Growth that outran the people who started the company.
Revenue is climbing and the team has doubled. The informal arrangements that carried you here are now the reason things slip.
What breaks first when a New York company scales
The failure points are consistent from one company to the next:
Every decision still goes to the founder
The company is bigger, but it still moves at the speed of one calendar.
Reports describe a company that no longer exists
By the time the numbers reach the board, the business has changed shape twice.
Hiring runs ahead of structure
People arrive faster than the roles they were hired for, and the organisation chart is drawn afterwards to explain it.
The next investor reads differently
A growth fund or a lender expects controls, forecasting and a leadership layer that a Series A company never needed.
A fractional executive has already led a company through this growth phase. They install the structure while the business keeps moving, then hand over once the seat is truly full time. The services agreement closes on one month's notice, our standard.
Who this is for, and who it is not
Best for
- Companies that have outgrown founder-led informality but cannot yet fund a full C-suite
- Finance functions that need to become board and investor grade
- Revenue still riding on founder relationships rather than a repeatable engine
- Teams and culture straining as headcount climbs past what informal management holds
- Leadership gaps that would stall growth if left open for a full hiring cycle
Not for
- Early startups still searching for product-market fit
- A single function a ready full-time executive should already own
- Businesses wanting advice on a deck rather than an operator in the work
- A one-off project better suited to a specialist contractor
A second leadership layer, governed
Scaling exposes gaps in more than one seat. We match operators who have scaled before and keep structure around their work.
We stay close to the work
Regular reviews with you and the executive keep the brief honest as headcount climbs. Drift gets named early.
Depth behind one hire
Your executive can call on our collective of 800+. A hiring question that turns out to be about the org chart meets someone who has redrawn one.
Change without a restart
People move on. If yours does, the transition and the replacement search are our job, run from the file we keep on your company.
Fit for a fast room
In a city of strong CVs, the person who fits the room is the one who gets things done. We match on temperament as well as stage.
From diagnostic to infrastructure that scales with you
Our process runs at the pace of a scaling company, not a hiring cycle.
Scale diagnostic (weeks 1–2)
Map the current state: operational stress points, financial infrastructure gaps, commercial engine gaps, people risks.
Engagement design (weeks 3–4)
Design the right fractional leadership configuration, which roles, what scope, what priority sequencing.
Infrastructure build (month 1–3)
Fractionals embed: operational systems, financial infrastructure, commercial engine design, people frameworks.
Adapt to the growth (ongoing)
As you grow, we adjust the configuration. The goal is always the right leadership for the current phase.
What changes in the first 90 days
A scale-up engagement is judged on what moves early. These are the shifts a fractional operator is there to make.
The scale-up leadership stack
Each role below owns a different part of the scale-up: finance, operations, commercial, people or technology.
Leaders who have scaled
