Engagement / Offering
Offering 03 · Min. 3 monthsOperating Partner / Interim CxO
Ongoing commercial operating partner support across the business, accountable to outcomes.
What it is
Not every portfolio company needs a full-time CMO. Three situations call for this model instead of that hire.
Too early for a CMO. The commercial org hasn't reached the size or maturity to justify, or make good use of, a full-time C-level hire yet. What's missing isn't headcount. It's senior commercial ownership, now, before the org is ready to support a permanent seat.
Stretched, with no one owning the outcome. The team exists and is doing the work, but it's running thin, and no one sits above it accountable for the result. What's needed is external oversight, someone who owns the commercial outcome, not just another pair of hands inside it.
Direction is set, execution isn't moving fast enough. The strategy isn't the problem. What's missing is someone who can drive rapid, focused execution against it and close the gap between the plan and the result inside a tight window.
This is the model for portfolio companies with a clear gap in the commercial organization, not a gap in foundation, but in operating capacity. The business needs someone in the room, regularly, who owns commercial outcomes the way an operating partner owns them elsewhere in the business.
How we run it — a repeating cadence, not a fixed sequence
Commercial Scorecard
Reviewed with leadership across the nine foundations.
Roadmap Reset
Reprioritise based on what has moved and what has changed.
Hands-on Execution
On whatever the quarter's priority foundation requires.
Equity Story
The same lens feeds Foundation #9, the exit strategy and equity story.
What you get: an operating partner accountable to the outcomes the board cares about, and a commercial narrative for exit that has been building the whole way through.