Commercial Growth
Taking commercial load off a founder without hiring a director
One day a week of senior commercial leadership: pricing, margin and new business given structure, owners and a reporting rhythm.
Fractional leadership
A commercial director, one day a week.
Senior commercial leadership inside your business on a fractional basis: pricing, margin, pipeline and the decisions that sit behind them.
What does a fractional commercial director do?
A fractional commercial director takes responsibility for how a business makes money, part-time. That means commercial strategy, pricing and rate structure, margin and project profitability, forecasting, negotiation, pipeline discipline and the commercial information the leadership team uses to make decisions.
It is a leadership appointment rather than a consultancy project. The role sits in the management team, reports on the numbers it owns, and is accountable for the commercial result.
For most businesses between roughly £1m and £20m of revenue, that is a day a week of genuinely senior commercial input rather than a six-figure salary and the risk that comes with it.
What the role owns
- Commercial strategy and commercial models
- Pricing, rate cards and scoping discipline
- Margin, project and client profitability
- Budgeting, forecasting and cash visibility
- Pipeline, new business and pitch strategy
- Negotiation with clients and suppliers
- Commercial reporting to the board or founder
How the engagement runs
An initial three months, typically one day a week, is usually enough to establish the numbers, fix the obvious commercial leaks and set the reporting rhythm. After that the pattern is monthly leadership meetings, a standing commercial review and a small number of active workstreams.
The work happens with your team rather than around it. Nothing is delivered as a document to be interpreted later.
Questions founders ask
Fractional commercial director or full-time hire?
A permanent commercial director makes sense when there is enough commercial complexity to occupy one every day and the business can carry the salary comfortably. Below that point a fractional appointment gives you the same seniority at a fraction of the cost, and usually makes the eventual permanent hire more successful because the role, the reporting and the expectations already exist.
How is this different from a non-executive director?
A non-executive director governs and advises from outside the operation. A fractional commercial director works inside it: doing the commercial work, not only overseeing it.
How quickly does it show?
Pricing, scoping and margin decisions tend to move first because they change what happens in the next quotation rather than the next financial year. Structural changes to pipeline, forecasting and accountability take longer to bed in.
Related work
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Commercial performance and organisational health reinforce one another. It is the philosophy that runs through everything ANDvisory does. Read why →
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Senior commercial leadership inside the business, without another full-time director.