You can't turn a distressed business around by pulling a lever. In this episode I sit down with Steve Benger, who has spent over twenty years turning around and restructuring businesses under pressure, as an adviser, an investor, and from the chair and the non-executive seat. We talk about how he learned the craft across Europe, why the management team rather than the numbers carries the change, what private sector leaders get wrong in public sector turnarounds, and what it really takes to do this work, including the failures.

Key Moments

00:00 - Learning turnaround across Europe: a pan-European restructuring and the lesson that never left him

04:30 - Taking people with you: why the management team, not the trade unions, carries the change

12:00 - The lever that doesn't work: what private sector leaders miss when they move into the NHS

19:00 - What makes change actually stick, and the hidden heroes who sustain it after you leave

30:00 - "High-risk surgery": the administration that stayed with him, and why nobody has a perfect record

38:00 - Three ways a founder business changes hands: retirement, carve-out or distress, and what each really needs

Connect with Steve Benger

Accelerus: https://www.accelerus.net

Steve Benger on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevebenger

Connect with Us

Website: kingsgate.uk.com

Email: podcast@kingsgate.uk.com

Newsletter: thevalueagenda.beehiiv.com

LinkedIn: Kingsgate

LinkedIn: Steve Swayne

The Value Agenda is Kingsgate's podcast on turnaround, restructuring and value creation.

The financial picture is never the whole picture. In this episode, Oliver Colling sits down with Susan Moor, who leads the transitions practice at FRP Transitions and has spent 15 years placing turnaround professionals into distressed businesses. They talk about how the profession has changed, why the best interventions start with operations not finance, when a team beats a single operator, and what it really takes to do this work at the highest level.

Key Moments

00:00 — How FRP Transitions was built and why it works differently from traditional interim providers

04:00 — How the turnaround profession has changed: from ego and command to empathy and gravitas

11:00 — Situational expertise versus sector knowledge: why asking the basic questions unlocks the real answers

17:00 — When to use a single operator and when to build a team: the CFO, the CRO and the five million pound stock problem

24:00 — What makes a good turnaround professional and why you cannot teach it in a classroom

Connect with Susan Moor
FRP Transitions: frpadvisory.com
LinkedIn: Susan Moor


Connect with Us
Website: kingsgate.uk.com
Email: podcast@kingsgate.uk.com
Newsletter: thevalueagenda.beehiiv.com
LinkedIn : Kingsgate
LinkedIn: Oliver Colling

The Value Agenda is Kingsgate's podcast on turnaround, restructuring and value creation.

Premier League clubs have until the end of the 2025-26 season to phase out gambling shirt sponsors. From summer 2026 they are banned entirely. Some clubs have been generating £20 to £25 million a year from those deals. The replacement market is a buyer's market and every sponsor knows it.

The clubs that treat this as a commercial opportunity rather than a revenue loss will come out ahead. The ones that wait until summer will be negotiating from desperation.

David Paton, Founder and CEO of Kinross Sport, has been inside this problem. He took Blackpool FC from £35,000 to £200,000 in shirt sponsorship in six weeks with no gambling. He turned around Spartan Race UK from a £750,000 annual loss. He ran Peterborough United through an FA Cup run that generated £1 million in additional revenue in a fortnight.

This episode shows you what the opportunity looks like and how to move on it before the window closes.

What this unlocks for you

• A framework for replacing gambling sponsorship with partnerships worth more commercially and reputationally
• Why the commercial opportunity inside a financial crisis in sport is almost always bigger than the problem itself
• The sequence that creates a real turnaround in sport and why most organisations get the order wrong
• How to move fast under pressure without making decisions you regret

About the Guest

David Paton is Founder and CEO of Kinross Sport, a specialist sports advisory business focused on strategic investment, operational excellence and turnaround at C-suite level across football, rugby and events businesses.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpaton1/

Website: kinrosssport.co.uk

Connect with Kingsgate

Website: kingsgate.uk.com

Email: podcast@kingsgate.uk.com

Newsletter: thevalueagenda.beehiiv.com

LinkedIn: Kingsgate | Oliver Colling

YouTube: The Value Agenda

The Value Agenda is Kingsgate's podcast on turnaround, restructuring and value creation.