People & Crisis
Something has gone wrong with a person, a team, or a founder. It's urgent, sensitive, and you can't put it in a project plan. We walk in, stabilise the situation, and leave an organisation that can speak about it.
Hands-on turnaround, restructuring and post-merger people integration for companies under pressure — across the DACH region, Poland and wider Europe.
What you get
- A confidential 48-hour diagnostic: who's involved, what's factually known, what's assumed, what's legally sensitive.
- A stabilisation plan naming the 3–5 conversations that must happen in the next week — who runs each, what good looks like.
- Executive coaching for the leader at the centre of the crisis — not therapy, not theatre, practical preparation for the conversation they're about to have.
- Communication drafts: internal memo, HR script, stakeholder note, legal/compliance language — in the words the situation actually demands, not corporate fluff.
- Org-design follow-through: if a role has to move, a team has to split, or a leader has to exit, the structure that holds afterwards.
How we work
- Confidential intake within 24 hours. Scoped in writing before we start.
- Calibration partner outside the room for complex situations — a second senior who keeps judgement steady under pressure without being visible to the affected team.
- We work with your employment lawyer, not instead of them. And we'll tell you when you need one.
- We don't write policies during a crisis. We stabilise first, then recommend what to change once the pressure is off.
Ideal for
- CEOs and founders dealing with a senior exit, a team breakdown, or a harassment/conduct matter.
- Boards requiring an independent, senior read on a sensitive people situation.
- Post-merger integrations where culture clashes are starting to show in attrition and complaints.
Typical engagement shape
- Duration
- 2–8 weeks typically (longer if structural changes follow)
- Team
- 1 senior principal in the room; calibration partner briefed on complex cases
- Confidentiality
- Written NDA before the first conversation
- Starts with
- A 48-hour confidential intake. No commitment beyond that point
- Exit
- Stabilised situation + handover brief for the permanent owner
Where we've run this before
Crisis and post-merger stabilisation across Welyo, RTB House (APAC + EMEA and CEE), TikTok (Europe), and Primotly. Adrianna Huber leads these mandates, with background in psychology, change management, and ongoing CBT psychotherapy training. See Adrianna's full CV →
Common questions
What is turnaround management?
Stabilising a business under pressure and getting it back to health: stop the bleeding, fix the few things that matter, and rebuild the operating cadence. Hands-on leadership in the room, not a recovery report.
What happens in a post-merger people integration?
Two cultures, two sets of policies and two structures become one: a harmonised organisation and policies, a performance cadence tied to the merged business plan, and HR in the executive decisions from day one. We ran exactly this at Welyo after the Focus Telecom and Systell merger.
How do you restructure a company without breaking it?
Decide what the business has to look like on the other side, protect continuity while you get there, and handle the people side with straight communication. Restructuring fails when it is run as a spreadsheet exercise.
When should you bring in crisis or turnaround help?
When the issue is bigger than the team's bandwidth and the cost of waiting is real — a leadership shock, a merger that isn't landing, a function in freefall. Early beats heroic.
Interim turnaround vs. advisory — what's the difference?
Advisory tells you what to do; an interim turnaround leader does it — takes the seat, runs the operating rhythm, and owns the result until the business is stable.