Fractional, without the euphemism
What a part-time leader is actually for. And when you shouldn't hire one.
"Fractional" is an odd word to build an offer on. It sounds like less: a fraction of a person, a fraction of the care. Worth saying plainly what it actually buys, and when it's the wrong purchase.
What you're hiring isn't hours. It's judgement that has already been paid for elsewhere: someone who made the expensive mistakes on someone else's payroll, so you don't fund the tuition twice.
What it looks like
A day or two a week, most weeks. Setting direction and keeping it set when the noise arrives. Hiring and mentoring the people who will own it after we leave. And making the two or three calls a month that would otherwise cost you a quarter: the feature not to build, the hire not to make, the rebrand not to do yet. A lot of the work is subtraction.
When you shouldn't
If you need someone in the room every day, hire full-time. We'll happily help you write the job spec, and we mean that. If you want a senior name for the investor deck, that's theatre, and we're the wrong troupe. And if what you actually need is more hands rather than more judgement, save the money and hire the hands.
A good fractional leader works toward their own exit from day one. The aim is never to become indispensable. It's to leave behind a team that makes the next decision well without asking us.