Some companies need a CIO every Tuesday. Others need one for nine months while they integrate an acquisition, hire a permanent successor, or steer through a crisis. We're built for the second case.
Your CIO has left, retired, or moved on. Recruiting the replacement well takes 4 to 9 months. The business can't wait that long for IT to make decisions.
An acquisition, carve-out, or joint venture is mid-flight. The receiving IT organisation needs senior weight to absorb it without disrupting run-the-business work.
IT has lost executive credibility. Costs are unclear, projects slipping, audit findings open. Someone needs to come in, say what's going on, and lay out a 90-day plan.
Three things it isn't: a project manager, an architect, or a senior advisor on retainer. What it is: accountable to the CEO and board, with full authority to make calls within agreed thresholds.
Day-rate engagement. Fixed minimum runway. Defined exit gate. No 30-day "discovery" before the work starts. Discovery happens while we're already running the function.
Take the seat. Meet the team, executive peers, top-three vendors, open audit findings. Decide what's on fire and what's just smoking.
One document the CEO and board can approve. Three to five priorities, budget transparency, and the org changes needed to hit them.
Operate the function. Deliver priorities. Reorganise where needed. Develop succession candidates internally. Hire the permanent CIO if asked.
To the permanent successor, internal or external. Documented operating model, vendor contracts, open risks, and a frank conversation about what they're walking into.
Board-approved, budgeted, with named owners.
IT OPEX/CAPEX, vendor consolidation opportunities, contract calendar.
Open findings, remediation plan, security maturity uplift.
Org structure, RACI, escalation paths, ITSM/ITOM discipline.
Who's ready, who needs development, who needs replacing.
For your permanent CIO. A working binder, not a deck.
Six to twelve months. Anything shorter risks turning into "advisory" without operational accountability. Anything longer, and you should be hiring the permanent CIO, not extending us.
Three to five, depending on the situation and the size of the IT function. Crisis or integration mandates start at five and taper. Successor-gap mandates often run at four. The team has to know we're there.
No. We don't take permanent roles with clients. It biases the work. The agreement is for an interim mandate with a clean exit.
Standard NDA, plus the operating discipline of a CIO who's done IT due diligence on multiple acquisitions. We're used to working in shareholder-driven and PE-style governance models where information control is a real constraint.
Day rate, fixed for the duration. We share it after the intake. The day rate is irrelevant if the mandate isn't right for us. That's the conversation we want to have first.
Leave knowing whether an interim CIO is the right answer, or whether something cheaper is.