James Ashton: A Churchillian strategy needed at Serco

Incoming chief executives often exaggerate how bad the situation that greets them is so their eventual turnaround looks all the more miraculous.

Rupert Soames hasn’t had to try so hard at Serco, which has gone from an outsourcer with poor internal controls to a financial horror show in short order.

Was the company really in such bad shape when boss Chris Hyman exited six months ago? No wonder the finance director, one of the chaps meant to be holding the fort, walked the plank last night. The question now is whether newly arrived Soames, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, has the luxury of nine months to come up with a compelling strategy to get Serco back on the rails.

He might find succour in some pearls of wisdom from his grandfather. “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm” certainly applies here, as does “The price of greatness is responsibility”. More importantly: “If you are going through hell, keep going.”