A Fractional CTO / CDO, with a team behind them
Architecture direction, build-vs-buy judgement and data strategy for a business with a growing estate and no senior technical voice at the table. One operator accountable for the outcome. Our delivery teams behind them.
One technology leader, two jobs most businesses badly need combined
A Fractional CTO owns technology strategy, architecture and the build-vs-buy decisions that shape how fast you can move. A Fractional CDO owns the data strategy that makes every one of those systems worth something. We run this as a single role because at scale-up and mid-cap size, splitting them into two hires almost never makes commercial sense, and having one function argue with the other is how technology and data strategy quietly diverge.
This is deliberately distinct from the Fractional CIO remit: the CTO/CDO owns what gets built and what the data strategy is. The CIO owns what keeps the lights on and safe. Businesses that need both take both, as two people rather than one doing two jobs badly.
If more than two of these are true, the gap is already costing you
Nobody senior enough owns architecture decisions, so they get made project by project, and nobody joins the dots.
Build-vs-buy calls are made on relationships or habit, not a documented view of what the platform actually needs.
A buyer or investor's technical due diligence would find more than you'd like them to.
Engineering velocity is dropping every quarter and everyone has a theory why, but no plan.
Data lives in six systems that don't talk to each other, and nobody owns the strategy to fix that.
Vendor and platform decisions happen deal-by-deal, with no one weighing them against a roadmap.
Four areas of ownership, not a vague advisory retainer
Architecture & Platform Roadmap
Owns the technical architecture and the multi-year platform roadmap. Makes the case for what gets rebuilt, what gets retired, and what's actually fine to leave alone.
Build-vs-Buy & Vendor Selection
Independent judgement on every major build-or-buy call, and the vendor selection process that follows it. No favoured platform, no reseller margin hiding in the recommendation.
Data Strategy & Direction
The CDO half of the remit: data strategy, governance priorities and investment sequencing. That is the direction the Fractional Chief Data Architect then builds against.
Technical Due Diligence
Independent technical assessment ahead of M&A, fundraising or exit: the kind of review that either de-risks a deal or catches what would have sunk the valuation.
When there's a rebuild, a migration, or a platform to stand up
The leader sets direction. When the roadmap calls for a defined build, whether a legacy migration, a data platform or an integration layer, there are three ways it gets done, and the leader stays accountable for the outcome in all of them: we take it on through our delivery partners, we manage the suppliers you already have, or we run a vendor selection on your behalf. Whichever route, it is built against the architecture the leader has already signed off, with no context to re-explain.
And if we run the selection, we are not in it. Neither are our delivery partners. A selection is independent only if the people running it have nothing to gain from the answer, so ours award the work elsewhere or they are not worth running.
Before you take this to the board
Usually yes, and they'll thank you for it. A Head of Engineering runs delivery. This role owns architecture, platform strategy and the board-level judgement calls that shouldn't sit with the person also responsible for sprint velocity.
Where the estate is large enough to justify it, yes. This is scoped at the start of the engagement, not assumed either way.
This role sets data strategy and priorities. The Chief Data Architect owns the technical blueprint that data strategy gets built on: platform architecture, integration and data quality engineering. Businesses with a genuinely complex data estate often need both; most start with this one.
They get reviewed on merit, not replaced by default. The job here is an honest assessment, not a reason to rip and replace for its own sake.
The evidence behind this work
Problem before platform
Why technology programmes fail when the business problem isn't defined first.
Read the articleSee Chief Data Architect leadership
Where data strategy turns into an actual technical blueprint.
See how we lead thisTake an assessment
Six scored assessments, seven areas each, a rating on screen, and a PDF if you want it.
See the assessmentsTalk to us about architecture and data
A direct conversation about your architecture and data gap, not a sales script.