Fractional CTO
Missed deadlines, stalled delivery, a tech team that is not performing.
I work with founders and boards as a fractional CTO and technology non-executive director: auditing where technology, team, spend and risk stand today, setting a plan the board can verify, holding in-house and outsourced teams to what they promised, and coaching technical leads so the capability stays in the business.
I solve business challenges by improving your approach to technology. From steering projects to advising stakeholders to helping secure investment, the work is tailored to your needs and business goals.
People usually come to me with one of these
The roadmap and the delivery reality no longer match
What the board was shown last quarter and what is actually shippable have drifted apart, and nobody inside the team wants to be the one to say so.
An outsourced team nobody is holding to account
Invoices arrive, progress is described rather than demonstrated, and there is no independent read on whether the code you are paying for is any good.
A decision that is expensive to unwind
Rebuild against refactor, build against buy, a platform choice or a supplier commitment. It needs someone with no incentive in the answer.
Diligence or an enterprise deal is coming
A security questionnaire, an investor technical review or an acquirer. You need to know what will be found before somebody else finds it.
Cost is climbing and no one can explain it
Cloud, licences, contractors and tooling, growing faster than revenue, with no single person accountable for the line.
The board cannot see technology clearly
Reporting is either too technical to act on or too vague to trust, so risk only surfaces when it has already become a problem.
If one of those is the reason you are reading this, the useful next step is a conversation rather than a proposal. You can also run the technology decision risk check and get the read on the page in five minutes.
What you actually get
Business audits
Where your technology, team, spend and risk actually stand today. I look at the architecture, the delivery process, the suppliers and the cost base, then write it up in language a board can act on rather than a technical report nobody reads.
Strategy development
A technology plan that follows from the business plan. Sequence, cost and trade-offs named, so you know what you are committing to before you commit, and so your team knows what they are building towards.
Coaching and mentoring
For CTOs, COOs and their teams. Also for founders who want to hold their own in a technical conversation, whether that is with a development team, an acquirer or an investor.
Project delivery
Steering delivery when a programme needs it. That includes holding outsourced development teams to what they promised, and giving you a clear read on progress that is not filtered through the people doing the work.
Support alongside your existing CTO
Case study: technology as the competitive lever in financial services
The arrangement is also described as a part-time CTO or a virtual CTO. The label matters less than the mandate: what the person decides, what they only recommend, and what the board is told. Part-time CTO covers how the arrangement is sized and what it costs, How to hire a fractional CTO sets out the questions to ask before you appoint one, and What a fractional CTO costs covers the published rate benchmarks.
AI in the operating model
AI governance and assurance
Once AI is doing real work rather than answering the odd question, the hard part is not the model. It is deciding what it may do without approval, which source it should treat as authoritative, how it behaves when the evidence is thin, and what keeps one client or project out of the reasoning applied to another. I work through those decisions with you and put the controls outside the model, where they hold.
If you already have a CTO
Working alongside your CTO, not over the top of them
A good chunk of my work is not replacing anybody. It is taking weight off a CTO who is already doing the job well and has more on than one person can reasonably carry. It is temporary, it runs to their agenda, and it stops when the pressure does.
A project or programme
Your CTO cannot pause the rest of the estate to run one large piece of work. I own that piece, report into them, and hand it back finished.
A restructure or scale-up
Reshaping a team, changing how delivery works, or bringing an outsourced function in-house. Extra senior capacity while the change is live, not a permanent second chair.
A sounding board
Somewhere to test a decision before it reaches the board or the investors. Architecture, build against buy, supplier choice, hiring. Said plainly, in confidence.
“Aside from his knowledge of big data and the technologies and methodologies that surround it, Tim has been a great sounding board for myself and my business partner with what we are building at Ruler Analytics and Epic New Media.”
How I work
CTO-level judgement, without a full-time CTO
I take on a small number of clients at a time so that each one gets a level of personalisation larger consultancies cannot match. Access my expertise as often as you need.
- 01
A conversation
You describe where you are and what is worrying you. I tell you plainly whether I am the right person, and what I would look at first.
- 02
Agree the right starting point
Sometimes that is an audit and written report. Sometimes it is a board session, support alongside the CTO, a review of one decision or immediate involvement in a programme. I set out the smallest useful engagement first.
- 03
Ongoing involvement
Board attendance, supplier management, hiring, architecture calls, or steering a specific programme. Whatever the business actually needs.
- 04
Handing over
When you are ready to bring the role in-house, I help you hire well and step back.
Not sure which of these you need?
That is usually the right time to talk. Tell me what is happening and I will tell you where I would start.