Hypothetical case: Company promotes person to mgmt position in business development, she does well, gets kudos, resolves several problems, gets new customers in and is working hard to keep the old customers happy.
On the other side of the company, there are 7 engineers and of those, 4 are managers. These managers fight over the remaining engineers' time, so the work suffers. The work is done late, inaccurately, and occasionally not at all. Customers leave. Prices stay the same, other competitors do the same work - but correctly - for less.

Since customers are leaving, the owner of the company blames the Bus Dev mgr.

There is also a consultant, friend of the owner, working part time in Bus Dev but not under the Bus Dev Mgr, rather answering directly to the owner. Owner learns that consultant has been laid off her other job and is now entirely reliant on his company, so he decides to make HER the Bus Dev Mgr, demoting the previous Bus Dev Mgr (who has done nothing wrong, and who has done an excellent job) to a position under the consultant (now a FT employee). He insists that this is not a demotion, and cannot see why the original Bus Dev mgr is upset. He will not reconsider.

Thoughts? Recommendations? My recommendation is that this person update their resume immediately and seek employment and appreciation elsewhere.