Hire a Fractional Executive.
A senior leader who takes the seat, owns the number, and answers for the outcome, at a fraction of what a full time hire costs. Every one is vetted by Kirk Coburn, who founded Chief Outsiders, the firm that placed more than 2,000 fractional executives.
What is a fractional executive
A senior operator who takes the seat, runs the function, and owns the outcome. Not a stranger who hands you a deck and leaves.
When you have a leadership gap, you have three options. Only one of them leads.
Fractional executive vs interim vs consultant
Fractional executive
Runs the function part time, owns the number, and answers for the result. Treats the seat like it is theirs.
Interim
Full time but temporary. Holds the seat warm until you name a permanent leader.
Consultant
Hands you advice and a deck. Never owns the result, the team, or the number.
The number two you need
The right hand you cannot yet afford full time, in the seat when it matters most.
The most important stretch in the life of your company is the one where growth is outrunning your team, and there is no peer in the room who has done this before. A full time executive at that level is a salary and an equity package most companies cannot carry yet. So the seat sits empty, and you carry it alone.
A fractional executive fills it now. A senior operator who has run the function before, in the seat beside you through the growth stage, for a fraction of a full time hire. Not a junior learning on your dime, not an agency you have to manage. A true number two who has been here before, points you at the right moves, and takes weight off your plate.
You get the executive you could not otherwise afford, in the seat exactly when it counts.
In the age of AI
AI can do the work. It cannot own the outcome.
Automate the chores. You should, and hard. AI will draft the deck, summarize the call, and run the numbers. What it will never do is sit in your leadership meetings, carry the number as its own, and answer for the result when the quarter is on the line.
AI output hallucinates, drifts, and makes confident bad assumptions, so a person has to own the judgment. When something breaks at 2 a.m., a model does not take the call. A leader does. That accountability is the one thing you cannot download, and it is exactly what you are hiring.
The robots do the chores. Your fractional executive makes the calls, and owns them.
When to hire one
Three moments a fractional leader fits best.
Scaling fast
Growth is outrunning your team. You need a senior operator in the seat now, not a search that takes six months.
Between leaders
The head of the function just walked out the door. You cannot let it drift while you run a full time search.
Not ready for full time
You need executive leadership, but the number does not yet justify a full time salary plus equity.
Why this network
Vetted leaders who actually lead, matched to what you need.
Kirk Coburn pioneered the fractional executive movement over fifteen years ago and founded Chief Outsiders, the firm that placed over 2,000 executives and drove more than $150M in follow on revenue for the companies that hired them. Tell us what you need, and you are matched from that network, not from a job board or a pile of resumes.
Tell us what you need
Tell us the gap. We will bring the leader.
Give us the role and the situation. We match you to a vetted fractional executive from the network who fits, and get back to you fast. No job post, no stack of resumes to sort.