Corporate Undertaker: Business Lessons from the Dead and Dying is Domenic Aversa’s memoir and survival guide that documents his work as a corporate crisis manager for twenty-five years and offers lessons for business owners. The author rejects the sanitized theories of business schools and describes an inspiring journey that starts with his business ventures as a young, optimistic entrepreneur to becoming a skilled “undertaker,” who arrives when businesses are at their terminal stage. The author maps the lifecycle of business collapse through five stages, describing when the business is doing well, when it starts facing adversity, when it meets with a crisis, and when it becomes terminal, and what it takes to terminate or bring the business back to life.

I enjoyed how Domenic Aversa uses war stories to deliver critical lessons, and the personal anecdotes, including dealing with the Russian mafia threats, blood feuds in the automobile industry, and tussles with predatory bankers and narcissistic CEO’s, were just spot-on. Corporate Undertaker examines the collision between humanity and business, exploring how denial, greed, and moral cowardice accelerate the fall of companies, while personal courage and honesty can be what it takes to navigate business challenges. This book shows how the author saved companies from going under, but what intrigued me the most were the lessons on handling corporate crises. The author skillfully shows why it is absolutely important to separate facts from opinion, to be ruthless in assessing the crisis, to determine areas of the business that need focus and zero in on critical elements, and to determine a timeline for cash flow while cutting those business partners, like lawyers, that do not contribute to the financial health of the business. This wasn’t just another business book for me, but an enjoyable memoir with eye-opening strategies for saving failing businesses.

Domenic Aversa’s Corporate Undertaker is a compelling memoir that can be read as a survival manual for businesses, a book that documents lessons the author learned after spending two decades pulling businesses back from the brink of collapse. In this book, the author tells his story, starting as a broke law school dropout, building a business in post-Soviet Russia, to becoming a crisis manager for businesses in distress across America, and these are businesses in their hundreds. The author structures this book in five stages: life, adversity, crisis, death, and rebirth. There was a lot to enjoy and to underline in this book, and the gritty war stories of corruption in corporate life, boardroom betrayals, and mafia threats are just a few of the highlights of a book designed to help handle business catastrophe.

This book is filled with many lessons for business owners, and I enjoyed Domenic Aversa’s captivating voice. The author advises on brutal self-assessment, which is the ability to separate facts from opinion, to measure everything, and to dismiss the idea that employees are family. This book made me understand what it means to be wary of the “Three Wise Men” (accountants, lawyers, and bankers), who run businesses. For this author, value is brought into a business solely by what customers pay for. Among the many insights, one that stood out for me was that businesses should be able to create 13-week cash flow projections, focus on one element of the business at a time, and when facing death, sell fast rather than prolong the agony. This is a book with life-or-death lessons for businesses. The author shows readers how to survive in times of crisis by showing exactly how he helped businesses. It is unique, informative, and compelling in the wisdom it offers.

Corporate Undertaker by Domenic Aversa follows a restructuring specialist who is brought into companies on the verge of shutdown and must determine, in real time, whether they can be kept alive or must be closed down. Each engagement places him inside a business where cash has run out to the point that payroll, suppliers, and production depend on daily decisions. He enters these situations to take control of operations, secure short-term funding, and confront lenders whose decisions can determine the company’s fate. As he works through these cases, Aversa shows how earlier choices made by the owners and executives shape the crisis he inherits, and how his role becomes a race to stabilize what still functions while preparing for closure if recovery is not possible.

Domenic Aversa’s Corporate Undertaker is a no-holds-barred approach to what happens when a business hits the skids, what should happen, and what to do to prevent it in the first place. Aversa's book is really important because it shows readers that business failure extends beyond financial loss—it alters the daily life of employees and surrounding communities. With this, Aversa addresses current conditions, where diminishing capital and changing demands expose the weaknesses that leaders must address quickly. The writing is direct and grounded, connecting with owners responsible for keeping operations alive under pressure. He also gives ideas that can be implemented by readers immediately, like constructing a thirteen-week cash flow before approaching a lender and preparing structured updates. Overall, this book will benefit experienced professionals responsible for business performance, including owners managing a decline, advisors working with distressed firms, and readers seeking practical knowledge in restructuring a business. Recommended.

Corporate Undertaker is part memoir and part motivational treatise for businesses that are going under and their owners who do not know how to swim. Author Domenic Aversa is the lifeguard, who calls himself a corporate undertaker; however, the industry term is a “turnaround consultant,” who specializes in helping corporations that are dying come back from the brink, or failing that, “make the most of their remains.” Throughout the book, Aversa uses anecdotes from over 25 years as a turnaround consultant to help those in business avoid the pitfalls and pratfalls of corporate thinking, and most of all, to examine similar falls in his own life. The author is a man who lives his work – often at the expense of his family, his marriage, his health, and his own happiness.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Corporate Undertaker, since my knowledge of bad corporate business practices is limited to the 1987 movie, Wall Street. Nevertheless, I love good storytelling, and author Domenic Aversa is a gifted raconteur. From his stories about working in the Soviet Union with their Mafia-style business tactics, to gun-slinging corporate executives attempting murder and suicide, to corrupt executives finding creative ways to skim from the top before profits are recorded, to the simply stupid ones who prove that sometimes the most powerful can be the most clueless of all. Through thick and thin, Aversa remains as level-headed and helpful as the situations warrant and, most surprisingly, expects honesty from his clients, even though that expectation is not always met. If you own or manage a failing corporation and are looking for practical advice from a consultant who has seen it all, or just enjoy good yarns about egocentric executives who put Gordon Gekko to shame, read Corporate Undertaker.