Why the First 90 Days Matter
This 90-day CEO plan is designed for private equity-backed and founder-led industrial and distribution businesses where operational execution is the primary value creation lever.
Most businesses don’t have a strategy problem. They have a control problem. Pricing discipline breaks down. Working capital accumulates. Execution cadence drifts. The business underperforms not because the direction was wrong but because no one enforced the disciplines that make the direction work.
Performance doesn’t drift. It leaks — through uncontrolled discounting, working capital that accumulates unchecked, and a management cadence that loses its edge. By the time it is visible, the compounding has already started.
The objective in the first 90 days is simple — restore control, stop cash leakage and establish a performance baseline the board can rely on. Left unaddressed, margin erosion, trapped cash and misallocated capital compound every quarter. Most businesses that fail to recover don’t fail because the problems were too large. They fail because the problems were not addressed early enough.
Diagnose Before You Act
The instinct is to act. The discipline is to understand first — fast.
I move through the commercial and financial engine of the business quickly. Pricing realisation versus list. Gross margin by customer and product line. Working capital against benchmarks. Forecast integrity. Management capability and alignment.
By day 30, there is a quantified view of where cash and EBITDA are being lost. Not assumptions. Numbers. That view determines everything that follows. Without it, the decisions in days 31–60 are made on instinct — and instinct is how businesses end up in a performance recovery in the first place.
The Value Creation Diagnostics quantify pricing leakage, working capital position and growth capacity — producing the numbers that drive the board conversation in days 31–60.
This is where the business either turns or continues to drift.
Control, Board Alignment and the Number
This is where the business either turns or continues to drift. The diagnostic is done. Now decisions are made and accountability is set.
Pricing leakage is measured against actual realisations — not estimated. Working capital benchmarks are applied to the balance sheet. Underperforming segments are addressed: restructured where there is a path, exited where there is not. Capital does not sit in areas that cannot return it.
Pricing governance is implemented: approval thresholds set, discount authorities defined, price realisation tracked against list weekly with no exceptions. Debtor collection is tightened. Slow inventory is identified and moved. Supplier terms are renegotiated on DPO. The operating rhythm is installed — weekly cadence, short-cycle reporting, no ambiguity on what the numbers mean or who owns them.
This is where the board conversation happens. True performance is put on the table against the assumptions brought into the business. There is no ambiguity and no debate — the numbers are what they are. Gaps are owned. The value creation plan is set lever by lever, a named owner on each, a single defensible number at the centre. There is no remaining ambiguity. The board leaves with clarity, not questions.
If this alignment does not happen by day 60, the business will not perform in the back half of the year. The plan will exist but not be executed. That is the consequence of a missed inflection point.
By day 60 there is one number — a clear, agreed EBITDA improvement figure with board alignment. The Pricing Leakage Calculator and Working Capital Release Calculator are the basis for that number.
Governance, Execution and Control
Execution. Not planning, not review — the changes are made and embedded so they hold after the mandate ends.
Pricing: Every discount requires approval above threshold. Price realisation is reported weekly against list. Exceptions are escalated, not ignored. The gap between list and net closes.
Inventory: Slow-moving stock is identified, aged and actioned. Ordering disciplines are set against actual demand, not forecast habit. Inventory days reduce. Cash is released.
Credit and debtors: Terms are enforced. Collection cadence is weekly. Overdue accounts are escalated on a defined schedule. DSO comes down — not gradually, decisively.
Small leaks compound into material erosion. A 2% discount that goes untracked becomes structural. An inventory line that is not actioned sits on the balance sheet for quarters. A debtor that is not followed becomes a write-off. These are not edge cases — they are the normal condition of a business without control mechanisms in place.
The operating cadence is locked — weekly leadership rhythm, monthly board pack, named owners on every KPI. This is control, not reporting. Reporting describes what happened. Control determines what happens next. The board has line-of-sight to performance at every level — if a number is off, the owner is named and the response is immediate. Growth capital is committed only where unit economics justify it. The branch-level economics run before capital is deployed, not after.
The early warning signs of drift are visible now. The cadence catches them before they compound. Pricing holds faster EBITDA improvement than any other lever — and the governance from days 31–60 means it holds.
EBITDA improvement, cash release and growth capacity are aggregated into a single enterprise value view using the Value Creation Calculator — the board-ready number that closes the plan.
The Business Is Under Control
At 90 days the business is not the same business it was at day one. Performance is predictable. Ownership of outcomes is clear. The board is not managing by assumption — it is managing by fact. That is what control looks like.
The business is under control, with predictable performance and clear ownership of outcomes. These are not projections. They are identified, quantified and owned opportunities — built from the diagnostic work in the first 30 days and executed through the following 60.
These are not projections. They are identified, quantified and owned — built from the diagnostic in the first 30 days and executed through the following 60. At this point, strategy is not a separate exercise. It is the output of operational truth — knowing exactly where the business performs, and allocating capital accordingly.
This is value that already exists in the business. It was just not being realised.
What This Delivers
A business with pricing discipline holds margin. A business with working capital control has cash. A business with a locked operating cadence has predictable performance.
Those are not aspirations. They are the direct outputs of the work described above — measurable within 90 days in most industrial and distribution businesses.
- EBITDA improvement of 2–5% of revenue — identified, owned and in execution
- Cash release from working capital of 2–4% of revenue — reducing debt, improving funding capacity
- Pricing discipline embedded — margin held, not surrendered deal by deal
- Operating cadence locked — performance visible, owned and sustained
- Board aligned on a plan with a number — not managing by assumption
The Value Creation Calculator puts these into a single enterprise value view. That number is the board deliverable. It is built from the diagnostic, validated through execution, and owned by the business.
How I Operate
This is how I operate when I step into a business. Not how I advise. Not how I recommend. How I operate. This is the standard I work to.
The focus is consistent — identify where EBITDA is being lost, stop cash leakage, and install the disciplines that restore performance and hold it.
Pricing, working capital and execution cadence are not separate initiatives. They are the core drivers of performance and are managed together. The tools on this site are used to quantify, prioritise and execute — not to analyse from a distance.
“Most businesses don’t lack opportunity. They lack control. When control is established, value creation becomes repeatable and controlled.”