Week three’s receipts rebuild showed we had been booking hope as collections. Embarrassing, and then useful. The mandate vote in week two was still too polite; we rewrote it after the lender clinic.
Flagship course
Board-Led Restructure Studio
A live eight-week studio for Australian directors and finance leads who already know the tightness is real. You practise Business Consulting for Business Restructuring as a sequence of documents the board can vote, not as a slogan.
What you walk out holding
- A one-page board mandate with a freeze list and named speakers.
- A thirteen-week cash calendar with an owner for every material outflow.
- A creditor pack: facts, ask, and the sentence you will not say on a call.
- A ninety-day owner map so the work does not dissolve after graduation.
Modules
- Week 1 — The waterline. Payroll, tax, and rent as the only numbers that may interrupt the rest of the conversation.
- Week 2 — Scope and freeze. Draft the mandate. Practise the board minute that actually constrains behaviour.
- Week 3 — Receipts without optimism. Rebuild collections from customer behaviour, not from last year’s budget.
- Week 4 — Creditor compact. Letters, call order, and the difference between a standstill and silence.
- Week 5 — Operating cuts that do not hide. Sites, SKUs, and roles: what to pause before anyone reprints stationery.
- Week 6 — Staff and supplier voice. One underlying story, three audiences, no identical scripts.
- Week 7 — The lender room. Covenant language, headroom, and how to sit with disagreement.
- Week 8 — Ninety-day hold. Handover, owners, and a written limitation of what this studio cannot do.
A real limitation
This studio does not replace insolvency practitioners, lawyers, or your auditor. If the company is already insolvent under Australian law, we stop teaching the solvent path and refer you to licensed advisers. We also will not coach around concealment of material facts to any creditor class.
Questions we hear before week one
Can the CFO attend without the chair?
Yes, but the mandate draft will stall. We recommend one director with voting power in the room by week two, even if they only stay for the freeze exercise.
Do you work with listed companies?
We teach private and unlisted groups most often. Listed issuers may join for cash and mandate craft; we do not write market announcements.
What if our numbers are messier than the sample files?
That is the usual case. Bring the mess. The first clinic is designed around incomplete ledgers, not textbook packs.
From recent cohorts
★★★★★
The freeze list saved a pointless warehouse move. I wanted a neater story for staff; Mara kept sending us back to payroll timing.