A referral program for turnaround consultants and chief restructuring officers

Why turnaround consultants and CROs are well placed to refer

Turnaround consultants and chief restructuring officers see a distressed company's systems, contracts and asset list in the first weeks of an engagement, which is exactly when licensable records are most at risk. Through the SourceX referral program, you introduce the company; SourceX runs qualification, inventory, pricing, buyer review and delivery.

Consider what the first month of an engagement already involves: building the 13-week cash flow, cutting discretionary spend, mapping lenders and critical vendors, and listing assets the go-forward plan does not need. Software subscriptions are often among the first costs cut. When a legacy help desk, an old CRM or a departed team's email licenses are cancelled without an export, years of operating history disappear with them.

Those histories are what AI developers increasingly need. Teams building AI agents look for records of real multi-step work: how tickets were resolved, how exceptions were approved, why deals were won or lost. That material lives inside companies, not on the public web. A license of it is one more potential source of value in a turnaround, and it needs no new capital and no change to the operating plan.

Which distressed companies in your book fit

Size, history and rights matter more than industry. A company that has already shrunk can still qualify, because headcount is measured at its peak.

Status is not a barrier on its own: a company that is still operating, has been acquired, or has wound down can qualify if the data still exists. The who qualifies page sets out the full baseline.

The PARK screen: four questions before you raise it

Run these four checks during the diagnostic. If one is a clear no, note it and move on.

• Peak headcount: did the company reach 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded)?
• Archives intact: can someone still export email, chat, CRM, ticketing and finance history, and is any of it on this month's cancellation list?
• Rights clean: did the company generate the records itself, and has anyone checked customer contracts, privacy notices and lender documents for restrictions?
• Key signer: who can authorize a license today, and would that person consider an exclusive AI-training license for an agreed term?

The company fit checker gives a preliminary, non-binding read on the same questions without asking for contact details.

When to raise it during a turnaround engagement

Raise it when systems or assets are already on the table, so it reads as part of the plan rather than a distraction.

The path matters because it changes who signs. In an assignment for the benefit of creditors, for example, the company transfers its assets to an assignee who holds them in trust, sells them and distributes the proceeds to creditors; receiverships and compositions are other non-bankruptcy routes (The Law of Commercial Transactions, open textbook). State law controls the details. The comparison of ABC vs chapter 7 walks through what each path means for records, and assignees have their own referral partnership for ABC assignees.

How the introduction works once the company agrees

Your role ends at the introduction. You never export, upload or describe confidential records.

1. Register as a partner, then send the CEO or board your referral link, which takes the company to sourcex.si/apply with your code attached, or submit the company through the referral form.
2. SourceX checks headcount, history, data breadth and rights with the company's authorized sponsor.
3. The company's own team completes a data inventory listing each system, the years it covers and whether it can be exported.
4. SourceX and the company agree one all-in price and the license terms; nothing binds the company until it signs.
5. AI labs and data buyers review the opportunity, and once a company is deal-ready they typically respond within about two weeks.
6. After the agreement is executed, the data is prepared under the redaction and de-identification rules agreed with the company before work began, then delivered, and the company is paid.
7. Your reward is paid after SourceX receives its fee from the deal.

For the finance side of the same engagement, the interim CFO turnaround checklist covers which records and systems to secure first.

What to say to the board or the lender group

Keep it short, factual and free of numbers you cannot support.

For lenders, one line is usually enough: the records stay on the asset list as a possible source of value, with no amount and no timing assumed until a license is signed.

How rewards work, and what to clear first

Partners earn 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects from the referred company's licensing deals, capped at $100,000 per referred company, and the reward becomes payable only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee. An introduction, a meeting or a signed license on its own does not trigger payment, and no reward is guaranteed. The reward comes out of SourceX's fee, so it never reduces what the company or its creditors receive.

Credit goes to the first valid referrer whose introduction leads to a verified company application within the attribution window. The program terms govern the details.

Clear three things before you register a client company:

• Your engagement letter and firm policy. As a consultant or officer of the company, you may owe it disclosure, or need board consent, before accepting compensation connected to it. Agree the treatment in writing.
• Court or proceeding disclosure. If you are, or may become, a professional retained in a bankruptcy case or a state-law proceeding, ask counsel how a referral relationship must be disclosed, and do it before the introduction.
• Public recommendations. If you recommend SourceX in a webinar, article or post while you can earn a referral share, FTC staff guidance says a material connection the audience would not expect should be disclosed clearly and close to the recommendation (FTC Endorsement Guides FAQ).

This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm with your own counsel, tax adviser or professional body before acting.

When not to raise it

Leave it off the agenda, or park it, when:

• The engagement is a cash emergency measured in days. A license takes time, and payment typically arrives within about 60 days of invoicing once a buyer selects the data, so it cannot bridge payroll.
• The records mainly belong to the company's clients, as at outsourcers and agencies, and those clients have not consented.
• The value is mostly consumer personal data or protected health information without a licensing basis.
• Archives have already been deleted, or nobody left at the company can run an export.
• A court, trustee or assignee controls the assets and has not been brought in.
• The same data has already been licensed for AI training.

Consultants whose work is mainly operational improvement rather than distress can compare notes with the page for management consultants.

Next step

Put the four PARK questions into your next diagnostic. If a client company passes, register as a partner and make the introduction, or have the CEO apply directly at sourcex.si/apply using your referral link.