Everywhere else on this site, we work with your team.Here we take the role.
Fractional digital leadership: Chief Digital Officer, digital director and ecommerce director, held part-time, owned fully, and handed over.
Senior digital leadership without a full-time salary or permanent overhead. For startups, scaling businesses and boards who need the judgement in the room rather than a report about it.
This is a different kind of engagement
Everywhere else on this site
We are a do-it-with-you practice. We work four hands with you and your team, we advise, and your people keep ownership of the work and the outcome.
That is our default and it is most of what we do.
This page is the exception
In a fractional role we are not advising from outside. We take the role, we lead, and we own the outcome, operating as a part of your company rather than a supplier to it.
Same people. A different mandate.
Worth saying plainly, because it reads like a contradiction otherwise. Every other page here argues against handing your marketing to an agency. That argument stands. A fractional role is not handing it over: it is putting someone accountable inside your company, on the explicit condition that they build the team that replaces them.
The definition we work to
What a fractional role actually is
A fractional role is a work arrangement where an experienced executive works part-time for several companies, giving each a fraction of their time and the whole of their expertise.
- Senior level. It is a leadership seat, not extra hands. If the work does not need someone who has run this before, you do not need a fractional anything.
- Several companies at once. That is the arrangement, not a compromise in it. Splitting senior expertise across a few organisations is precisely why you can afford it.
- Inside the team, not outside it. Consultants advise. A fractional leader takes ownership and drives execution from within, in your meetings, accountable for the result.
- A fraction of the cost. Executive leadership without a full-time salary or the permanent overhead behind it.
- Openly shared. Everyone we work with knows about and agrees to the shared-time structure. We will tell you what else we hold before you sign anything.
The seats we take
Chief Digital Officer
Digital strategy across ecommerce, search, data and automation, owned at board level. The seat that decides what gets built, in what order, and what gets stopped.
Digital Director
The layer between strategy and delivery. Running the function, setting the standards, managing agencies and freelancers, and being the person accountable when a number moves.
eCommerce Director
The store as a business rather than a project. Catalog, platform, merchandising, conversion and the operational decisions that sit behind all of them.
Board and investor level
Sitting in the room where digital gets discussed and usually misjudged. Translating what is technically true into what is commercially decidable.
What we do not do
We do not offer fractional CMO, and that is deliberate
The Chief Marketing Officer role is broader than what we do. Brand, positioning, communications, PR, events, product marketing, sales alignment. Real disciplines, and not ours.
We lead digital. Ecommerce, search, AI visibility, data, automation and the teams and agencies that deliver them. That is where thirty years of practice actually sits.
It would be easy to take the bigger title and cover the gaps with a freelancer. We would rather tell you what we do not do, so the person who fills the rest of the role is chosen deliberately instead of discovered late.
How an engagement runs
We take the role
Inside the team, in the meetings, accountable for the function. Usually one or two days a week depending on what the role actually requires, agreed before we start rather than discovered later.
Decisions get made, not deferred to the next review.
We build what replaces us
The processes, the standards, the reporting, and where it is needed the people. Hiring, training, and handing over the judgement rather than only the tasks.
This is the part that is easy to postpone, so it is scoped from day one.
We hand over, and stay available
The function belongs to your team. We move to an advisory relationship: you still get the thinking, you no longer pay for the doing.
Most engagements end here rather than stopping.
A defined term, in writing
The commitment we make in public
Every fractional engagement is scoped with a defined term and a handover mandate. Renewable by agreement, and never open-ended by default.
Open-ended fractional work is staff augmentation with a better title. It suits the supplier, because the invoice continues. It rarely suits the company, because the capability never arrives and the dependency quietly becomes permanent.
So the goal is stated at the start: build the function, build the team, hand it over. If we are still holding the role in three years, something went wrong and it will have been our fault as much as yours.
The relationship does not have to end when the engagement does. It usually becomes advisory, which is the point: you keep the judgement and stop paying for the hours.
Who this is for, and who it is not
It fits startups that need senior digital judgement before they can justify a senior salary, boards and investor groups who want someone accountable for digital in the room, scaling businesses whose digital function has outgrown whoever inherited it, and companies mid-replatform or mid-transformation who need one person holding the whole picture.
We will say no when:
- You want a fractional CMO. That role is broader than what we do and we are not the right answer.
- You want cover rather than change. If the job is to keep things running until a permanent hire arrives, an interim contractor is cheaper and better suited.
- Nobody is willing to be handed the function. The handover is the point. Without someone to receive it, the engagement has no end and becomes the dependency we are trying to prevent.
- The decision rights do not come with the seat. Accountability without authority helps nobody, and we would rather find that out in the first conversation.
Where this sits beside the rest
Fractional leadership is the intensive end of what we do, and most engagements do not need it. The advisory and consulting practice is the default, and it is also where fractional engagements go afterwards.
The work itself is the same discipline described across this site: SEO, ecommerce, answer engine optimization, paid search and measurement. If you are not sure which of them is your problem, start with an audit rather than a role.
Questions we get asked
Q. What is a fractional Chief Digital Officer?
An experienced digital executive who works for your company part-time, alongside a small number of other companies, and takes ownership of the digital function while they are there. The distinction that matters is not seniority or hours, it is accountability. A consultant recommends and leaves you to execute. A fractional leader sits inside the team, makes the decisions, and is answerable for the outcome. The arrangement is transparent: everyone involved knows the time is shared.
Q. How is this different from hiring you as a consultant?
Everything else we offer is a do-it-with-you arrangement. We work alongside your team, we advise, and your people own the work. In a fractional role that inverts: we hold the role and the responsibility, and we operate as part of your company rather than a supplier to it. Same people, different mandate, and it is worth being clear about which one you are buying because they fail in different ways.
Q. Do you offer fractional CMO services?
No. The Chief Marketing Officer role covers brand, positioning, communications, PR, events and product marketing, and that is genuinely broader than what we do. We lead digital: ecommerce, search, AI visibility, data, automation and the teams that deliver them. Taking the larger title and covering the gaps with a freelancer would be straightforward and we would rather you chose the rest of the role deliberately.
Q. How much of your time do we get, and who else do you work with?
Usually one or two days a week, agreed at the start based on what the role requires rather than what is convenient to sell. Sharing time across a small number of companies is the arrangement itself, and it is why the cost is a fraction of a full-time hire. We will tell you what else we hold before you commit, and if a conflict exists we will say so and decline.
Q. How long does a fractional engagement last?
It has a defined term and a handover mandate from the outset, renewable by agreement. Typically long enough to build the function and the team that runs it, which is usually measured in quarters rather than months or years. What we will not do is open-ended cover, because that is staff augmentation with a better title: the invoice continues and the capability never arrives.
Q. What happens when it ends?
Usually it converts rather than stops. The function and the people are handed over, and the relationship moves to advisory: you keep access to the thinking and stop paying for the doing. That is the intended outcome, not the consolation prize, and it is the reason we are comfortable putting the end date in writing.
Q. Is this suitable for a startup?
Often, yes, and it is one of the two situations where it fits best. A startup usually needs senior digital judgement long before it can justify a senior digital salary, and the cost of getting the early architecture decisions wrong is far higher than the cost of the advice. The other situation is a board or investor group that needs someone accountable for digital in the room rather than a report about it.
Q. Who actually does the work?
Depends on the role and we are explicit about it. The leadership, the decisions and the accountability are ours and are not delegated. Delivery may be your team, your existing agencies, our freelance network, or some combination, and part of the job is deciding which. What we will not do is take a leadership seat and quietly subcontract the judgement.
Q. What if we already have an agency?
That is common and usually fine. A large part of this role is managing agencies well: setting the brief, judging the work, and knowing when a recommendation serves you or serves them. We are not there to replace your suppliers. Occasionally the honest finding is that one of them should be replaced, and it is easier to say that from inside the company than from another agency.
Q. How do we know it is working?
We agree what the role is accountable for before it starts, and it is usually a small number of things rather than a dashboard. Because we are inside the team you will also see it in a less measurable way: decisions get made rather than deferred, the same question stops coming back every quarter, and your team starts answering things that used to escalate. If that is not happening by the first review, the arrangement is wrong and we will say so.
Start with a conversation
Thirty minutes on what the role would actually be accountable for, and whether it needs a fractional leader or something lighter. We will tell you if it is the latter.