Fractional Leadership··3 min read
What Is a Fractional CMO, and Do You Need One?
Most companies who think they need an agency need someone to decide what the agency should do.
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The JournalEssays & Field Notes
Practical writing on AI in the wild.
Field notes from real engagements. Frameworks, postmortems, and the unglamorous discipline of shipping AI in production.
Fractional Leadership Articles
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Fractional Leadership··3 min read
What Is a Fractional COO, and When Do You Need One?
The symptom is usually the same: the founder is the operating system, and the company cannot grow past their attention.
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Fractional vs Interim Executive: Not the Same Hire
One is a permanent part-time seat. The other is a full-time bridge. Hiring the wrong one wastes a quarter.
Read essayFractional Leadership··4 min read
How to Hire a Fractional Executive Without Regretting It
The engagements that fail were almost always scoped by hours instead of decisions. Here is how to structure one that works.
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Fractional CFO vs Fractional CAIO: Which Seat First?
Both are part-time executives on a retainer. They answer completely different questions, and the order you hire them in is usually obvious once you see it.
Read essayFractional Leadership··6 min read
How Much Does a Chief AI Officer Cost?
A full-time Chief AI Officer runs $300K+ a year all-in. A fractional one is a fraction of that. Here's an honest breakdown of both — plus the math for working out which one pays for itself at your size.
Read essayFractional Leadership··6 min read
Fractional CAIO vs. AI Consultant vs. Full-Time Hire
There are three real ways to get senior AI leadership into a company, and they solve genuinely different problems. Here's an honest comparison of what each one costs, what it gets you, and how to tell which one you actually need.
Read essayFractional Leadership··7 min read
What Is a Fractional Chief AI Officer? A Complete Guide
A Fractional Chief AI Officer is a senior AI executive who joins your leadership team part-time to own AI strategy, evaluate vendors, and make sure every automation dollar produces a return. Here's what the role actually involves, what it costs, and how to know when you need one.
Read essayFractional Leadership··5 min read
Chief AI Officer vs. CTO vs. CDO: Who Owns AI?
You may already have a CTO and a CDO. So do you really need a Chief AI Officer too? Here's how the three roles actually divide, where they overlap, and why AI keeps falling through the crack between them.
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Common questions
- What does this blog cover?
- AI strategy and leadership decisions for growing businesses: what a Chief AI Officer actually does, how to evaluate vendors, how to measure return, and why most AI projects fail. It is written for people deciding what to fund, not for people building models.
- How often is it updated?
- New pieces publish regularly, and existing ones are revised when the underlying facts change — pricing, market rates and vendor landscapes move quickly enough that stale posts become misleading rather than merely dated.
- Who writes it?
- Erin Moore, a fractional Chief AI Officer and U.S. Army veteran with an Executive MBA, an MS in Data Science and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Everything is written from the buyer's side of the table, which is where the work happens.
- Where should I start?
- If you are new to the topic, start with what a fractional Chief AI Officer does and why most AI projects fail. If you are already spending on AI, the posts on AI audits and measuring ROI will be more immediately useful.