Claire Burden

Claire Burden – IFT Fellow

Chair of The IFT

Areas of expertise: Corporate turnaround, business support and strategy advisory, working capital and cash flow support, balance sheet improvement and cost reduction.

Experience: Claire built upon Big Four restructuring and advisory experience with ten years in industry, successfully leading turnaround programmes and supporting working capital constrained businesses. With a breadth of Board level and corporate finance experience and a proven track record for operational and strategic delivery, Claire works intelligently and creatively to drive both short term performance improvement and real change over the medium to long-term. 

This industry experience provides Claire with commercial acumen and a deep understanding of the challenges businesses face, and importantly, how to alleviate them. Claire has worked across business sizes and sectors with specialisms in energy, renewables, professional services, manufacturing and technology.

Notable client work and achievements:

- Raised over £230m debt finance across asset-based lending, term loans, project finance and CLBILS.

- Led multiple projects where all bank debt has been repaid, either through successful working capital improvements or refinancing.

- As interim CFO of a manufacturing business, delivered a restructuring programme that took the business from £4m losses per annum to break even.

- Managed a finance function through 60% customer growth (two large acquisitions) to become a billion-pound turnover business. Led the finance integration programme, including change management, process alignment, leading the renegotiation and novation of key supply contracts and restructuring of the purchased operations.

- Rescued a manufacturing business by selling it to its main customer, vertically integrating the supply chain and providing certainty for stakeholders.

- Sold a portfolio of renewable assets for £74m at a multi-million profit, bringing the client’s credit score from 0 to 52/100.