This year’s Certified Turnaround Professional of the Year is Ray Anderson of Huron.  Ray is a Managing Director in Huron’s Business Advisory practice and has been with the firm since 2010.

Ray provides transformational leadership to clients facing challenges due to growth or financial distress. He has more than 20 years of experience in the areas of M&A, operational improvement, turnaround, refinancing, loan workout, and restructuring. In financial advisory and senior management roles, he has led more than 40 M&A transactions (including distressed and non-distressed entities), multiple private placements and bank financings, and a successful public offering. Ray has served as the President of six companies, as well as in various board member and advisory roles at both public and private entities across a diverse group of industries.  

From 2014 through 2015, Mr. Anderson led the restructuring of Allen Systems Group (“ASG” or the “Company”), a global provider of enterprise IT and business software solutions, through the implementation of a phased turnaround plan aimed at reducing approximately $56 million of annual operating expenses. The turnaround plan involved a right-sizing of functional/product teams to revenues, an elimination of non-core expenses, and a modified cultural emphasis on both organization-wide and product-level profitability.

Simultaneously, ASG negotiated an efficient and expedient pre-packaged Chapter 11 restructuring, involving a settlement agreement with the Company’s sole shareholder and the support of ASG’s pre-petition debtholders, to significantly reduce its debt and annual interest obligations. 

After the turnaround and balance sheet restructuring, the Company built a world class management team, retained 1,000 employees worldwide and increased its employee and customer retention rates. The turnaround and restructuring resulted in over 100 percent improvement in actual and pro-forma EBITDA from 2014 to 2015 with commensurate increases in liquidity and operating cash flow. Entering 2017, the rebranded ASG Technologies is an industry leader and well positioned for growth.

Ray and his team were honored at the 2016 TMA Global Annual event as their work on the Allen Systems Group restructuring was awarded the Mid-Size Company Turnaround of the Year for 2016.

Mr. Anderson has been a member of the Turnaround Management Association since 2002 and has been actively involved at both the board and committee levels. Additionally, Ray earned his CTP certification in 2006.