A fractional executive is a senior leader you get for part of the week instead of all of it. They sit in the seat, make the calls, manage the people and vendors in their area, and answer to you.
What does "fractional" mean in practice?
It means a set number of days a month in one leadership seat, every month, until the job is done. The person attends your leadership meetings, owns a budget or a set of systems, and reports to the owner or the CEO.
Three things separate it from other outside help:
- Ongoing. It runs month to month for a stretch, with no fixed end deliverable like a project has.
- Accountable. The seat owns outcomes. If the marketing numbers or the systems go sideways, it is their problem.
- Part of the team. Your staff and vendors report to them for the work in their area.
A consultant hands you a recommendation. A fractional executive holds the job.
Which seats are filled this way?
The most common:
- Fractional CFO. Finance, cash flow, the bank, the board package.
- Fractional CMO. Marketing plan, budget, agencies and freelancers, brand.
- Fractional CTO. Systems, vendors, security, software builds, technology spending.
- Fractional Chief AI Officer. Where AI goes in the business, what data goes into it, which tools to keep, and getting the team to use them.
I hold CMO, CTO, and Chief AI Officer seats. I do not do CFO work. For that, hire an accountant who does it as a seat.
Who is it a fit for?
A company that needs senior judgment in an area but not forty hours a week of it. Usually that looks like one of these:
- An owner-run business that has outgrown doing the marketing or the IT at night.
- An executive with a new initiative and nobody on staff who has run one like it.
- A company between full-time leaders that needs the seat held while it hires.
- A nonprofit or co-op that could never afford the full-time salary for the role.
If the work needs someone in the building every day, hire full-time. A fractional seat stretched to five days a week is a bad full-time hire.
What does a fractional executive cost?
Mine come in three levels:
- $3,500 a month for about two days a month.
- $6,500 a month for about a day a week.
- $11,000 a month for about two days a week.
Three months minimum, two years maximum, the same for the CMO, CTO, and Chief AI Officer seats. Details are on the fractional seat page, with local pages for a fractional CMO and a fractional CTO.
How does a fractional seat end?
It ends on purpose. At some point in the two years one of three things happens: you hire a full-time owner (I help write the role and hand over the work), the team you have runs it, or the work turns out not to be worth more money and we stop. Why the seat ends at two years covers the reasoning.
Everything stays in your name the whole time: accounts, contracts, passwords, plans. Nothing should depend on the fractional person after they leave.
What does it look like in a real seat?
I hold three right now. At Appraisal Dream I am the fractional Chief AI Officer. At Quartz Importers MN and at U.S. Asset Appraisals I am the fractional CTO. Each one has a different number of days and a different list of what I own, set before the first month starts.
What a fractional exec does in the first 90 days shows the start. If you want to talk about a seat, use the start form.
Answered by Jared Lukes, Minneapolis. Twenty-five years in brand, UX, and technology, currently holding fractional AI and technology seats at three companies. About Jared.