Fractional technology lead
Senior technology leadership, without a senior technology salary.
Some organizations need someone who can set direction, evaluate vendors, and answer the board's technology questions — but can't justify a full-time hire. That's this. About half a day to a few days a week, ongoing, with the strategy and the hands-on work coming from the same person.
You need the judgment more than you need the headcount.
- Your board asks technology questions and nobody in the room can answer them with confidence.
- Vendor decisions get made by whoever is most persuasive in the meeting.
- There's no roadmap, so technology spending is reactive and always urgent.
- Someone capable but non-technical has absorbed the technology work on top of their real job.
- You've been quoted for a full-time IT director and the number doesn't fit.
- Every proposal you receive sounds reasonable and you have no way to tell which one is.
What a fractional lead actually does.
Strategy
- A technology roadmap tied to your actual goals and budget cycle
- Annual planning and budget input
- Board-level reporting in plain language
Decisions
- Vendor evaluation and selection
- Contract and renewal review
- Build-versus-buy calls, including the "neither" answer
- RFP scoping and proposal review
Risk
- Security posture and data handling
- Accessibility obligations
- AI policy and acceptable use
- Continuity planning — what happens when someone leaves
And the building
Unlike most fractional arrangements, I do the work too. If the roadmap says the donor form needs rebuilding, I rebuild it. You're not paying for advice you then have to hire someone else to execute.
How it's structured.
Typically about half a day to a few days a week, ongoing, with a standing check-in and a shared priority list. Some weeks are strategic and some weeks are heads-down building — that mix is the point.
Engagements usually run six months or longer, because the first two months are mostly learning your organization and that investment only pays off with time.
Rates are simple, and they get better the longer we work together. I'd rather have five clients for five years than fifty for five months.
I've already been someone's entire technology department.
Not as a theory. At a startup, I ran the website, the app, the servers, the deployments, and everything that broke at eleven at night. There was no team to escalate to. When the company folded, they asked me to stay and turn it off — and then the business pivoted and that became running the whole stack permanently.
Before that: Department of Defense, business intelligence and data security at Charter Spectrum, and consulting for fintech and large corporate clients. Before all of it, eight years teaching public school, which is where I learned to explain a technical decision to people who have no reason to care about the technical part.
Breadth is the requirement for this role. You need someone who can hold strategy, security, vendors, and the actual build in one head, because there's nobody to hand the other parts to.
Questions I get
How is this different from an IT managed services provider?
An MSP keeps your laptops and network running. This is direction and building — what to buy, what to build, what to stop paying for, and then doing it. Some organizations need both.
What if we outgrow you?
Then I helped you get there and I'll help you hire your first full-time technology person. Everything's documented and in your accounts, so there's no handover crisis. That's a good outcome, not a threat.
Can you start smaller?
Yes. A paid roadmap engagement is a good first step — a few weeks, a clear deliverable, and an honest look at each other before either of us commits to a year.
Do you sign an NDA / carry insurance / take a W-9?
Yes to all of it.
Where this usually shows up.
Same offer, different doors. If one of these is your world, start there.
Find out what this would look like for you.
A half-hour call, no pitch. Tell me where you are and what's coming, and I'll tell you honestly how much of me you'd actually need.