About Balazs Rooz
I lead businesses through transitions their owners cannot afford to get wrong. For 25 years I was sent where a business had to change course, often before the need showed in the numbers, and I stayed to carry the change through.
What I do
Through True Bearing I take two kinds of mandate. As interim or portfolio CEO, I take executive responsibility for a defined period, to deliver a carve-out or a value-creation plan under new ownership. As a board member, I bring an operator’s view to the room where strategy and risk are decided.
Most engagements start with a diagnostic: an independent read of where the business is drifting and what correcting it will take.
My background
Bentley Motors, 2020 to 2024. As Regional Director Europe, in effect Regional CEO, I led 34 markets and 70 independent retail partners with full P&L responsibility. The brand had only just returned to profit, and the region went on to deliver its two most profitable years, with market profit up 70% and retailer return on sales tripled, through the pandemic and the exit from Russia.
Jaguar Land Rover, 2011 to 2020. Global sales operations across more than 140 markets as the business grew from around 300,000 to more than 500,000 units, and business owner of the order-to-cash transformation carrying around £22bn of annual revenue. Later Sales Director Europe, where I co-led a financial services re-tender that saved more than €100m, and European lead for Brexit.
Saab and General Motors, 2002 to 2011. General Motors’ lead for the carve-out of Saab’s commercial organisation during its first court-protected reorganisation, then go-to-market and sales operations for the standalone company into the crisis of 2011.
I started my career in finance at Emil Frey, one of Europe’s largest dealer groups.
How I think
Companies rarely break overnight. They drift: the signals show up in planning data and across the network long before they reach the results, while management expects ordinary management to fix them. My Drift Curve Series sets out that pattern for the European automotive industry, and it holds wherever a brand sells through a network it does not own.
What others say
“I would recommend Balazs to any private equity sponsor or board facing a carve-out, a complex separation or a transformation that needs steady leadership.”
Steve Miller, former National Lead Partner, Merger Integration and Separation, KPMG US
“He understands how commercial decisions turn into cash, and he is a partner a CFO can rely on.”
Gianmarco Cicuzza, former Finance Director Europe, Jaguar Land Rover
Based in Munich and Limassol, working across Europe in English and Hungarian, with working German. If you are an investor or chair facing a transition, I would welcome a conversation.
Direction first. Then movement.