Accidental Careers and Hard Calls: Inside the Human Side of Turnarounds
Most people don’t plan to work in corporate crisis. They end up there when something breaks—and stay because they can make a difference.
In episode 5 of Reviving Giants, host Drew McManigle sits down with Becky Roof, a veteran turnaround executive and former interim CFO in some of the most complex restructurings in the country, to talk about how careers in this field begin—and what it actually takes to lead when the stakes are real.
The conversation moves from accidental career paths to the emotional weight of restructuring work, where balance sheets matter—but people matter more.
“Most people don't choose a career in restructuring,” Drew says. “It finds them when something breaks.”
An Accidental Entry into Crisis
Like many in the field, Becky didn’t set out to become a turnaround professional.
“I thought I would use my accounting and geology degrees… and I would just go up the corporate ranks of a company and hopefully become a CFO or even a CEO,” she explains.
That plan changed quickly when the company she was working for was forced into an involuntary bankruptcy during the downturn of the late1980s.
“A lot of us remember what the late ’80s looked like. It was pretty grim.”
Instead of stepping away, she stayed—and stepped into the work.
“I was the only corporate officer that stayed around to really work through the bankruptcy, explain what was happening, [and] appear as the corporate representative,” Becky recalls.
That moment didn’t just shape her career—it defined it.
“Find yourself in the work you do,” Becky says, recalling some early career advice. “And when you find something that is so intellectually stimulating, it's so gratifying when you help someone out of a mess. It just draws you in.”
When the Numbers Aren’t the Hard Part
From the outside, restructuring can look like a technical exercise—capital structures, liquidity, debt negotiations.
Inside the room, it’s something else entirely.
“Kodak was a mess,” Becky says of one of the most high-profile cases she helped lead. “We really didn't know how we were going to be able to finance our way out of bankruptcy.”
“There were days we thought we would have to go into liquidation,” she adds, “and lose all this fantastic technology… the iconic brand that Kodak still is.”
Those moments aren’t abstract—they carry real consequences for employees, communities, and entire industries.
And that’s where the work becomes personal.
The Part People Forget: Jobs
For all the complexity of restructuring, the goal isn’t just to fix a balance sheet—it’s to preserve what can be saved.
“I love it when we're able to save jobs,” Drew says. “Maybe not all of them, but most of them—or at least allow people to have a better exit than they might have had.”
That perspective is what keeps many turnaround professionals in the field.
But it also defines the emotional boundary of the work.
“I've always told myself… the day that it didn't hurt to tell someone their job was being eliminated was the day I was leaving the business,” Becky says.
It’s a simple line—and a clear standard.
If the human cost stops mattering, something is wrong.
Leading Without a Clear Path
Turnarounds rarely come with clean playbooks. In many cases, leaders are operating without a clear endgame, under intense time pressure, and with limited liquidity.
The instinct is often to project certainty—but Becky argues the opposite.
“It’s okay to say, ‘I don’t know—but as soon as I do, I’ll tell you,’” she says.
What matters more than having every answer is maintaining trust—through transparency, consistency, and constant communication.
That includes understanding the business beyond the numbers.
“I like to walk the halls of a company and talk to people,” Becky says.
Because the real insights, she says —the ones that shape outcomes—often don’t come from reports or models. They come from the people closest to the work.
Takeaways For Leaders
· Crisis leadership is as much human as it is financial.
· Transparency builds trust when certainty isn’t possible.
· Creativity matters—but empathy matters more.
· If the human cost stops affecting you, it’s time to step away.
Listen to the Full Episode
Reviving Giants is presented by MACCO Group and hosted by Drew McManigle, a veteran turnaround professional who brings decades of in-the-trenches restructuring experience to each conversation.
To catch the full conversation with Becky Roof, listen to the episode on the Reviving Giants podcast page (and wherever you get your podcasts).
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TL;DR
Drew McManigle has a candid conversation with turnaround veteran Becky Roof on the human side of turnarounds—how professionals are drawn into the field, what it takes to lead through uncertainty, and why the hardest decisions are often about people, not numbers.
