Fractional fills the gap while you keep hiring. Removes the urgency to settle. Ships production AI in the meantime, so the next exec inherits a system, not a backlog.
The role has been open 45, 90, sometimes 120 days. Your recruiter is grinding cold pipeline. The shortlists keep coming back the same way: senior candidates who pass the bar are already running AI orgs and are not looking. Candidates who are looking either do not have shipped-production credit, or they want a title and comp bump above what the board is ready to underwrite.
Every week the role stays open, the board asks the same question. Every week, the answer is the same deck. The team needing AI cover does not get it. Quarter slips. Plan slips. The candidate you would actually hire still has not surfaced.
This is not a hiring failure. It is a market condition.
They are not on the market. They are not opening recruiter InMails. The traditional executive pipeline misses them entirely.
The candidates who pass the technical bar are pricing themselves against AI-native comp bands. The board approved last year's number.
Every quarter without an exec is a quarter you are defending a search, not defending a portfolio. The pressure compounds.
The shape of AI leadership has shifted twice since the JD was written. Sometimes the candidate gap is a spec gap.
The gap itself is the cost. Every quarter without an AI exec is a quarter the board asks "what is our AI plan" and gets a slide deck instead of a shipped system. The team that needs AI cover stays uncovered. The shortlist for the role keeps coming back the same. Pressure builds to settle on a candidate who does not pass the bar.
Fractional bridges the gap without competing with the search. The job here is to ship production AI now, defend the AI portfolio to the board, and hand off cleanly the day the full-time exec signs. I work the search with your recruiter, write the next version of the JD against what we learn together, and step out when the right person lands.
The point of the bridge is to remove the urgency to settle. When the role is no longer on fire, the hire gets better.
Industry benchmarks put the fully-loaded cost of a failed senior tech exec hire at roughly 2 to 3 times annual comp. Search, onboarding, opportunity cost on the work that did not ship, severance, and re-search. For a Director or VP of AI at mid-market comp bands, that is a high-six-figure to seven-figure mistake.
Six-month ramp before they ship. Risk of exit around month 14 when the spec mismatch becomes obvious. Industry benchmarks for a failed senior tech exec hire run roughly 2 to 3 times annual fully-loaded comp. The wrong-hire scenario costs multiples of the salary, conservatively.
Six months of fractional costs a fraction of a full-time hire. Buys you time to hire right, or time to discover the function you are hiring for has shifted. Either outcome is cheaper than a settled hire that exits 14 months in.
These are ranges, not promises. The point is the order of magnitude. The fractional bridge is roughly one-tenth the cost of a wrong hire, and you keep the search running the whole time.
Director-altitude work, not advisory. The artifacts compound for the next exec, not for me.
A real portfolio, classified Now / Next / Later, defensible against board pressure. The "what is our AI plan" question gets a real answer.
Not a prototype, not a deck. A use case in production with an eval bar, used by the team, defended to the board.
What the JD should say based on what we learned. Sometimes the right next hire is two ICs and a contractor, not one Director.
The next exec inherits a vendor stack, contract terms, eval data, and the reasoning. Not a blank slate and a procurement backlog.
Eval suites, prompt regression tests, safety reviews. The org learns what "good" looks like before the full-time exec walks in.
A bridge is built differently than a full-time role. Cadence and exit terms are designed for that.
Quoted in writing within 48 hours of the discovery call. Day mix scopes against board cadence, exec-staff meeting load, and the first 90-day shipping target.
Every engagement carries the 14-day mutual exit umbrella. After month 3 either party can exit with 30 days notice. Days not worked are refunded. The bridge ends clean.
Hand-off is built in from day 1. Documented portfolio, documented decisions, documented standards. The full-time exec inherits a system, not a backlog.
JD review, panel interview support, evaluation rubrics, reference calls. Everything I learn in the seat informs who we hire into it.
No. The opposite. I work the search with you, help write the JD against what we learn together, and hand off cleanly when the right exec signs. Most fractional engagements end inside 9 months when the full-time hire lands.
Then we ramp down. The 14-day mutual exit guarantee applies on day 1 of every engagement. After month 3 either party can exit with 30 days notice. Days not worked are refunded. The goal is to make your AI exec successful from week one, not to extend the bridge.
Strategy consultants write the deck and leave the org chart with a hole. Fractional fills the hole. I sit in the exec staff, own the AI portfolio defense to the board, ship one production AI use case in the first 90 days, and hand the keys to the full-time hire. Compare on the /vs/ai-strategy-consultant/ page if useful.
That happens. Half the time the AI role spec posted in 2024 is the wrong spec for 2026. One artifact of a fractional engagement is a redesigned role description based on what we learn together. Sometimes the right next hire is two ICs and a contractor, not one Director.
Two paths in. Score your AI portfolio first if you want to see the work before talking. Or book 30 minutes with Edwin and quote the bridge against your search.
Capacity: I hold ~4 active client commitments across Fractional, Audit, and Scoped Build. Mix depends on what is already booked.