In March 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic obliged Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in many countries to vacate their campuses and operate at a distance. We narrate the experience of the Acsenda School of Management (ASM) in making this sudden transition. ASM is a private for-profit business school with some 1,200, mostly international, students based in Vancouver, Canada. Drawing on interviews with ASM staff the paper identifies why the transition was relatively successful. It concludes with reflections on the longer-term impact of COVID-19 and how to integrate online and distance learning more effectively in HEIs around the world.