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Fona

Service

Fractional CTO

A CTO on part-time dedication, sitting in your leadership meetings. Making the technical decisions that shape the business and answering for them to management, not to a ticket queue.

Let's talkSee case studies
Abstract illustration of a compass with a partial arc and lines reaching different areas
How the fractional model works and how it differs from a salaried CTO

The problem

Expensive decisions made without technical judgement

Technology is already a significant line in the budget, but nobody at the leadership table can translate between what a vendor promises and what it will cost to maintain for three years.

Signs this is you

  • Vendor quotes nobody is equipped to evaluate
  • A trusted developer who has become a single point of failure
  • No one can say what switching vendors would cost
  • Build-or-buy decisions made on instinct
  • Technical hires that go wrong because nobody knew what to ask
  • Technical debt mentioned in every meeting and never quantified

What we do

What we do

Strategy and roadmap

We translate business objectives into a technical plan with phases, cost and risk. With explicit build, buy or drop decisions, each argued in writing.

Vendor management

We review proposals, negotiate scope, define acceptance criteria and audit deliveries. On your side of the table, speaking the other side’s language.

Architecture and technical review

Architecture decisions, code and infrastructure review, and a technical debt inventory with estimated cost, so it can be prioritised like any other investment.

Team and hiring

Role definition, technical assessments, interviews and onboarding support. Plus the engineering practice that lets the team run without you.

3+ years
operating as a fractional CTO
2-6 d/mo
dedication depending on company size
MBA
business judgement, not only technical

How we do it

How we do it

  1. Assessment

    Three or four weeks to understand the business, the systems, the team and the vendors. We finish with a situation report and the three or four moves with the highest return.

    DeliverableSituation report and priorities

  2. Plan and budget

    A twelve-month roadmap with phases, estimated cost and decision criteria. Concrete enough to take to a board.

    DeliverableRoadmap and technical budget

  3. Guided execution

    Fixed monthly dedication: leadership meetings, vendor oversight, architecture decisions and unblocking the team. With a direct channel for anything urgent.

    DeliverableMonthly cadence

  4. Orderly handover

    The goal is that at some point you no longer need us. When it is time to bring in an in-house CTO, we shape the role, take part in the search and run the handover.

    DeliverableDocumented handover

Technologies

  • Systems architecture
  • Technical roadmap
  • Cost-benefit analysis
  • Vendor management
  • Technical hiring
  • Agile / Scrum
  • Technical debt audit

FAQ

What people ask us

What exactly is a fractional CTO?

A technical director who works for your company on a part-time but stable basis: a few days a month, continuously, with real responsibility for technical decisions. Not a one-off consultancy that delivers a report and leaves, and not a developer executing tasks.

What size of company does this suit?

Companies that already depend on software but do not have the volume to justify a full-time CTO: typically between 10 and 150 people, or startups with a product in market and a small engineering team.

How is it billed?

A fixed monthly fee tied to an agreed number of days. No expiring hour banks and no per-incident billing — that would incentivise exactly the opposite of what we want.

Do you replace the in-house team?

No. We lead and reinforce it. If more execution capacity is needed we bring it from our network of specialists, but the goal is always that your team ends up stronger, not more dependent.

Next step

Half an hour well spent

Walk us through the problem on a short call. You leave with a first read on how we'd approach it and what it would involve — no commitment, no sales deck.

Let's talkHow we work