Fractional CTO & Strategic Advisor · Ryedale & North Yorkshire

When a decision is sitting heavily and you need a second pair of eyes.

Running a small business means making real decisions with real consequences, often without anyone senior to think alongside. Sometimes the decision is strategic. Sometimes it hinges on a contract, a quote, a licensing clause, or a piece of equipment you cannot properly assess alone. Either way, getting it wrong is costly.

Some businesses call this a fractional CTO. Others call it a strategic advisor. Most just call it useful.

Get in touch Free first session ↓

What this is

A second pair of eyes on the decisions that matter.

Most significant business decisions need two things: careful work with the detail, and clear thinking about what it means. Reading the contract properly. Checking the numbers. Spotting the fault. Then stepping back and asking whether the direction itself is right. Small business owners rarely have the bandwidth, or the relevant experience, to do both well, on top of running the business.

That is the gap I fill. I bring twenty years of experience across technology, operations and business strategy to whatever you are wrestling with. I will read the documentation, work through the figures, ask hard questions, and offer an honest view. You leave with a concrete next move, with the reasoning behind it.

A good second pair of eyes does not just help you see. It spots what you have stopped noticing.

The kinds of things I am regularly asked to look at:

Case studies

What this looks like in practice.

Three real situations. Details have been kept brief to protect confidentiality, but nothing has been changed.

Web hosting · Reputational risk avoided

The web hosting company said it would be fine. The numbers disagreed.

A client was preparing for a national event, the largest traffic their website had ever faced. The web hosting company had signed off the infrastructure. A few rough calculations on a scrap of paper told a different story: the numbers were off by orders of magnitude.

We had days, not weeks. Working quickly, we rebuilt the hosting setup from the ground up before the day arrived. Hundreds of thousands of visitors. The website stayed online throughout.

That client later introduced us to their parent company.

Licensing · £70,000 saved

An £80k licensing bill the board had never budgeted for.

The team had been running without senior technical oversight, doing their best. A licensing review arrived with an £80k uplift. The board were in disbelief: growth had been healthy, but nothing close to the scale the new bill implied.

The documentation did not make a big deal of it, but an alternative approach to using the software was there in the licensing terms. A few hours of careful reading changed the picture entirely.

The uplift dropped from £80,000 to just under £10,000.

Capital equipment · £40,000 loss prevented

Critical equipment, under budget, with a fault that would have ended it.

A business needed to replace critical equipment urgently. New was out of reach; second-hand at £25,000 was the only option that kept the books balanced. The seller's kit looked tidy on the surface. The homework said otherwise.

I went through the most common faults on that equipment, the most expensive fixes, the subtle signs to look for. One of the signs was there. A purchase made that day would likely have failed within the year, with parts and labour somewhere around £40,000 on top of the £25,000 already spent. The business would not have survived that.

Delaying the purchase kept the business running. A second pair of eyes, £40,000 saved.

Most of these decisions were made in London, where the businesses were larger and the rooms more crowded. I am in Ryedale now, and the work has changed shape. The numbers are usually smaller. The stakes, for the owner personally, are usually higher. The skill is the same: notice what others have stopped noticing, and help the right call get made.

How it works

One session. One clear next step.

  1. 1.
    Bring what is present

    You do not need to prepare. We start with whatever feels most loaded. If there are contracts, quotes, figures or documentation relevant to the decision, send them over in advance or bring them with you.

  2. 2.
    I do the detail work

    Where useful, I will read the contract properly, work through the figures, check the specification, interrogate the quote. The quiet work that changes the answer.

  3. 3.
    We look at the whole picture together

    What is actually going on. What is and is not in your control. What is really at stake. I will offer my read, push back where needed, and surface the things that have been hiding in plain sight.

  4. 4.
    We land on a clear next move

    A concrete recommendation, a course of action, a decision made. Not left open. Something you can act on, with the reasoning behind it.

In person near Pickering, or by phone. Usually available within a few days.

Who it is for

You built something real. The decisions have got bigger.

This tends to be most useful for small business owners in Ryedale and North Yorkshire who are making decisions that carry real weight, without the senior technical or strategic resource that larger organisations take for granted. The kinds of decisions where getting it wrong is expensive, and where a second pair of experienced eyes would change the outcome.

About

Twenty years of decisions that mattered.

I have spent twenty years working across technology, operations and business strategy, from small independent teams to complex multi-site organisations. I have built and run technical infrastructure, led engineering teams, overseen significant procurement decisions, and worked alongside boards on the kind of calls that do not have obvious right answers.

I live and work near Pickering. I understand what it means to run something in Ryedale: the isolation, the absence of good local support, the way advice from someone who does not know the landscape tends to miss the point.

I am not a consultant with a framework to sell. I bring experience, a clear eye, and an honest view. I will not make things more complicated than they need to be, and I will always tell you when I think you are already on the right track.

Free first session

If something is on your plate, bring it.

The first session is free, with no obligation beyond the hour. You bring the decision that is sitting most heavily. I bring the experience and the care to look at it properly. We land on a concrete next move together.

This is not a sales call. I am not going to spend the hour pitching. If the session is useful and you want to work together beyond it, we can talk about that then.

First session: free · One hour · In person near Pickering or by phone Get in touch to book