Ex-IMF director Strauss-Kahn looks back on 2008 financial crisis Ten years after the global recession, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was IMF director during the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008, looks back on the financial crisis, comparing the present situation as "worse than it was at the time." The former French politician also says the rise of populism is a result of the inequalities born from the bad management of the crisis. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES