Fractional executives are professionals who offer their

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

services to organizations on a for-hire, part-time basis. These executives typically have extensive experience in a business environment in roles such as

chairperson The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a Board of directors, board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by ...

, owner, CxO, senior vice president, vice president, or director. Their skills can be focused in one discipline or be more broad-based, depending on their experience.

Overview

Fractional executives may work as independent

consultants A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization. Consulting servic ...

or as part of a

consulting firm A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad ran ...

. However, they are not consultants in the classical sense, because they take an active leadership or management role in the company that hires them, implementing changes and leading the organization just as their permanent counterpart would. They are hired on a project basis, a time-limited basis, or in some cases, on

retainer Retainer may refer to: * Retainer (orthodontics), devices for teeth * RFA ''Retainer'' (A329), a ship * Retainers in early China, a social group in early China Employment * Retainer agreement, a contract in which an employer pays in advance for ...

, but they do not work full-time for any particular organization. They may also be known as an interim executive, contract executive, part-time executive, temporary executive, fractional business executive, on-demand executive or executive-as-a-service. The advantages of hiring such professionals is their experience and that they do not require a full-time position. While fractional executives are highly skilled within their area(s) of expertise, they may require time to get acclimated to new industries. Fractional management is in the end a particular declination of interim and temporary management originated by the demand coming from small

entrepreneurial Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

companies (less than US$10 million), for which a classical temporary manager may be redundant. Specific definition and application cases have been discussed in a congress organized by the Italian HR Directors Association (AIDP) and the Italian Chief Financial Officers Association (ANDAF)/ A couple of examples of specifically names Fractional Executives are

Fractional CIO A fractional chief information officer differs from a traditional chief information officer in that they serve as a working member of a company's executive management team as a contractor and may or may not serve on the company's board of direc ...

, Fractional CMO, Fractional CEO, Fractional Sales Manager, VP of Sales, or CSO, Fractional CFO.

References

{{Reflist Management occupations