Hishem AzzouzHost Of Recruitment Mentors Podcast

Surviving a Financial Crisis

Name: Surviving a Financial Crisis
Uploaded: 2025-02-22T11:00:48+00:00
Duration: 51 s
Channel: Hishem Azzouz
Description: In this first‑person narrative, the speaker describes a severe liquidity crisis at their company where approximately £8 million in expected payments…

22 Feb 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:51

In this first‑person narrative, the speaker describes a severe liquidity crisis at their company where approximately £8 million in expected payments never materialised. The situation escalated to a tense boardroom meeting with about 40 senior staff watching the speaker struggle to explain missing wages. Simultaneously, thousands of contractors demanded their pay, threatening to jump to rival agencies if not compensated within a week. The speaker recounts a delayed rescue payment from NatWest that finally arrived late at night, after which the stress precipitated a heart attack. The account highlights the cascading operational, reputational, and personal health consequences of a cash‑flow emergency.

Chapters

We had like £8 million of this money that we were owed, but we just couldn't get any of it over the line and paid to us. It was a nightmare. I think at its worst, I was sat in a boardroom and I've got my whole, I've got like 40 heads about, there were about 40 heads at the time. Everyone's looking at me like, why is my wages not in at 9 o'clock? I'm like, just thinking, how do I get out? Yeah, how do I, how do I get out of this boardroom? Like, I've got every head just looking at me. They can tell something's up because I'm normally like absolutely fine and I'm still trying to mask it. But I think it got to the point where even it was getting to me. We've got millions of contractors calling in, where's our pay? As well. And in our industry as well, if you don't pay them like one week, you have 200 contractors switch to another agency that will pay them. They'd keep bailing me out at like half 5 at the end of a Friday. I think they were like NatWest. In the end they paid me out like, again, it was like, I think it was 6 o'clock at night or something, which was a nightmare to have. Like basically had a heart attack that day.