Fractional COO
Fractional COO Services
Most growing companies do not have an execution problem or a strategy problem. They have a gap between the two. A fractional COO closes it.
The problem this solves
You know what the business should be doing. The decision got made in a meeting six weeks ago. It is still not happening, and nobody can quite say why.
That is an operating problem, and it does not get solved by another dashboard. It gets solved by someone owning the cadence: what gets reviewed, by whom, how often, and what happens when the number is wrong.
An operating rhythm that holds
A weekly and monthly cadence where decisions get made on current information and then actually get followed up.
Process that survives the founder
Documenting what currently lives in one person's head, before that person leaves or burns out.
Systems that talk to each other
ERP, CRM and reporting that produce one version of the number instead of three.
Accountability without bureaucracy
Clear ownership and review points. Controls that catch problems while they are small, without slowing the business to a crawl.
Why a CFO who also does COO work is different
Operations and finance are the same conversation in a company under roughly $50M. Every operating decision shows up in the numbers, and every number is asking a question about how the work actually gets done.
When those two seats are split across two part-time people, you get a handoff. The finance person reports the problem and the operations person owns it, and the truth gets lost somewhere in between. Holding both means the diagnosis and the fix live with the same person.
I have run this in practice. At a technology reseller of roughly $35M in revenue, the presenting problem was that the acting CFO was retiring in two months. The real problem was that there was no monthly close and no documented process for anything. Those are not two projects.
How I think about risk and control
My job is not to block risk. It is to make sure everybody understands the risk, that we take it on purpose, and that we know what we get in return.
No risk means no growth. No controls means somebody, typically me, ends up in jail. The work is picking your spot on that spectrum deliberately and saying it out loud, rather than drifting into it.
In a small company you often cannot segregate duties the way a textbook wants. Culture becomes the compensating control: the thing that surfaces a problem while it is still small, because people trust each other enough to raise it.
What it costs
Same approach as the CFO work. Fixed monthly scope, never hourly, and no published rate without understanding your situation first.
The drivers are headcount, how many systems are in play, whether we are building an operating cadence from nothing or improving one that exists, and whether there is a transition or hire to manage alongside it.
Common questions
What is a fractional COO?
An experienced operations executive working with your company part time, on an ongoing basis. They own how the business runs day to day: the operating cadence, process, systems and accountability, rather than advising from the outside and leaving you to implement.
What does a fractional COO actually do?
Sets and runs the operating rhythm, documents and improves core processes, gets systems reporting one consistent number, builds accountability into how work is reviewed, and usually hires or mentors the person who eventually takes the seat full time.
How is a fractional COO different from a consultant?
A consultant diagnoses and recommends. A fractional COO decides and owns the outcome. If the operating cadence does not improve, that is on me, not on a deck.
Is a fractional COO the same as an EOS Integrator?
They overlap heavily. If you run on EOS, the Integrator role is close to what a fractional COO does, with the addition that I bring the finance side with me. Level 10 meetings and a scorecard are a good starting structure either way.
When should we hire a COO instead of a fractional one?
When the operating complexity is constant rather than episodic, and when the role is genuinely full time. Fractional is right while you are building the function, during a transition, or when you need senior judgment more than you need forty hours.
Can you do both the CFO and COO work?
Yes, and for most companies at this stage that is the point. One person holding both means the operating fix and the financial consequence are never handed off between two people.
Let's have a conversation
No pitch, no pressure. Just a 30-minute call to see if we're a good fit.
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