Case Studies
Interim financial and turnaround managers offer easily transferable skills across a wide range of business needs. These examples illustrate how AshtonPenney interim executives bring specialist expertise to deliver results and facilitate significant change. Each assignment plays to the interim’s strengths and previous experience – minimising risk and leaving lasting value.
Instantly available expertise at or near board level
AshtonPenney has instant access to the details of the thousands of interim financial managers through our industry leading database systems. Our team can shortlist finance directors and senior level financial managers, tax and treasury specialists, compliance and international accounting standards experts as well as turnaround and restructuring executives. In addition to the interim executives known for many years to individual AshtonPenney consultants, we can quickly search ‘outside the norm’ for expertise by skills, sector, language capability or international location.
Turnaround management projects, at the behest of stakeholders, advisors and management teams
We have introduced interim Chief Executives, Finance Directors, Senior Financial Managers and executives from other specialist disciplines to a wide variety of businesses in distress or in the course of recovery and renewal. These include teams across several operational locations as well as bi-lingual and bi-cultural interim executives in subsidiaries and divisions in Western and Eastern Europe.
Preparing a business for sale or IPO
An IPO is a classic use of an interim financial executive – drawing together all the advisers, managing complex and technically demanding processes, timetables and budgets as well as keeping the management team focused and on track. We provide interim executives to re-engineer financial systems, install improved financial controls and to take responsibility for cost reduction exercises as an essential constituent of asset disposals.
Distance management – executives implanted to effect change in divisions in Europe and further afield
It can be extremely difficult to effect and/or manage change in overseas subsidiaries, particularly when there are significant language, legal and cultural barriers impeding progress. Many of our interim executives have substantial experience of managing finance functions and/or turnaround projects on behalf of but at some distance from the “home team”.
Acting CFO’s and other senior financial managers to provide cover during a permanent search or in other periods of transition
Finding top quality permanent executives is a time consuming and potentially risky and expensive business. An interim executive is usually over qualified in order to ‘hit the ground running’ from Day One and leaves as soon as the handover is complete without severance payments but having added value throughout the business.
Sector specific project management and other senior executive roles on an interim basis
In many cases we are called in by clients specifically to resource interim senior executives on the basis of their deep experience at CFO level within a particular sector. This provides management teams and stakeholders with the critical ‘edge’ to see a project or transaction through to completion.