Fractional Chief AI Officer
A Chief AI Officer in the room. Without the full-time hire.
Your business needs someone senior carrying the AI question. Not a junior running tools, and not the whole executive salary that comes with a full-time hire. A fractional Chief AI Officer sits between those two. I take on a small number of boards, so the attention each one gets is real.
Why this role exists now
AI strategy is a leadership question, not an IT one.
Boards are working this out fast. The companies pulling ahead aren’t the ones who bought the most software, they’re the ones who put AI on the leadership agenda and kept it there. That means someone in the room who understands both the commercial picture and what is technically possible.
For a large company that’s a full-time Chief AI Officer. For a founder-led mid-market business, a full-time hire rarely makes sense yet, but the gap is just as real. Fractional is how you close it without overbuilding the org chart.
Look at who has actually built the role and the picture is lopsided: it’s overwhelmingly the big multinationals, the ones already ahead. Mid-market is where the gap still sits, and it’s where a fractional version of this makes the most sense.
Treat AI as an IT line item and it stays a cost. Treat it as a leadership question and it starts changing how the business runs.
of directors say AI risks and opportunities belong at the top of the board agenda.
2026 directors survey, via CNBC
reckon they have strong AI expertise on the board. It was the weakest area they were asked about.
2026 directors survey, via CNBC
of directors don't use AI at all for strategic oversight. They're asking management to do what they can't yet.
2026 directors survey, via CNBC
Who this is for
Founder-led businesses, roughly 10 to 200 staff.
Usually a business that’s past the early experiments and knows AI matters, but doesn’t have anyone senior owning it. The founder is carrying it on top of everything else, or it’s drifting because nobody is.
It works best where there’s a board or a leadership team to report into, and a genuine intent to act, not just to be seen to have someone on it. If you want a name on a slide, I’m the wrong fit. If you want the work done and held to account, I’m not.
What the retainer covers
Senior judgement, on call, every month.
A regular cadence
Standing time with you, and with the board if you have one and it helps. Not a meeting for the sake of a meeting.
Ownership of the AI roadmap
Someone whose job is to keep the plan honest against what the business actually needs, and to say no to the shiny distractions.
Oversight of implementation
Whether the building happens in-house or with partners, there's a senior person making sure it holds together.
Plain-English board reporting
Where the AI work stands, what it's returning, what the risks are. No jargon. Language a board can actually act on.
Tooling and vendor calls
Which platforms, which partners, what to build versus buy. Decisions made by someone who has built this stuff, not just read about it.
Why me
I speak board and I speak build.
Nine years running a company I built and exited. Six years sitting on a board. I read a P&L and a balance sheet, so a board conversation about what the AI work does to margin and valuation isn’t a translation exercise. And I can talk tech with the people doing the building, your team or outside partners, sometimes me, so the plan and the delivery line up.
Most people in this space can talk strategy or they can talk systems. The value is being fluent in both, in the same conversation.
Henry Reith
Book your AI-First Assessment
A 30-minute call to map where your business sits on the AI maturity ladder and whether working together makes sense.
1 advisory spot left this month.
- Designed for 10 to 200 staff service businesses
- Workflows, not prompts
- Practical implementation, not workshops
- No random tool stack, just what your business needs