A Fractional or Freelance COO (the two terms are interchangeable in my company) is a seasoned Executive who provides part-time strategic and operational leadership to your company for a fraction of the time and cost of a full-time hire.

The decision to hire a Fractional or Freelance COO can be a game-changing one for your growing business. In the context of earlier-stage companies, where resources are limited and runways are short, hiring a Fractional or Freelance COO is a way to quickly access the kind of Executive-level expertise that can be the difference between success and failure, without having to have access to a large amount of funding.

An experienced Fractional or Freelance COO like me, will come with extensive experience across various industries and company sizes. I use this experience to help you design and execute a Strategy for your business that ensures you're always running as efficiently as possible. By running efficiently, you're making best use of two of your most precious resources - time and money - and that expands outwards into every department, oiling the entire machine of the company and propelling you forwards to the next stage in your growth story.

Operating a business is a skill. Just as you’d expect your CMO, CTO, and CFO to have spent years mastering their trade, the role of a COO, done properly, is delivered by unique skills that have been honed over years of frontline experience. By outsourcing this part of your company leadership to a Fractional or Freelance COO, you and your team can concentrate on what you do best – delighting customers, building game-changing new products, and growing your business - whilst knowing that the day-to-day cogs of your business are running smoothly.

If you're wondering if a Fractional or Freelance COO is the right choice for your business, why not book a free, no-commitment Discovery Call with me to discuss it in more detail:

In short, it comes down to really simple maths. For the same price as a full-time junior employee, you can get a senior resource who can accomplish more within a much smaller window of time and with a lot less input needed from you. Essentially, with a Fractional or Freelance COO, you're getting much more value from much less time.

Fractional or Freelance COOs are typically seasoned executives, like me, who have navigated various business challenges, can understand the context of each problem, and give solutions that fix the issue in the moment and contribute to longer-term strategic decision-making - all whilst also making sure the crucial day-to-day tasks are being done.

In an earlier-stage business, when you're figuring out a lot of things and everything is constantly moving, a full-time operations employee can be a valuable resource for taking some of your routine work whilst you're focussed on your most pressing tasks, like delighting investors and finding new customers.

To get the most out of that junior employee, you'll need to teach and train them, provide them with leadership and guidance, and offer a certain amount of job security.

For a similar price, a Fractional or Freelance COO can work independently, from the start, on significant pieces of work, with little guidance (often they'll, in fact, tell you what needs to be done) whilst also bringing the level of strategic leadership and experience needed to ensure the right tasks are being assigned in the first place. Plus, if cashflow is a little tight one month, you can scale the agreement up and down without losing all the work you've put in so far.

If you're currently trying to decide if a Fractional or Freelance COO could be right for you, why not book a free, no-commitment Discovery Call:

Every Fractional or Freelance COO agreement that I design is highly flexible and is tailored to the individual needs of the company in question. The commitment, both its length and frequency, is based on your requirements, with options for longer retainers or shorter arrangements.

There really is no typical version of what it looks like to work with me because there is no typical business. Part of the benefit of hiring a Fractional or Freelance COO is that you can dip in and out of the service whenever your business needs it. I've worked with some businesses for just a few months, for others I've been retained for 9 to 12 months and then dipped back in months after that to manage another moment of change.

The shortest arrangement I offer is three months and the minimum commitment is a day per week. This enables me to really get to know your business and to spend enough time on your biggest strategic and operational problems to effect real improvements.

Part of the benefit of a Fractional or Freelance COO versus a full-time, permanent hire is the fact that you're not tied into an employment contract. This can be really reassuring for an earlier-stage business without consistent cashflow - you can get the operational and strategic expertise that you need to be able to scale, without having to worry about the legalities or commitments involved with hiring an employee. To align with that benefit, my service terms and conditions include cancellation policies that are designed to be as flexible as possible.

If we decide to work together, you'll receive a contract that outlines my standard terms and conditions. Included in this will be the details of the initial engagement period that we've agreed on (for how months we're initially going to work together) as well as the terms for how we can extend that period if we wish and what happens if you need to shorten the agreement due to, for example, unexpected cashflow issues.

If you'd like to discuss what kind of level of commitment would be right for your business, you can book a free, no-commitment Discovery Call here:

In the context of a Fractional or Freelance COO service, like mine, both "freelance" and "fractional" mean they same thing. They refer to the part-time, flexible nature of the engagement as well the fact that I won't be an employee of your company. Instead, I'm an employee of my own company and it's that entity that will bill you for the projects we work on.

The actual terms of the agreement, how much of my time is given to a business, for how long, and which projects I'm working on, is agreed on a case-by-case basis.

If you'd like to discuss what an agreement like that could look like for you, you can book a free Discovery Call here:

A Fractional or Freelance COO is perfect for first-time founders and earlier stage companies. In fact, I built my services with that exact situation in mind.

In the UK, there are about 800,000 new businesses started each year and 62% of those will fail before reaching year 5. That's close to half a million aspiring entrepreneurs that won't make it to their goals. A lot of these entrepreneurs are first-time founders who are looking for something more from their working life and I'm really passionate about making that dream a reality. You don't need to be rich or to raise loads of money to be successful in entrepreneurship. But you do need a good Strategy and you need to know how to run a business. A Fractional or Freelance COO can do that for you.

Hiring a Fractional or Freelance COO means getting the benefits of a senior-level, battle-tested startup expert for less money and without needing to manage employment contracts or commit to anything long-term. When you're just starting out in entrepreneurship, it can feel incredibly lonely and overwhelming. With me as your Fractional or Freelance COO, you'll have a copilot who's taken the journey before and can bring out the best in your creativity and in your passion for your business.

If you're wondering if it's the right time to bring on a Fractional or Freelance COO, why not put a free, no-commitment call in my diary to discuss?

The specific projects that I take on are dependent on the needs of the organisation and if you're interested in working together, I'll put together a comprehensive proposal that outlines your needs and the desired outcomes before we get started.

In general, the aim is that your organisation is more efficiently and effectively achieving its goals as a consequence of us working together. This can spread into all areas of your business's operations and can look at things like (this isn't an exhaustive list, it's just to give you an idea of what I can work on with you):

- Writing and communicating your organisation's Strategy

- Helping you to figure out the right goals for your business, both long and short-term

- Prioritising your organisation's work so that you're always focussed on the most important things

- Designing a Performance Management framework that helps you get the best out of your people

- Writing processes and procedures so that you can more quickly onboard new employees

- Bringing in a Project Management System to help you link all your work to your goals

- Managing specific projects or moments of change in your organisation

- Helping you raise funding more effectively and more efficiently

- Helping you to effectively deploy capital after a funding event

- Designing your org chart, writing job specs, and hiring for key roles

- Designing systems for communications, including when to meet and why, how to communicate offline or asynchronously

- Coordinating information-sharing between you and your organisation

- Writing investor presentations for a funding round or running investor relations (things like writing investor newsletters or building a database of leads)

- Building a data room for your next raise and managing interested parties

- Helping you to articulate your Value Proposition to your customers by understanding the problem that you're solving

- Designing KPIs and building reports to track your organisation's progress

- Building no-code automations to make your processes run more efficiently

- Sourcing additional freelancers for short-term projects

- Synthesising market-wide information to keep you informed on trends and competitor moves

- Running competitor analysis and analysing your defensive position

- Setting up the business, including finding and implementing tools and keeping you on top of governmental filing requirements

Essentially, if there's an element of business administration, Strategy, or Operations that you want help with, I can provide the expertise on a very flexible basis.

If there's something on the list above that you're interested in learning more about or if you have a business problem that's not covered, feel free to drop a free, no-commitment Discovery Call into my diary and we can discuss:

Whether you're in tech, finance, healthcare, AI, SaaS, or any other industry, a good Fractional or Freelance COO tailors their expertise to align with the goals and challenges unique to your business.

I have a breadth of experience across startups of all shapes, sizes, and industries. I've worked in B2C and B2B businesses, both product and service, across a variety of industries, including Retail, MedTech, SaaS, Consulting, Recruitment, Travel, Media, BioManufacturing, Sales Intelligence, Food & Beverage, eCommerce, and Data to name just a few!

What's interesting to me about all these industries is not their differences but their similarities. There are universal truths to business, simple equations that are very black and white regardless of the product or service that you're selling. For example, if you write and communicate a clear, precise Strategy you will more effectively convey your expectations to your organisation and you'll avoid misalignment. Similarly, if you build an efficient, data-driven system of communication, you can spend less time in meetings sharing information and more time actually getting things done.

Strategy and Operations, the part of a business that's owned by the COO, has a lot of these universal truths and they're the foundation of the work that I do. By building a solid foundation on these universal elements, your business can flex to the parts of its journey that aren't universal - the specific needs of its product or service, or the competitor or macroeconomic moves that impact it.

I don't need to have previous expertise in your specific industry to provide a huge amount of value as a Fractional or Freelance COO, but I will take the time to work with you to understand your comprehensive knowledge of it. If you'd like to see what that would look like, why not a book a free, no-commitment Discovery Call:

Absolutely!

It's very common for a company's COO to have some oversight of the People & Culture function, especially in an earlier-stage organisation without a Chief People Officer and that can definitely extend to a Fractional or Freelance COO.

In my years as a COO, I've taken ownership of a lot of People/HR departments, I've managed more junior HR employees, and I've navigated companies through difficult interpersonal situations. I'm very familiar with the UK's employment regulations and I've built numerous Performance Management systems to help get the best out of what can often be a company's most expensive resource - its people. I also offer Business Coaching services and I employ those same open and considerate approaches in my Consulting work leadership roles.

In practical terms, I can help you build the right team structure for your company, define roles and responsibilities, and help to create a positive and productive work culture. If we come to work together on team building/leadership, we'll discuss the existing team that you have and who should be responsible for which elements of developing and managing your people. I'll make recommendations about what to do in a crisis situation and where my services can help and where something like an Employment Lawyer will be better suited (thanks to my extensive network, I can also make recommendations for tried-and-tested HR Consultants and qualified Employment Lawyers).

If you have a People or leadership challenge that you're looking for help to navigate, why not book a free, no-commitment Discovery Call with me to discuss?

Certainly! It's actually one of my favourite types of projects to work on - and the one most frequently chosen by my clients!

Getting ready to bring some capital into the business can be an exciting and stressful time and I can definitely have your back throughout the process.

I've overseen both debt and equity funding, from pre-seed to Series D rounds of multiple millions. In total, I've raised over £100m of funding for various companies using my processes.

Whether it's writing and reviewing your investment deck, helping you create a data room that will convince your investors that you're serious, helping you full together comprehensive financial plans, setting your goals for the post-raise period, facilitating investor introductions, or project-managing the entire funding round and all its communications, I can help.

The UK funding market is incredibly competitive. By bringing me on as a Fractional or Freelance COO during your raising period, I can help you create a more compelling narrative and strategic approach and increase the likelihood of your business being one of the ones to attract investment.

If you're looking for some support to get your funding round off the ground and wondering if a Fractional or Freelance COO could be just the thing that sets you ahead of the competition, why not book a free, no-commitment Discovery Call to discuss?

Each Fractional or Freelance COO agreement is unique to the needs of the business in question, so the total price will depend on what it is that you need and what budgets you have available but all agreements are built from a simple framework.

I'm totally transparent about how I calculate my prices and I'm happy to share them with you before we've even spoken - no wasting time guessing whether or not you can afford to work with me. Plus - the more we work together, the less you pay!

Core to my operating model is the belief that anyone deserves the chance to be a successful entrepreneur and, to support this, I very specifically don't charge higher prices just because I have more experience and can add more value. I'm genuinely not interested in making as much money as I can, because I genuinely believe that fulfilment and happiness for me come from how I can help other people realise their ambitions in a challenging and lonely market.

When we come to put together an agreement to work together, we can approach it in one of two ways.

1. We can look at your goals and needs and then your total budget and I can tell you what I can offer within that budget

2. We can look at your goals and needs and then I can give you a variety of options for what I can achieve for you at different prices

Both, very specifically, start with your goals and needs as all my Fractional or Freelance COO engagements are unique.

Once you've reviewed the proposal, if the suggestions are for more or less than you have available to spend, then we can make adjustments. For example, if you have a smaller budget available, we can run a Relative Prioritisation Matrix to identify which of the projects are the most crucial to your wider organisational goals and I can work on those first.

To download my pricing guide, head to the "But what does it cost?" section of my Fractional or Freelance COO service page and fill in the simple form. I'll then email you over the pricing guide.

The agreement we'll design will depend on what you need, but the minimum commitment is one day per week and a maximum of three days per week for a single client (depending on availability). I'm as flexible as I can be about how those 'days' play out in the week - for example, if you book a single day, that can (depending on availability) be one set day per week or 8 hours split over multiple days.

If you're not sure how many days per week you need in order to achieve the goal you have in mind, why not book a free, no-commitment Discovery Call into my diary and we can discuss your specific circumstances:

It generally depends on where those offices are, what our agreement includes, and what's best for your business's needs.

We'll discuss the specifics of what you need when we build out the agreement but, as a starter for ten, I will predominantly work remotely but can come to work with you in person for specific parts of the agreement - like kick-off or review meetings. Please note that there might be an additional charge for that, depending on where that office is.

I'm based in London and I'm happy to travel to offices in locations up to and including Zone 3 without an additional charge for my time. If your office is outside of London's Zones 1-3, I'll include a quote for travel costs to accommodate that before booking or agreeing the final price for my Fractional or Freelance COO services. Please note that I exclusively use public transport and may, at times, need to include taxi fares to and from a local train station in the quote. To keep the costs as low as possible, I will always take the lowest-priced ticket (which often means booking far in advance, and can incur cancellation fees if you change your mind about where you'd like me to work).

If you'd like to discuss having me work in a location that's more than 2 hours of travel from a major London train station, I may need to arrange overnight accommodation for the night before or after any in-person work, which will incur an additional charge. I'll prepare and send over a quote for the travel costs before booking or agreeing the final price.

If you have a specific need and would like to see what that could look like, please feel free to book in a free, no-commitment Discovery Call in my diary and we can discuss: