Fractional CXO

Some decisions need an experienced executive and cannot wait for a hire. Choosing a core platform. Sequencing a regulated launch. Deciding what to build and what to buy. Rebuilding an operating model that stopped scaling two years ago. Those calls set constraints that last for years, and getting them wrong is expensive in a way that later effort cannot undo.

A full-time CIO, CTO or COO is the usual answer. But not every institution needs one full-time, and a search at that level takes months you may not have.

We take the seat on a fractional basis: the same judgement and the same accountability, at a cadence that fits the stage you are at.

Fractional CTO

Technology strategy, and the architecture that follows from it.

• Platform architecture: the boundaries between your system of record and everything built around it
• Build versus buy: deciding honestly which pieces are differentiating and which are not
• Core and vendor selection: running the evaluation and the diligence behind it
• Engineering practice: delivery cadence, environments, release strategy, code quality
• Security and resilience: designed in from the start, because retrofitting it means rebuilding
• Technical due diligence: whether you are raising, acquiring, or being acquired

This is the role we took on a regulated mortgage platform, through the build of a borrower mobile app and the management platform behind it.

Fractional CIO

The internal estate, meaning the systems your own people depend on every day.

• IT operating model: what stays in house, what is outsourced, and the service levels for both
• Data governance: ownership, lineage, quality and retention
• Vendor and third-party risk: contracts, concentration, and what happens when a supplier fails
• Cybersecurity programme: the controls, and the evidence an examiner will ask to see
• Technology spend: where it goes, what it buys, and what to stop paying for
• Audit and regulatory readiness across the estate, before someone asks rather than after

Fractional COO

How work actually moves through the business.

• Operating model design: who does what, in what sequence, and where the handoffs are
• Capacity and throughput: separating a hiring problem from a process problem, which are usually confused
• Process redesign in origination, underwriting, servicing, collections, claims and reconciliation
• Service delivery: managing outsourced and offshore teams so quality is measured rather than assumed
• Management reporting that shows the position rather than describing it
• Org design and the hiring plan that follows from it

When this makes sense

• Launching a regulated product for the first time
• Replacing or modernising a core platform
• After a funding round, when the plan has outgrown the team
• When a technology or operations leader departs and the seat cannot sit empty
• After an audit or examination finding that needs a credible owner
• When the board, an investor or a capacity provider wants someone accountable who can answer for the technology

How the engagement works

Accountable, not advisory. We own outcomes and decisions, not a deck of recommendations handed over at the end.

A defined commitment. An agreed number of days per month, with the scope, the decision rights and the escalation path written down before we start.

Working with your team, not around it. Your engineers and operators keep their jobs and their judgement. The role is to set direction, unblock, and carry the decisions that need seniority.

Written down. Architecture decisions, vendor evaluations and operating model changes get recorded with the reasoning intact, so the thinking survives the engagement.

An exit that is planned, not abrupt. Most of these engagements should end. We define the permanent role, help you hire into it, and hand over properly. If the right answer is that you do not need the role at all, we will say so.

Why this is different in regulated finance

The hard part is rarely the technology decision on its own. It is sequencing that decision against what a regulator will accept. Move too fast and controls get retrofitted into a platform built for speed, which usually means rebuilding it. Move too slowly and the product never reaches the market.

Someone has to hold both, and be able to explain the decision months later to an examiner, an auditor or a capacity provider who was not in the room. That is the seat we take.