Before You Touch the Spreadsheet: Ashley Dafel on What Actually Decides a PE-Backed Turnaround
Ashley Dafel has been the person PE firms call when a portfolio company is in trouble — sometimes before they fully understand how much trouble. As a CFO-turned-CEO across multiple PE-backed organizations, he’s refinanced failing companies, fired half a customer base, shut down manufacturing facilities, and taken EBITDA up tenfold. None of it started with the numbers. It started with the questions he asked before he ever accepted the role.
