Fractional CMO Leadership
The senior marketing brain your company needs, at the fraction of the cost it can actually afford.
Advisory
Strategic Marketing Advisory
You do not need someone to run marketing. You need someone senior to tell you the truth about it.
The Problem This Solves
CEOs and boards make consequential marketing decisions with remarkably little independent input. Should we double the budget. Is this CMO candidate strong or merely confident. Does the acquisition target’s pipeline hold up under inspection. Is our agency delivering or performing. The people best positioned to answer usually have an interest in the answer, and the board has no marketing operator in the room to say otherwise.
Typical EngagementDelivered inside a Core Marketing CMO retainer, or scoped as a standalone project.
See pricingStrategic marketing advisory is a standing relationship at the leadership and board level rather than an operating role. I am not running your marketing function; I am the independent senior voice you call before committing to a decision, and the one who reads the numbers your team presents with a practitioner’s eye. Common for private equity sponsors, boards, and CEOs who want a second read they can trust.
What’s Included
Six things that actually change.
01
Standing CEO counsel
A regular working session on the decisions in front of you, with no agenda beyond getting them right.
02
Board-level review
An independent read on marketing performance, presented in a language the board can act on.
03
Marketing due diligence
For acquisitions or investments — pipeline quality, channel durability, and whether growth is bought or earned.
04
Leadership hiring input
Scorecards, interview participation, and a candid assessment of CMO and VP-level candidates.
05
Investment sizing
Whether the proposed budget is defensible, and what the marginal dollar realistically returns.
06
Portfolio pattern recognition
For sponsors: what is working across comparable companies and what consistently is not.
Engagement Shape
How it runs.
Phases overlap in practice, but this is the shape of the work and roughly when each part lands.
What You Should Expect
- Marketing decisions made with independent senior input
- A board that understands marketing performance without a translator
- Better executive hires, assessed by someone who has done the job
- Diligence that separates durable growth from purchased growth
| Phase | Deliverable |
|---|---|
| Onboarding | Deep read of the business, market, financials, and current marketing position |
| Monthly | Standing leadership session and an independent written read on performance |
| Quarterly | Board-ready assessment: what is working, what is not, and what to decide next |
| On demand | Diligence, hiring input, and decision support as situations arise |
Answers
Questions about advisory
Authority. A fractional CMO owns the marketing function, directs the team, and carries the number. An advisor does not run anything — I provide independent counsel to the people who do. Advisory suits companies that already have capable marketing leadership and want a senior second opinion; fractional suits companies where nobody senior owns marketing at all.
Advisory retainers sit below the fractional CMO range because the time commitment is lighter, typically starting around $3,000 to $5,000 per month depending on cadence and whether board work and diligence are included. Scoped diligence projects are quoted separately.
Yes, in two modes: pre-investment diligence on a target’s marketing function, and post-close advisory to portfolio company leadership. I am direct about the distinction between growth a company has built and growth it has rented from a channel, which is usually the question that actually matters at diligence.
Yes, either as a standing attendee for the marketing portion or on a quarterly basis. Boards frequently lack anyone who has personally operated a marketing function, which is why marketing discussions at board level tend to stay uncomfortably abstract.
Related
Works alongside
Interim CMO Leadership
Your CMO left. The executive search will take six months. Marketing cannot sit still for six months.
CMO Consulting
Sometimes you do not need a marketing leader. You need one hard question answered properly, once.
Next Step
Find out what your marketing is actually costing you.
Every engagement starts the same way: a straight conversation about your growth plateau, your current spend, and whether a fractional CMO is genuinely the right answer for you. If it isn’t, I’ll say so.
Free 30-minute call · No pitch deck · Direct answer either way