Crisis Management and Growth: Why Your Business Needs External Directors

Whether a company is expanding internationally, improving corporate governance, or managing a complex litigation, appointing a specialist director to the board can help you navigate the right path.

Every business undertakes the balancing act of continuous planning, whether managing an international expansion, restructuring debt, or navigating a legal dispute. Often, the company’s management team is so involved in the day-to-day operations that it’s easy to fall afoul of local regulations or mismanage the legal and public relations elements of a crisis.

That is where the appointment of a specialist interim director can help. In these instances, professional advisers should be considered to serve as qualified company directors and officers, freeing the management team up to do what they do best, while helping to resolve problems quickly and correctly.

There are many reasons why a company might need this service. Let’s say you run a successful multi-national enterprise and want to establish a separate financing vehicle, or you’ve expanded operations in a new jurisdiction. As you grow your business, you may find yourself in need of a professional independent director to enhance your management team, fill critical skill gaps apparent in the board, and help with the administrative tasks associated with establishing and running a now-larger business from abroad.

Crisis Management Strategies

Our directors and officers have many years’ experience in assisting companies and are supported by a team of back-office professionals that includes chartered accountants, certified fraud examiners, lawyers, chartered secretaries and human resources experts.

Together, we can manage all aspects of corporate governance in a consistent and transparent manner. Simply put, outside expertise enhances the ability of the board to oversee resources and operations while ensuring their strategy, decisions, and actions are compliant and aligned with the interests of the company and its shareholders.

Appointing an external director to the board can also be particularly beneficial if your company is going through a crisis. These crises can take many forms and can happen unexpectedly, potentially putting your company at risk. For example, if a suspected fraud has been committed by another member of the board, the directors could easily find themselves divided and overwhelmed.

In a case such as this, the appointment of a conflict director, supported by a professional services firm specialising in forensic accounting, corporate advisory, restructuring, turnaround and liquidation appointments, would be able to manage the ongoing requirements of the board and the internal and external aspects of the fraud.

Get Help at an Early Stage

In our experience, obtaining expertise early leads to prompt problem detection. In many instances, the benefit of qualified advisors is often only sought once the company has found itself in a difficult situation: once directors have already run afoul of regulations, once a fraud has already been perpetrated, or once growth and expansion have already overtaken the capabilities of the incumbent directors.

With our experience in restructuring distressed entities and handling complex litigation, we can step in to help companies experiencing crises – either by dealing with the issue directly or providing additional support to free up management bandwidth. Afterall, there’s still a company to run alongside dealing with whatever the crisis happens to be.

At Perun Consultants, we have decades of global and local experience in helping steer companies of all sizes through crises and periods of growth. Please contact us to find out more about how a Perun Consultants-appointed director could help your company.