Industrial technology & engineered manufacturing group | approx. €130m revenue | four sites | Interim CRO mandate
An industrial technology group entered severe transformation and restructuring pressure after market conditions shifted faster than the organisation could adapt.
Revenue was still present. Customers remained active. Multiple transformation initiatives were already running. Yet EBITDA continued to weaken, liquidity tightened and execution slowed across the organisation.
The issue was not lack of effort.
The issue was that the business economics, cost structure and operating logic no longer matched the new market reality.
Material inflation had not been fully passed through. Product variants and customer-specific configurations diluted margin quality. Several engineered projects absorbed cash through rework, delayed change orders and unstable milestone execution. Staffing, overhead and leadership structures still reflected a previous growth environment. Investment commitments continued although assumptions behind demand and profitability had materially changed.
The organisation was highly active — but not economically aligned.
I stepped in to turn the situation from broad transformation activity into a focused restructuring and EBITDA recovery mandate.
The first step was to rebuild the economic truth of the business: profitability by product family, customer contribution, project cash curves, structural cost exposure, operational productivity, investment commitments and working-capital intensity.
This made the real pressure visible:
where EBITDA was still created,
where margin was leaking,
where complexity no longer earned its place,
and which investments and organisational structures no longer matched the protected core business.
The restructuring agenda was then narrowed to the few moves with direct economic impact:
— reset pricing and material pass-through discipline
— reduce low-value product and project complexity
— recover delayed commercial claims and change orders
— resize staffing and overhead to the protected core business
— re-sequence investments against payback and cash impact
— tighten project governance, execution ownership and escalation discipline
— stabilise delivery performance while reducing structural drag
Execution was driven through short decision cycles, weekly performance cadence, direct accountability and aligned stakeholder communication across owners, lenders, management and operations.
Result:
The organisation moved from initiative volume to a focused restructuring path with measurable economic consequence.
EBITDA improvement became visible and steerable through concrete levers: pricing recovery, project margin stabilisation, structural cost reduction, product and customer mix optimisation, staffing alignment and investment discipline.
A mid-single-digit million EBITDA run-rate improvement was achieved while protecting critical customer delivery and operational continuity.
Management regained one shared economic view of the business. Owners and financing partners received a credible stabilisation path with visible traction.
