The diagnosis is done. Someone has to act on it.
The owners usually know what is wrong. What they lack is a senior operator with the authority to act, and the time to find one has already gone.
What a company in trouble is facing
The pressures tend to land at once:
Cash runs out before the plan does
The forecast looks months ahead while the bank looks at this week.
The bank is losing patience
Lenders ask for reporting the company cannot yet produce, and trust drops with each late number.
Costs cannot be cut quickly
Redundancies in Spain are paid for, so a cost plan has to be sequenced and negotiated, not announced.
Owners disagree about what to do
Family shareholders or founders pulling in different directions while the clock runs.
An experienced operator joins for a fixed period with a clear mandate and a short list of fixes. They steady the cash, rework the reporting the bank asks for and agree the plan with the owners. Once the company is on firm ground, they hand over to the permanent team.
Who this is for, and who it is not
Best for
- A cash crisis that needs visibility and control now
- A business in operational or financial distress
- Lender or investor pressure that needs a credible plan
- A leadership vacuum that has stalled key decisions
- Stabilising the business before planning recovery
Not for
- A business that only needs advice or a written report
- A situation whose primary need is a formal insolvency practitioner
- A stable business planning improvements at its own pace
- A one-off review with no mandate to act
When the clock is running
In a turnaround the person matters more than the paperwork, so we match for authority and calm.
Close to the engagement
We keep close to the engagement while the pressure is on, and adjust the mandate with the owners when it changes.
Peers for a crisis
When cash, banks and staff all need answers in the same week, the executive can call peers who have faced each.
Recovery without a reset
Should the executive have to leave mid-recovery, we hold the plan and the brief and organise the successor ourselves.
Calm with lenders
Lenders, staff and owners all need to hear the same plan. We match for someone they will each believe.
The turnaround engagement
Each engagement moves from crisis to recovery with structured urgency.
Rapid assessment (week 1)
Financial position, operational status, commercial pipeline and team capability, mapped with a structured diagnostic framework.
Priority triage (week 2)
The 3–5 interventions that will have the most impact on stabilisation are identified and begun. Ruthless prioritisation.
Stabilisation (weeks 3–8)
Cash flow is visible and managed. Acute operational failures resolved. Lenders or investors briefed with a credible recovery narrative.
Recovery (month 2 onwards)
Processes rebuilt. Commercial momentum recovered. Financial infrastructure strengthened. Business guided from crisis to sustainable operation.
Turnaround triage
The leadership a situation calls for depends on where the business is breaking.
The roles a turnaround usually calls for.
For a complex turnaround, we can deploy more than one operator at once and layer in further specialists as recovery progresses.
Restructuring experience from
The questions buyers ask first
Fractional Madrid provides operational and executive leadership support. Where a situation requires insolvency, legal, restructuring or regulated financial advice, we work alongside the appropriate specialist advisers.
