Technology Leadership Across London & The Midlands
Fractional CTO Services
How I Serve as Your Fractional CTO
As your Fractional CTO, I provide strategic technology leadership tailored to your business's unique needs and growth stage. Drawing from extensive experience guiding scale-ups and Series A-C companies, I integrate seamlessly with your executive team to drive technological innovation and business growth.
My role typically encompasses
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Developing comprehensive tech roadmaps aligned with your business objectives
Making critical build-vs-buy decisions
Ensuring scalable architecture choices
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Mentoring your existing technical team
Establishing engineering best practices
Building high-performing development cultures
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Preparing technology due diligence for funding rounds
Scaling systems and processes for rapid growth
Managing technical debt while maintaining momentum
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Implementing robust cybersecurity frameworks
Ensuring regulatory compliance
Managing vendor relationships and tech partnerships
When to Bring in a Fractional CTO
Making the decision to engage a Fractional CTO is a crucial step for ambitious businesses across London, Birmingham, and the wider Midlands. Here's when my services can provide the most value:
During Rapid Growth Phases
During periods of rapid growth, particularly when your scale-up is preparing for Series A, B, or C funding rounds, having experienced technology leadership becomes critical. Many businesses find themselves at a point where technical complexity is increasing, but they're not quite ready for the commitment of a full-time CTO. This is where my fractional services offer the perfect balance, providing the expertise needed to scale your development team and processes effectively.
To Address Specific Challenges
Technical challenges often arise that require experienced leadership to navigate successfully. Whether you're preparing for technical due diligence, modernising legacy systems, planning a cloud migration, or restructuring your development team, having an experienced technology leader can make the difference between success and costly mistakes. I bring the expertise needed to guide these critical initiatives while maintaining business momentum.
For Strategic Technology Planning
Strategic technology planning is another crucial area where my experience adds significant value. I work closely with leadership teams to create comprehensive technology roadmaps that align with business objectives, evaluate and select the right technology platforms, establish robust development standards, and make informed build-vs-buy decisions that support long-term success.
As Interim Technology Leadership
Many organisations also benefit from interim technology leadership during transitional periods. Whether you're actively searching for a permanent CTO, managing critical technical projects, or need temporary executive-level expertise while building internal technical leadership capabilities, I provide the stability and guidance needed to maintain progress and achieve key objectives.
My Approach to Technology Leadership
My philosophy to technology leadership is people-first, recognising that success in building and scaling technology organisations starts with having the right people in place. While technical excellence matters, I firmly believe that business outcomes should drive technical decisions. This pragmatic approach helps organisations manage technical debt strategically rather than treating it as an absolute evil – it only becomes a priority when it directly impacts customer experience or business performance.
What sets my approach apart is my diverse background spanning Music, Graphic Design, Digital Marketing, and UX/UI, complementing my software engineering expertise. This unique combination allows me to bring a creative, cross-functional perspective to technology challenges, helping bridge the gap between technical capabilities and business objectives. I've developed proven methodologies for improving delivery reliability and estimation accuracy, with one recent engagement achieving an increase from 50% to over 85% delivery reliability within six months, even across a challenging 13.5-hour timezone spread.
When engaging with a new organisation, I begin with a comprehensive system analysis that goes beyond just technology. I invest time in understanding the people, their roles, and how they interact. By mapping relationship networks and communication flows, I can identify both formal and informal value streams throughout the organisation. This holistic view encompasses everything from team dynamics to software architecture, allowing me to pinpoint opportunities for improvement and areas of friction that might be holding the business back.
My engagements are structured around achieving specific business outcomes rather than simply billing for time. Working directly with CEOs, founders, or existing technical leadership, I establish clear success metrics tailored to each organisation's needs – whether that's improving EBITDA by a specific percentage, increasing delivery reliability, or achieving other strategic objectives. This outcome-focused approach, combined with regular weekly touchpoints, ensures that technology investments directly contribute to business growth and success.
Scale-up Success Stories
Throughout London and the Midlands, I've helped numerous technology companies overcome critical challenges and achieve significant growth. Here are some representative examples of how my fractional CTO services have delivered measurable impact:
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Distributed Team Transformation I transformed a globally distributed development team spanning a 13.5-hour timezone difference from struggling with delivery to achieving consistent success. By implementing my proprietary software delivery forecasting framework, the team's delivery reliability soared from below 50% to over 85% within just six months. This improvement directly impacted customer satisfaction and revenue growth.
Scope: Value Stream Delivery
Focus areas: Work predictability and reliability.
Industry: LegalTech
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Cost Optimisation in LegalTech. For a growing LegalTech company handling petabytes of annual data processing, I implemented strategic cost optimisation initiatives that delivered substantial bottom-line improvements. By developing and implementing comprehensive data retention policies and renegotiating vendor contracts, I unlocked over $1 million in savings within the first year. This initiative continued to yield results, reaching $1.5 million in annualised savings. The project demonstrated how strategic technology leadership can directly impact EBITDA without compromising service quality or growth potential.
Scope: Petabyte-scale data processing
Focus areas: Vendor management and data retention
Industry: LegalTech
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Through a strategic modernisation initiative, I revolutionised a fantasy sport gaming company's development capabilities by migrating its legacy architecture to AWS Serverless and rebuilding its deployment pipelines. This transformation achieved remarkable results: a 60% increase in feature development speed and a 50% reduction in build times. Overall, a near-2x improvement in delivery speed.
Scope: Value Stream Delivery
Focus areas: Architecture and DevOps practices
Industry: iGaming/Social Betting
In multiple engagements, I have enhanced the engineering culture, even when it was not my primary objective. Through my people-first approach, I helped organisations build high-performing technical teams by:
Implementing effective hiring and onboarding processes that reduce time-to-productivity for new team members.
Creating mentorship programs and career frameworks that improve skill development, progression, and retention.
Establishing engineering best practices that increased code quality and reduced technical debt.
Creating environments that generate psychological safety and increase levels of innovation through values of trust, compassion, stability, and hope.
FAQs
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While I'm based in the Midlands, I provide flexible engagement options across multiple locations:
Primary Service Regions:
London and Greater London
Birmingham and the West Midlands
Nottingham and the East Midlands
Leicester and surrounding areas
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I structure my availability to ensure dedicated support for each client while maintaining the flexibility that makes fractional leadership valuable.
My typical engagement models can include:
On-Site Presence: Working directly with your team in person on a scheduled basis, I ensure face-to-face collaboration when it matters most. This is particularly valuable for businesses in Birmingham, Nottingham, and across the Midlands requiring hands-on technology leadership.
Remote Leadership: Leveraging my extensive remote background, I use modern collaboration tools and proven remote working practices to provide consistent support regardless of location. This is especially effective for distributed teams with multiple offices.
Hybrid approach: Combining the best of both on-site and remote options. This has proven especially effective for teams in London and the Greater London Area, as well as for companies with occasional on-site needs.
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I don’t work on a time-and-materials basis. Rather than you taking on the risk of a variable cost for each engagement, we will agree on a set of objectives and key results. I then take on the risk of managing my time to ensure you get the results you need at a fixed monthly cost to you.
To maintain service quality, I carefully manage my client portfolio to ensure each organisation receives the attention it needs. We will agree at the time of the engagement on any specifics, but this often includes;
Dedicated weekly touchpoints
Flexible emergency support when needed
Structured periodic planning sessions
Regular strategy reviews and adjustments
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My approach to fractional CTO services is built around delivering measurable business outcomes rather than simply billing for time.
This value-based model ensures that our partnership remains focused on achieving specific, agreed-upon objectives that drive your business forward.
I operate on a fixed monthly retainer basis. Engagements typically range from £2,000 to £12,000 per month. The specific rate depends on the scope and complexity of agreed objectives.
Unlike traditional time-based billing, my focus is on delivering results rather than counting hours, providing you with a lower-risk fixed cost, rather than a variable cost that can spiral out of control.
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Each engagement begins by establishing clear Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) with specific timelines.
This approach ensures:
Clear alignment on success metrics
Predictable monthly costs
Flexibility to adjust priorities as needed
Focus on business impact rather than time spent
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For select high-growth opportunities, I'm open to discussing hybrid compensation structures that include equity (not options) alongside a reduced monthly retainer.
This arrangement demonstrates my commitment to a long-term partnership and shared success, particularly with scale-ups showing significant potential. But I won’t in an equity-only arrangement.
