mission accomplished — in the wee hours of Monday morning — global investment banking chief Taubman, 48, presented himself a few hours later at Wyeth Corp. in New Jersey to discuss merger options.

“In the past 18 months, we have seen a meltdown of the financial system as we know it,” Taubman notes. Yet he and his team have restored Morgan to the upper ranks of M&A advice, earning Taubman a promotion to co-president of institutional securities, starting January 1.