The Charity was looking for additional funding from their Bankers following some significant changes to their business model. DHA’s Bank was keen that David was introduced to fully understand and then to explain these fairly complicated changes to the Bank before the Bank would consider the Charity’s funding proposition. They also wanted David to consider the implications of the changes for DHA’s three year forecasts and to assess fully the potential financial upsides and downsides of the changes in the strategic direction being undertaken. The Charity required this funding at short notice which meant that David’s work had to be completed extremely quickly.

At the outset, David communicated to the Board of Trustees how he would undertake the scope, how long the project would last, what information he would require and what co-operation he would need from management. David stuck to this blue-print throughout the exercise and kept us all well-informed as to the progress of the project.

David was very personable and also very appreciative of the Charity’s tight time-frame. He therefore worked extremely quickly and to an originally agreed timetable to produce a concise report that portrayed the Charity’s position. The project was completed in a simplified (but not simplistic) way and which therefore allowed DHA’s Bankers to make a rapid decision to provide the additional financial support that has been crucial to the successful delivery of DHA’s expansion plans.

Due to an approaching break in the onerous lease of our flagship store, adverse trading conditions, and reduced banking facilities leading to severe cash flow pressures, my Board decided to market or close the Company. David was introduced to the Company via Lloyds Banking Group in March 2012 to advise whether the sale of the two key component parts of the operation could be effected sufficiently quickly to raise enough cash to alleviate increasing pressure on bank facilities.

At our first meeting with him, David suggested (in addition to his initial role to provide greater clarity for the Bank) that he should immediately assume all Finance Director’s responsibilities on an Interim basis and we therefore immediately released our existing interim finance resource to allow this to occur.

David very quickly made the Board realise how inadequate the provision of financial information had previously been as he set about introducing accurate weekly short term cash flow forecasting routines and reducing unnecessary cash outflows. This gave the Directors the confidence to inject a substantial loan enabling the Company to wind down in an orderly and dignified manner

David has overseen the sale of the business’ entire schoolwear operation in two tranches (which meant that the Bank was repaid in full) and also ensured that cash generation has been maximised through both transactions. He has also played a crucial role in contributing to the planning and implementation of our successful closing down sale for the menswear operation as well as shutting our Intersport operation.

In summary, David’s expertise has been vital in ensuring that The Famous has closed down in a successful and orderly fashion, avoiding any risk of an administration process. He has seen that all creditors and investors were repaid in full. In the process he retained the goodwill of suppliers and staff. My only regret in hiring David is that I was not made aware of him much earlier!

Following the reopening of the Donington Circuit in 2010 and the subsequent successful turnaround of the overall motor racing operation, the Board of Directors was keen to gain external reassurance that the Company’s strategic direction remained sound and was reflected appropriately within the current forecasts. Additionally, an external review of both the Company’s management information systems and current management structure was deemed by us to be an extremely useful exercise to undergo.

We decided to hire David to tackle these areas not because of his enthusiasm for motor sport (which he admitted at the outset was extremely limited) but because we were confident that his knowledge of the hospitality and leisure sector plus his ability to relate well to all the members of the management team would quickly and successfully deliver what we required. Happily this confidence did not prove to be misplaced.

David produced a succinct report within agreed timescales which raised a number of pertinent issues whilst also giving us overall comfort that the current strategy being adopted is a sound one. David always engaged well with a very diverse management team but nevertheless was prepared to robustly defend the more contentious elements of his report where necessary.

Our business is long-established and successful with its senior managers generally having spent many years at Food Service Centre. However, the Board felt that the business would benefit from an external review of our overall operation to ensure that we were not ignoring any aspects which could make us even more efficient.

We interviewed a number of Independent Interim Managers on this basis and chose David because we felt that he not only had the financial skills to understand a complex business like ours, but that additionally he had a deep understanding of our sector (and particularly the issues around supplying into large UK food retailers). We also felt that David would have the inter-personal skills to relate well to our management team and therefore ensure that all key issues were frankly aired, discussed and resolved.

David worked in the business for about three months and I am pleased that in this time he fully justified the Board’s decision to bring him in. At the end of this time, David produced a highly detailed, extensive but readable report which first and foremost gave clarity to the Group’s external stakeholders both over the complex nature of the business but also the strategic direction in which it is now heading. Additionally, David was able to use his commercial, strategic and financial skills to advise the Board on enhancing key customer relationships, improving MI and KPI reporting and more effectively reallocating resource within our Finance function.

The whole exercise has demonstrated the benefits of a “fresh pair of eyes” (as long as those eyes have the necessary skills, expertise and experience!) and I would have no hesitation in using David again within our business should the need arise.

As a management team we were experiencing great difficulty in explaining adequately to our Bank what our strategic vision for the Home was, how that translated into a readily understandable forecast for the ensuing 12 months and what this forecast would therefore mean in terms of the Bank’s overall lending position.

At our initial meeting with him, David convinced us that he really understood what the Bank would want to see from us in respect of relevant management information and this (together with his previous knowledge of the care home sector) convinced us to hire him.

David worked closely with management to help produce and then refine a forecast for the next 12 months which was not only financially robust but was produced in a format that made it straightforward for us to present the resultant output to the Bank.

David worked quickly on this exercise and supported us throughout, right up to attending the final presentation to the Bank which all contributed to an extremely favourable outcome for the Home.

Management was keen to use an external independent interim manager to review all the elements of our business strategy for reasonableness and completeness and to challenge us over the deliverability of each aspect of it. Additionally, we wanted our management structure reviewed to ensure that it was appropriate to deliver the agreed strategy

In our view it was crucial that the interim manager that we hired could demonstrate to us an in- depth expertise of the retailing, wholesaling and hospitality and leisure sectors but (as importantly) could engage positively with every member of our senior management team to effectively and efficiently deliver the scope of work that we presented him with

David proved quickly that he really understood our business from the outset and therefore no time was wasted by us bringing him “up to speed”. He designed his programme of work independently from the board and this largely involved meeting with the key managers and undertaking site visits covering many of our stores and also our hotel

David quickly produced a highly readable and informative report for the board which highlighted the key strategic and commercial issues facing each element of the business, the extent to which he felt that we were addressing those issues and a series of related milestones to allow us to measure progress against achieving various related goals

In summary, David produced a quality piece of work for us which challenged our strategic thinking and gave the business the real benefit of an external view from a genuine sector expert. Moreover, David performed his site work extremely professionally but also courteously and diplomatically as the need arose. On this basis, we would have no hesitation in using David’s services in the future if necessary or recommending him for future relevant assignments elsewhere

We retained David to produce a report for the Board covering a review of the Company’s strategy and future trading forecasts

Given David’s extensive Retail background, we felt that he was an appropriate person to be able to produce a credible independent review of our strategy and provide comfort that it was complete and sensible from a wider market perspective

David was given only a limited amount of time to produce a report for us but he was able to achieve the required deadlines by quickly understanding the brief and our business and therefore not wasting time looking at irrelevant and/or unimportant areas. David worked with all the Board during the course of his work and impressed us with his inter-personal skills and his ability to deliver the scope of work without unnecessarily disrupting the day to day course of our business in the process

Whilst David’s report largely confirmed our view of the business, the Board found it extremely useful to have the strategy summarised from an independent perspective. Additionally, David did raise some challenges to us which we were happy to consider and take on board. I believe that David added real value for us and I would be happy both the recommend him and to use his services again as and when required

I retained David to work with Paperchase on the basis that I had successfully worked with him in his previous capacity as Head of Retail at Grant Thornton

I asked David to work with us on a number of discrete financial and commercial projects where I felt that we needed an independent review of our position performed by someone with David’s experience and, particularly, his understanding of the UK Retail sector

David specifically performed a review of the contractual and financial elements of a number of our major IT contracts as well as benchmarking our current external audit fee cost against similar retailers

David performed each project extremely professionally and to an excellent standard with a minimum of input from my extremely busy team! However, David always knew when to contact the right member of my team to obtain input and feedback whilst preparing output. This ensured that each project was completed as quickly as possible and with 100% buy in and support in advance from the relevant audience. In each case, the content, style and conclusions in David’s reports were exactly what I was looking for

In addition to his professional competence, David is extremely personable and a strong communicator and worked well with every one of my team members that he had dealings with. Therefore I would recommend David without hesitation