Fractional CTO and practical AI strategy
I help founders and leadership teams make technology decisions and organise the work that follows. My role can include setting direction, developing the team, assessing an investment or working through a difficult implementation question.
Continuing technical leadership
A fractional CTO engagement is useful when the business needs senior technical ownership but delivery happens through its own team or development partners. Common starting points include a hiring decision, unclear product priorities, a supplier relationship that needs direction or a growing product whose technical choices are becoming harder to manage.
We start by agreeing the problem and the decisions you want to delegate. For an initial assessment, you get a recommendation on the agreed decision, the alternatives and their costs, and a plan showing who needs to do what next. For continuing leadership, we agree which decisions I own and review delivery against them. That work can cover hiring, architecture and partner selection.
The agreement distinguishes decisions I can make from recommendations that need your approval. It also names the person responsible for day-to-day execution and sets working times, response windows, a review cadence and how decisions are handled outside those windows. Hands-on investigation and prototyping fit within the agreed allocation.
AI strategy with a practical next step
For an AI opportunity, I start with the work you want to improve and the people doing it. I compare AI with improving the existing process, buying a service or leaving the work as it is. The assessment includes data access, integration, human review, training and ongoing ownership.
If a pilot is worthwhile, we agree what it will test, what it will cost and what result would justify continuing. The output is a decision and a delivery plan. That may mean investing further, changing the approach or stopping.
I use AI directly in research, analysis and engineering. At INFO I worked on internal AI capability and the development of client services. At JII I develop programme proposals and apply AI to research-support and engineering workflows. That gives me practical experience of the checks, context and people needed to make an output useful.
Working with your team, or adding support
The starting point is your existing people and partners. Where a skill or capacity gap needs filling, I can help you hire or bring in additional support.
My Croatian network across engineering, design and DevOps can offer lower-cost delivery options. We compare the full cost of the work, including coordination, review and ongoing support.
I also maintain working relationships with established delivery organisations, including INFO, where I previously led engineering. Collaboration may be useful when the scope calls for it. Any additional team or partner is discussed with you. You hire me for the leadership remit. Before additional work starts, we agree who engages each specialist, who manages the delivery and who accepts the result. My role in that work is agreed explicitly, whether helping select specialists, providing technical oversight or owning a defined delivery scope.
You can commission advice without commissioning delivery through me. Before you choose a provider, I make clear any financial interest I would have in that arrangement.
Why this work fits my experience
At INFO, I worked across engineering leadership, presales, delivery and part of the P&L. I pushed for smaller full-stack teams and for advice to be sold as a service, rather than absorbed into the cost of winning a development project. Client work included a fractional architect role at Growy and consulting for Greenwheels.
At openJII, I connect scientific needs with product choices, engineering capacity and practical AI work. I remain close enough to implementation to test assumptions and help resolve difficult problems. My MBA in AI, Data & Analytics is in progress at the University of Amsterdam.
Start with the decision
Tell me what you are trying to achieve, what is getting in the way and who is doing the work today. We can establish the first useful outcome and whether the engagement needs ongoing leadership, a bounded assessment or a pilot.
I work alongside a full-time role at JII. I agree an allocation that covers preparation, meetings, practical work and follow-through. If additional specialists join, their work has a separate scope and budget; my time coordinating and reviewing it stays within my agreed allocation.