In Operational Restructuring the speed and quality of people decisions are critical.
We support private equity sponsors and private credit managers in critical portco talent decisions using an Operational Restructuring Talent Playbook. Watchlist due diligence and 30-day triage is undertaken through five lenses to produce an integrated Talent Action Plan for investment committee sign off.
For private equity sponsors, private credit lenders, special situations investors and the boards of their portfolio companies.
Designed for investors who have to make fast people decisons
Underperforming assets where the investment thesis is off track and the leadership team needs an objective, evidence-based reassessment.
Private equity sponsors
Watch-list monitoring, take-the-keys events and lender-led operational restructuring, where you become the owner and need a credible view of leadership quickly.
Private credit lenders
Chairs and ExCos who need to align around a revised value creation plan and show their owners that the plan is in the right hands.
Boards and ExCos
1
Watch list
A structured read on C-suite quality, an interim bench mapped by sector and assessments staged for rapid deployment.2
Financial restructuring
An early view of key-person, retention and leadership risk while the sponsor remains in control.3
Change of control
Day 1 stabilisation: chair, CEO and CFO continuity, and retention of critical roles.4
Operational restructuring
The 30-day triage, then replace, develop and hold to account across the hold.5
Exit
A management team and people function ready for buyer scrutiny, in advance of an exit.Leadership is a key variable you can control
By the time a business is restructured, most financial levers have been pulled. What remains in the owner's hands is who leads the business, how it is organised and whether the leadership team can deliver the revised plan. In a recovery, the effect of management quality is amplified.
Speed sets the trajectory
Assessment and replacement decisions taken in the first month after a change of control shape everything that follows. Decisions deferred tend to become decisions avoided and could prove terminal.
Delay is expensive
An unaddressed wrong-fit CEO, absent CFO and uninspired CCO, can add many months to the hold period and weigh heavily on the recovery multiple.
Buyers price it at exit
Management quality and Human Resource governance are scrutinised in due diligence. The talent story has to be built long before the sale process begins.
The Talent Playbook: five lenses, one integrated view
People often assess individuals in isolation. The Talent Playbook triangulates five lenses into a single view, so that no one data source drives a decision.
Organisation design
Is the organisation configured to deliver the strategy?
What we assess
The operating model against the twelve elements of McKinsey's Organize to Value system; alignment from purpose through strategy, capability, architecture and management systems; and the roles and competencies the recovery plan requires.
What it informs
Operating-model refinements or a fuller redesign, with structure and roles confirmed before people are matched to them.
Individual leaders
Is each leader right for the seats the plan now requires?
What we assess
Capability, fit and risk for every C-suite and critical, value creating, member of the extended senior leadership team: validated psychometrics covering potential, competencies, motivators, derailers, core strengths and critical reasoning, combined with structured competency interviews, 360 stakeholder input and actual performance evidence.
What it informs
Retain and stretch, develop, redeploy or managed exit, with a development plan for every leader retained.
Culture
Will the culture enable the change, or block it?
What we assess
Cultural enablers and blockers across the seven pillars of a positive culture (purpose, perspective, control, connection, growth, coping and wellbeing), read separately for the board, senior leadership and the wider workforce.
What it informs
A cultural baseline and a targeted programme, tracked through behavioural pulsing.
Systemic team coaching
Is this a leadership team, or a team of leaders?
What we assess
The quality of connections within and between the board, ExCo and extended senior leadership team, and with external stakeholders, measured against the five disciplines of high-value-creating teams: commissioning, clarifying, co-creating, connecting and core learning.
What it informs
A team health baseline and agreed coaching priorities, re-measured at six to twelve months.
People function
Can the People Function support the recovery plan?
What we assess
Current against aspirational maturity across 24 people processes in six areas (organisational development, resourcing, engagement, reward, people development and people processes), weighted by how critical each is to the strategy.
What it informs
A priority sequenced investment roadmap for the People Function.
The order matters. We discuss the organisation design first to confirm the business is clear on structure, alignment, and value creating roles. We then match people to those roles, and close the team, function and culture gaps. All five lenses are run and reviewed as one programme, not five projects.
From watch list to a signed-off plan in 30 days
The triage is fastest when it is prepared before it is needed. Each stage has a defined purpose and a defined output.
Before Day 1
Monitor
A structured read on C-suite quality from lender and board-observer interactions and public data. Interim CEO, CFO, CRO and Chair candidates pre-qualified. Psychometrics loaded for Day 1.
Across the hold
Sustain
Coaching and development of individual leaders, systemic team coaching, people-function investment, the culture programme and regular performance reviews through to exit.
Day 1–7
Stabilise
Chair, CEO and CFO continuity decisions. Retention conversations for critical roles. Clear communication to employees, customers, suppliers and other key stakeholders. Reporting cadence agreed with the owner.
Day 7-30
Assess
Full C-suite assessment, an audit of direct reports and critical roles, an initial read on the Board, and the Executive team, function, design and culture diagnostics, all run in parallel.
Day 30
Decide
Keep, develop or replace decisons for every C-suite seat and other critical roles, with succession contingencies and Board refresh where needed.
The output is one Talent Action Plan
Integrated with the revised value creation plan, signed off by the owner before structural people decisions are executed, and carrying named accountabilities for every C-suite and critical-role.
Facing a deteriorating watchlist or immediate operational restructuring situation?
Talk to us before it gets critical. The triage is most effective when the interim bench and the assessment plan are already in place.