The milestone slipped. The cash did not stretch.
A technical company that misses a result, loses a contract or sees a funder pull back needs an operator who has been here before. Cash, customers and morale all need a decision in weeks.
What distress tends to look like here
Expect several pressures at once:
Funding depends on a result
The next tranche is tied to a milestone that has moved, and nobody agrees how long the cash lasts.
A contract or customer has gone
A programme ended or a prime changed course, and the cost base was built for revenue that is no longer coming.
Funders and lenders want a plan
Investors, banks and partners each ask for a credible path, and the last one did not hold.
Too close to the science
No criticism. It is the reason an outside operator can do what the founders cannot.
We match operators who have led a business back from a position like this. The operator steps into the chair, takes control of cash, redraws the plan and handles the difficult talks with funders, customers and staff that founders cannot manage alone. It is agreed between two companies and closes without fuss once the business is steady.
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
How we run a recovery
We find the operator, scope the work around the next milestone and the funders' patience, and stay close.
Tighter check-ins
When cash is tight we meet more often, so a gap between plan and reality is named the same week.
Recovery experience
The collective includes operators who have rebuilt a plan after a missed milestone or a lost contract.
Handled through process
We keep the recovery plan and the brief current, and if the executive steps away, we run the search and the handover.
Steady under pressure
Funders, customers and staff all read the person in charge. We match for composure.
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 San Diego provides operational and executive leadership support. Where a situation requires insolvency, legal, restructuring or regulated financial advice, we work alongside the appropriate specialist advisers.
