Fractional Leadership
A senior technology voice in the room, without the executive hire.
Somewhere between "the founder decides" and "we hired a CTO" there is a long, expensive gap. Fractional leadership closes it: a few days a month of genuinely senior judgement on architecture, spend, suppliers, security and hiring, accountable, and cancellable.
Recognise any of this
Signals this is your problem.
- 01
Technology decisions keep landing on a founder or finance lead whose job it is not.
- 02
You cannot yet justify a six-figure executive salary, but the decisions are already six-figure decisions.
- 03
Your dev team or outsourced supplier has no technical counterparty holding them to account.
- 04
Nobody can tell you what you spend on software in total, or what you would stop paying for tomorrow.
- 05
An investor, acquirer or major client has started asking questions about your technology governance.
- 06
You need to hire engineers and have no reliable way to assess them.
The work
What the engagement actually involves.
Technology strategy and roadmap
A twelve-month plan tied to commercial objectives: what gets built, bought, replaced or retired, in what order, at what cost. Reviewed and re-cut quarterly rather than written once and filed.
Architecture and delivery oversight
Design review before you commit, and honest assessment of what is already built: where the fragility is, what will not survive the next 3x of volume, and which technical debt is worth paying down versus living with.
Vendor, spend and contract control
A full inventory of software and services spend, renewal dates and lock-in. We sit on your side of the table for renewals and new contracts, commercial terms, exit rights, data portability, and service levels that mean something.
Security and risk ownership
At CISO level: owning the risk register, reporting to the board, and being the accountable name on your security position for client and insurer questionnaires.
Team, hiring and structure
Role definition, technical interviewing, and an honest view of whether you need employees, contractors or an agency at this stage. We will also tell you when the right answer is to hire a permanent CTO, and help you recruit them and hand over.
Board and investor reporting
Technology reporting a board can act on: the two or three things that matter this quarter, the risks being carried deliberately, and what the money bought.
Deliverables
What you are left holding.
Documents you own, in formats you can hand to a board, an insurer, an auditor or your next hire, not slides that expire when the engagement does.
- 01Twelve-month technology roadmap, re-cut quarterly against commercial priorities
- 02Consolidated software and services spend register with renewal dates and lock-in noted
- 03Architecture review with fragility and scaling constraints identified
- 04Board-level technology and risk report each cycle
- 05Supplier and contract review ahead of renewal or signature
- 06Hiring plan, role specifications and technical interview support
Straight answers
Questions we get asked.
How much time does a fractional engagement involve?
Most sit between two and six days a month, set to a fixed monthly retainer so your cost is predictable. Engagements often start heavier during the first quarter (the assessment and the initial plan take more hours) and settle once the roadmap is running.
Do you take over from our existing developers or agency?
No. We work with them. Most delivery teams do better work when there is a technical counterparty setting priorities, reviewing designs and holding the commercial line, a good supplier usually welcomes it.
What happens when we outgrow this?
That is the intended ending. When the role justifies a permanent hire we write the specification, help you interview, and hand over a documented estate rather than leaving with everything in our heads.
Which title do we need, CTO, CIO or CISO?
The distinction matters less than the problem. Broadly: CTO if you build a product, CIO if your issue is internal systems and spend, CISO if it is security and assurance. We will tell you which one your situation actually calls for on the first call, at no cost.
