Turnaround Management Quotes

I have been reorganizing and restructuring AOL: changing the strategy and rebuilding it from scratch in the worst economy in a generation.

Sometimes in this country, we don't focus a lot on people's experience and their resume. Mitt Romney would be the most experienced executive to be nominated since 1952. The fundamental task for the next president is going to be fixing things, cleaning things up, being a turnaround artist, if you will.

For a hot-shot CEO taking over a troubled company, mass firings are the ultimate quick fix, the accounting equivalent of crack: cheap, easy to score, instantly gratifying, and highly addictive.

I have either run private equity funded companies or been a partner in a private equity fund since 1982. I've had a front row view of the vital role private equity continues to play in building and keeping American businesses competitive in the global economy.

I see myself as a private-equity investor that helps rebuild companies. Restructuring is a cottage industry in that there aren't that many serious practitioners.

When I was at Teradata, I got called a growth guy. And then when I became C.E.O. of the whole company, I got called a cost-cutter. Then, I came to H.P. and became an operations guy.

I have spent my career making a difference with underperforming assets.

The real underlying value comes if you can put a company back into a running state and it becomes a successful viable entity if it continues to repay loans.

The next thing is: we can make IBM even better. We brought IBM back but we're gunning for leadership.

I come from the operations side of the business, and I buy companies to operate them, not to flip them.

Most of the clubs I have had, they have been in a precarious situation when I have taken over and I have had to change it, even going back to Scarborough and all that.

I think what Mr. Trump has is this - he has experiences. He has put more things together in businesses around the United States, around the world. And he's had some things that didn't go exactly right. He's been able to find a way to resurrect those things. He's been able to make some changes.

People have accused me of only working with good companies. No I don't. I work with some very dysfunctional companies or unbelievably dysfunctional organizations. The people that bring me in know what they're doing won't work for the future. They know they want to change and they want to change for the right reasons. They believe what I believe and that's why they called me.

When you're in a turnaround situation, you cannot incrementalize your way out of it.