Fractional COO & Chief of Staff
Senior operating leadership for founders who need the company to run without them holding it together.
The company has outgrown the way it is being run.
Most companies do not arrive here through a failure. They arrive through success. The team grew, the customer base got more complicated, and the informal coordination that worked at fifteen people quietly stopped working at forty. Nobody decided to stop being organised; the organisation simply outgrew the method.
What is needed at that point is senior operating leadership, without the business having to commit to a permanent executive seat before it can properly describe one. Sometimes that means owning the company's operating system. Sometimes it means owning the layer immediately around the founder. Often it starts as one and becomes the other.
It is a role rather than a review. The measure is whether the company is easier to run at the end of it.
What this role gets hired to fix
Most engagements start with two or three of these. They tend to arrive together, because they share a cause.
The founder is the system
Decisions, exceptions, and context all route through one person. Work pauses when they are unavailable, and growth is limited by their attention rather than by the market.
Ownership is unclear
Several people feel responsible for an outcome and nobody is accountable for it. Issues get raised repeatedly in different rooms without ever being resolved.
Meetings produce motion, not decisions
The leadership team meets often and leaves without owners or dates. Follow-through depends on who remembers, which means it depends on the founder.
Work slips between functions
Sales commits to something delivery cannot see. Product decisions wait on an informal conversation. The hand-offs are where the time goes.
Strategic projects stall
The initiatives that matter most have no single person driving them day to day, so they move only when the founder personally pushes.
Nobody can see the operating picture
Leaders cannot quickly answer what is active, what is blocked, what is late, and what needs a decision this week.
One engagement, two shapes
COO and Chief of Staff are different mandates rather than different seniorities. A COO carries their own authority and changes how the company runs. A Chief of Staff works on the executive's authority and changes what reaches them and what happens next.
The right shape follows the binding constraint. If the company's operating system is the problem, it is a COO mandate. If the founder's own week is the problem, it is a Chief of Staff mandate. Engagements often start in one shape and move towards the other as the constraint shifts.
| COO shape | Chief of Staff shape | |
|---|---|---|
| Binding constraint | The company's operating system | The executive's attention |
| Operates on | Their own mandate | The executive's authority |
| Owns | Cadence, accountability, delivery | Priorities, synthesis, follow-through |
| Works with | The whole leadership team | Primarily the founder or CEO |
| Signal it is working | The company holds without escalation | The founder is visibly less scattered |
| Typical trigger | Functions colliding at 30 to 50 people | Coordination outgrowing one person |
How an engagement actually runs
A typical engagement moves through four stages, whichever shape it takes. The pace depends on the business, but the sequence rarely changes.
- 01 · Diagnose
Spend the first few weeks inside the business rather than in workshops. Sit in the existing meetings, follow real work through its hand-offs, and find where decisions actually get made and where the founder's week is going.
Typical output- Current-state operating map
- The binding constraint, named
- Decision and escalation audit
- An agreed shape for the engagement
- A prioritised list, not a strategy document
- 02 · Establish the cadence
Put in the smallest rhythm that produces decisions: a weekly operating review, monthly planning that subtracts as well as adds, and a quarterly look at the system itself. Change what reaches the executive and in what form.
Typical output- Leadership operating rhythm
- Written decision rights
- Visible decision and action record
- Synthesised inputs ahead of decisions
- Clear escalation path
- 03 · Own the outcomes
Here the operating mandate becomes visible. Critical initiatives get a single owner, and where that owner should be the fractional executive, it is. The work carries through implementation.
Typical output- Named owners on every critical initiative
- Cross-functional hand-offs redesigned
- Operating reporting leaders actually use
- Management reporting and decision-ready operating information
- Direct support for the leadership team
- 04 · Hand over
The engagement should be working towards its own end. Capability moves to the permanent team, decision authority moves down, and what remains is documented well enough to survive the handover.
Typical output- Operating model documented
- Leaders running their own cadence
- Fewer default escalations
- A defined brief if a permanent hire follows
- Reduced dependence on the operator
A good engagement makes itself smaller over time. If the business is more dependent on the operator in month nine than in month three, something has gone wrong.
Retainer, project, or hourly
This is ongoing senior involvement rather than a project, so it is usually structured as a monthly retainer with an agreed number of days. Some engagements start as a defined piece of operating work and become a retainer once the constraint is clear; others run alongside a specific initiative and end when it lands.
Whatever the shape, the cadence, decision rights, and review point are agreed upfront. A fractional executive without decision rights is an expensive observer.
Engagement Model
Engagements are shaped around the work, not a fixed format. Defined projects set deliverables, dependencies, acceptance criteria, and an end point. Hourly support suits bounded advice or execution. Ongoing retainers set available capacity, priorities, decision rights, cadence, and a review point.
Scope and continuation are reviewed each quarter, so the engagement can flex as the operating need changes rather than drifting on unchanged.
If this is not quite the fit
Founder Advisory & Strategic Projects
For businesses earlier than a fractional executive suits, or where the need is one specific question rather than ongoing ownership.
Operating Model & Scale Readiness
A defined piece of operating design ahead of a specific milestone is a project with an end date, not a role.
Further reading.
Chief of Staff vs COO: Which Role Does Your Startup Need?
Understand the difference between a Chief of Staff and COO, and choose the operating role that best matches your startup's constraint.
Founder Bottleneck Diagnostic: Is Your Startup Too Dependent on You?
For founders who suspect their attention, context, and decision-making have become the limit on growth.
What Does a Fractional COO Cost in Australia?
How to evaluate the cost and commercial value of fractional COO support for an Australian startup or scaleup.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a fractional COO and a Chief of Staff?
A COO carries their own mandate for how the company runs, usually across functions and often with direct reports. A Chief of Staff works on the executive's authority to create leverage around them, owning rhythm, synthesis, and follow-through. Same seniority, different mandate.
Which shape does my business need?
Follow the binding constraint. A problem in the company's operating system points to a COO mandate; a problem in the founder's own week points to a Chief of Staff mandate. Where it is genuinely unclear, the first few weeks of an engagement usually settle it.
How many days a month does this take?
It depends on the mandate. Establishing an operating cadence and owning cross-functional delivery typically needs meaningful weekly presence; a narrower remit can run on less. The number should follow the work rather than being set first.
How is this different from advisory support?
This is an operating role with a defined mandate. The fractional executive owns agreed initiatives, runs the required cadence, and stays through implementation alongside the leadership team.
How long does an engagement run?
Long enough for the operating system to hold without constant intervention, which for most companies is two to four quarters. Scope is reviewed each quarter so the shape of the engagement keeps matching the need.
What happens at the end?
The operating model is documented, leaders are running their own cadence, and if a permanent hire is the right next step the business can now write a precise brief for it. The aim is a clean handover, not an indefinite dependency.
Start with what is getting in the way.
If growth is making the business harder to run rather than more capable, that is the place to start. The first conversation is about the constraint, not about scope or rates.
I aim to respond within two business days.