The FODcast

RE-RUN: Fractional Leadership: Luxury or Necessity in Today's Digital Transformation?

• Tim Roedel and James Hodges

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As we continue our brief pause before the launch of Season 7, we're rewinding ever so slightly to bring you our most downloaded episode of all time!

This episode, recorded in September of last year, explores the fascinating rise of fractional hiring in digital commerce with guest Adrian Wakefield, co-founder of Digital Wow Group, who has over 35 years of experience in technology and digital transformations.

Adrian provides compelling insights into why businesses - especially in the mid-market - are increasingly turning to fractional C-level executives. Unlike traditional contracting, fractional leadership offers specialised expertise at critical junctures, making it a flexible and cost-effective solution. As Adrian puts it, "My definition of fractional is making yourself available at the point it's needed.”

In this episode, we explore how organisations can adapt their structures to accommodate fractional leadership, addressing challenges around line management while maximising the value of functional expertise.

Adrian also argues that fractional hiring represents a fundamental shift in how organisations access talent - a trend that will continue to reshape executive talent acquisition in digital commerce, even as economic conditions improve.

Whether you're considering fractional leadership for your business or exploring it as a career path, this episode is a must-listen for valuable perspectives on this growing trend.




Simply Commerce is the leading supplier of talent into digital commerce across technology, digital marketing, product, sales, and leadership.

Find our more about our approach and our services within digital commerce recruitment here: https://simply-commerce.co.uk/




Speaker 1:

Welcome to the latest series of the Fodcast, where we bring you the latest insights into the future of digital commerce. In season six, we continue to interview some of the most respected professionals in the industry as we broaden the topics to cover what it takes to build a business within e-commerce, navigating through business change, as well as the future of technology within digital commerce. As we continue our journey to have one of the best podcasts within commerce, we ask you to like and share within your network if you enjoy our content.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the podcast. This is the second in a series of three podcast shorts where we're looking at the increasing rise of fractional hiring, fractional hiring being C-level. We're looking at CEOs, ctos, coos, cmos, but specifically within digital commerce and digital transformation and how we, over the course of this year particularly, have seen that demand increase. We've seen that demand increase at Simply Commerce, both through our clients asking for fractional hires to deliver strategy for key projects and for candidates coming to the table and asking more regularly to take a day a week, two days a week, rather than a full-time contract gig. So today we have Adrian Wakefield, who is kindly joining us for the second in this series of three. Who is kindly joining us for the second in this series of three Adrian, co-founder of Digital Wow Group, with over 35 years experience delivering technology and digital transformations. Adrian, I'm going to hand over to you to give me a more coherent and succinct overview of your background, if you would be so kind.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, thanks very much for that, tim, and really nice to be here. My career has been fairly extended and, as you're reminding me, I've got fair depth of experience. I started life in technical businesses and manufacturing in operations, was lucky enough quotation marks to get involved in technology in the late 90s and transitioned through the early 2000s to IT leadership and ended up as the CIO of a global technology organization, board member, et cetera, et cetera. That was proper mid-market, you know. It was thousands of people and hundreds of millions of turnover and a really, really interesting organization Equity involvement, customer experience, really broad portfolio. That got me involved in strategy consulting. As is always the way all good things come to an end.

Speaker 3:

I left that organization on what you call a good lever about eight years ago and was wondering what it was that I was going to be doing. Moved into the world of operating model and technology transformation, particularly focused around organizational design for tech companies and tech functions, played some, I hope, instrumental roles in some quite significant transformation projects there I hope instrumental roles in some quite significant transformation projects there but started looking at and getting involved in a number of different things. So over the course of that time my career transitioned into what I think you would call portfolio and applying a fractional lens to a number of things. So I myself am definitely a fractional stroke portfolio consultant, stroke CXO, and these days, along with my business partner, dave Jones, we run Digital Whale Group. We provide fractional resourcing for technology based assignments right either through consulting and advisory reps or occasionally through roles as such, and we are certainly seeing an uptick there as well, tim. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of an intro to myself and why I'm here today.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much. It's far better than I could ever done.

Speaker 2:

But, yeah, it's good to understand that, because what I really want to try and get to grips with in our conversation is why we're seeing this increase, because it is different to contracting and it isn't something that we have seen such a big demand for. I've been doing this for 20 years and this is relatively new in my view. Obviously, there's this, my understanding and the understanding of the team out there is. It revolves around a lot around flexibility, cost effectiveness, cost effectiveness and access to specialized skills. But I want to dig a little bit deeper, really, and just kind of understand from your point of view that it is becoming more prevalent and more companies are adopting and accepting that they're going to have someone on a fractional basis rather than a full-time.

Speaker 3:

Well, I think your summary is a good one, right, in terms of the big reasons for it, but I think there's potentially a fourth piece, which is a general move in terms of working patterns and an understanding that there are new models available to people. Right, so, as with all, things are a little bit new or a little bit different. Right, they can take a bit of time. Right to for people to become aware or to learn about them. Right, we've had experiences recently where we placed some senior people in a large charity and the chief operating officer in that charity said I don't know why all people don't operate all, see, all charities aren't operating at the senior level in this way. Clearly, that was driven by two real factors affordability, right, ie getting real experience, real high level capability right, but packaged in a way that doesn't incur full-time, full week costs. So that's one. And then also the access to that specific capability and the skills. So for that organization, this was a new thing, they hadn't heard about it, they weren't aware. So I really do think that we are on an upward curve, just in terms of awareness, and I think that's a factor as much as the other three things as well. So why do we think the growth is happening in fractional?

Speaker 3:

I think there is also a dynamic about the increasing understanding of the need for organisational change and transition. Okay, not just as a one and done kind of you know big, we've transitioned kind of project, but actually as an ongoing capability, with organizations embracing, you know, portfolio management, roadmaps etc. Real the need to be continually transforming, and that in its own right will also be driving the need for specialist skills from time to time for discrete pieces of work. So I think those two things on top of the, the, the three things that you've kind of suggested, would also be, um, driving perhaps this uptick that you, you suggest we're seeing tim and without going into too much detail, the charity you mentioned, they were doing a digital transformation um, they are recognizing that, um, there are some changing environments right around them, right, and they have a need to be doing some fairly significant digital and data transformation work.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2:

the reason ask is do you think that the is the complexities around digital transformation and a lot of what we see is composable, headless and microservices based digital commerce platform transformations? Do you think the this really revolves around those complexities, or is there a wider issue that's causing or increasing the demand for fractional hiring.

Speaker 3:

Well, I'd come back to the point I made about socioeconomic right. Right now in the UK, you know, whilst we are growing, there are certainly what you might call trade headwinds. Right, those trade headwinds are driving people. Also, to look at one of the points you raised, which was cost effectiveness right, people are recognizing that need. So I don't think it's just about complexity. I think it's a combination of of factors that are coming together right. If you were to take a typical you you know marketing approach to things and do a bit of a pestle type analysis, right. Then your political, economic, social technology, et cetera, I think it's that lens that you can apply to this that is driving right the uptick in fractional, so not just complexity.

Speaker 2:

On digital transformation, Okay, what do you think if you had to pick one, the main driver?

Speaker 3:

Oh, that's a really, really hard question, right? I think, tim, that the main driver is access to the right people and skills in a way that is easily digestible for organizations. Okay, so I'm hedging my bets there.

Speaker 2:

I've combined two into one statement for you, I mentioned it, but hey, we'll let it go. No, no, fine, okay, okay, yeah so that lends itself to mid-market, doesn't it Well?

Speaker 3:

I think you make a really, really good point. It definitely is being seen as quite attractive. We focus, as an organisation, digital Wow on the mid-market, and that is where we are seeing oh, this is an interesting way of us understanding how we can consume technology Right. When people are aware of that, or more aware of that, then they're starting to understand well, this is this is driving us in terms of, hey, we can get people in skills that we've not had access to before, right or not been able to afford, and we can do that in a way that is digestible for us forward, and we can do that in a way that is digestible for us. We can get some continuity right. So I absolutely think that, uh, that that scale has some impact on where this uptick is is happening.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and then, if we're looking at the organizationalational structure, how are these businesses having to adapt their organisational structures if they're making use of fractional hiring? Because, if you look at it from a practical point of view, not having access to someone with such a huge input on a digital transformation and not having access in 24-7 could be quite restrictive. So does that impact the organizational structures around them?

Speaker 3:

well, interesting, I'm actually going to come play back um a slightly different point and then we'll come back to your question, right, because I think what you've just undertook is one of the things in terms of my definition of fractional. Right, my definition of fractional is making yourself available at the point it's needed. It's not monday morning, wednesday afternoon and friday season when I'm working. Okay, I think it at this level, when you're talking about senior people, it's people who are prepared to be able to balance right across the week, to be able to play a part in the critical interventions and the critical meetings and and the critical needs right, and balance a portfolio of activities. So what I believe is that people are buying a a block of time, but real fractionals, right, really play in a slightly different way, right, and that is one of the significant differences for me. That helps high level capability, balance across people and deliver to the right points as well.

Speaker 3:

So that's that's what that, I think, is an interesting area to to dig into, right. You know we have seen what you would regard as part-time contracts for a long time. Yeah, I think that's very different from a fractional who is making themselves available for two days a week or two and a half days a week to operate at the highest levels of the organization right, and they are working evenings, mornings. Whatever they're doing right, they're doing it based on the outcomes they're trying to deliver right and not based on the time that's being put into that. But clearly there is a there's there's a degree of using time-based assessments to at least let people understand the scale of what it is now paying for yeah, and actually that's something that that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 2:

I hadn't really taken into account is the delineation between part-time contract and fractional uh, which is, I mean, effectively making yourself available when required, because that's kind of what those, those businesses, are going to need. But have you seen that? Either seen other fractional uh hires or experienced working with fractional hires when you were presumably hiring who have not taken that approach?

Speaker 3:

um I? I think that when, when we talk to people, right, um, there's a bit of a red flag in terms of the first conversation, right, that I might have with somebody. If somebody is talking to us saying they are looking for their next contract, then that immediately tells me they're not yet ready or they haven't thought enough about what it actually means to be operating in this way. If we're talking about the seniors right, you know people who have executive c-level experience, right, who experience of leading and managing you know large organizations, complex transformations. They have been operating in that way for many years anyway, they've been making themselves available to deliver outcomes, right.

Speaker 3:

So I think that there's a piece about people not necessarily being ready to understand what that actually means, right, the the very nature of operating as a senior exec and spinning multiple plates right, and being able to pivot very quickly from different contexts to different contexts to different contexts and still be able to add value is one of the prerequisites for helping people get ready to move into this space. So there's a bit of a red flag around that, right, I think. In terms of um, I just want to make sure we don't forget that question about organizations around um around. Um, if you like, the, the sort of seniors and stuff. So ready to come back to that one as well. Tim, when you like yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean if I look at the shape of the organization and the structure executive leadership of C-Level I just wonder if you're implementing fractional in that, if it just if, if it impacts the organizational structure structure at all in your experience?

Speaker 3:

Well, clearly we need to bring in legislation and look at, you know, guidelines in terms of things like inside and outside IR35, right, and that needs to be navigated fairly carefully. But if you are looking at genuine organisational transformation right, and the roles are primarily about making a change for the organization, right, then then it can take on board the line management responsibilities to be able to support those directly. But it is introducing new management models, right, particularly around things like direct line management of staff. You will probably know yourself, tim, that you know one needs to be careful around the areas of if a fractional interim has the final say on recruitment or the final say on disciplinary or grievance matters. Those are things that would shift the role structure to inside IR35, right.

Speaker 3:

So I think many of the people that are operating at the top level, right, are running their own portfolio businesses and companies right. They may not just be doing fractional work. They may be doing some advisory or network. They may be working with startups and or scale-ups right, they may be working across what you would call a portfolio-type career, or they may be lifestyling, which says I really, really I'm very happy to work at pace for two, you know, the equivalent of two days a week, but I don't want to do any more, right? So, yes, there are some organizational challenges.

Speaker 3:

So, yes, there are some organisational challenges. So, for instance, you might see chief of staff type roles who are taking accountability for the operational management of people and you know the ins and outs and all the rest of it but working very, very closely with the fractional who's providing the functional leadership. So there are some subtle structural changes that need to be carefully thought about and worked through, but they are navigable if you've got an engaged business who's prepared to listen and is prepared to work with you, and we've had some very good examples of that recently. I won't name names, but most people can tend to know one or two of our fairly big-name clients. But on that basis, if an organization wants to make this work, then they will look at all of the angles of their operating model to make it work right.

Speaker 3:

And that includes organizational design. It includes reward and incentivization right. It includes structure, it includes roles. So those things are having to be adapted not wholesale changed, but they are definitely being adapted. So I wouldn't regard it as this is fundamentally altering things, but I would say that it is making people think about how can we balance all of the constraints and opportunities that are placed on an organization through, you know, the opportunity for fractional type working.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, and does that also. So what I'm taking from that is, effectively the organisation has to be bought in to the adaptation for fractional what that requires, and really you're kind of uh, providing that management to the uh full-time executive leadership to then make decisions and apply their decisions downwards to the team effectively um, yeah, not necessarily the decisioning and the direction and things.

Speaker 3:

Functional leadership, no, that can come from those people, right, so that that's a direct piece. It's much more around the management of the, the resourcing and hr management and so on and so forth. Right, so that is the area. It's not about leadership. It's not about direction, right, it's not about being able to make decisions in terms of where, where should we go, what should we do?

Speaker 3:

So I use the word functional leadership, right, leading of the function? That's not the challenge. The challenge is around, actually, are they managing the people matters? Right? Managing performance. So, ultimate accountability for performance, ultimate accountability for grievance and all those kinds of things. That's where organizations need to carefully navigate to ensure that they are compliant. Right, so that's what I meant by the different forces. Organizations obviously need to look at this in the round. But the key point you made is, like any change and transformation, it needs to be managed and there needs to be buy-in. If there's a will to make this work, then there are ways of making it work. But that's true of all change and transformation the better the buy-in, the better the engagement, particularly from the senior leadership groups. Okay, right, the better the chance you've got of success.

Speaker 2:

And that kind of goes into the next question I was going to ask around the, the cultural change, because quite often, uh, we see some of the digital transformation programs struggle because not everyone is bought in and there has to be a mindset shift, um, change in the culture and and the the people in the business need to be a mindset shift, change in the culture and the people in the business need to be comfortable with the adoption of what they're doing. And does that then also play into the role of a fractional I don't think that is Of course.

Speaker 3:

If the objectives of a fractional leader are about driving transformation and change, then of course that will play in, but I don't think that's exclusive to fractional leadership, right, that is true, I think, of any change and transformation leadership right now, that that's, that's effectively, that's a, that's a maxim associated with effective change delivery. Um, so I don't think that's specifically about this, but what I do think is really important, right is um, is that when you look at the words authority, right, authority means two things. Right authority means legitimate power, right, ie, yeah, I'm in control, this is my job. That that, that is that's the line management. That's the driving piece. Right, that's one meaning. The other meaning of authority is somebody who is knowledgeable and authority on right and expert in and if you bring in clear expertise and capability, right, that gets people looking around saying these people really know what they're talking about, they really are bringing experience and new thinking that we hadn't seen before. That is one way of driving buy-in and engagement. Yes, it needs to be delivered through effective interpersonal skills, stakeholder management, engagement, communication, etc. But actually the skills piece and I will again, I'll make a quote we've never had anybody like you before. There's a quote we had recently from a cxo right to somebody that we're working with who's come from a very, very senior you know exec role in terms of a large-scale global organization into that mid-market space and they're saying, well, that's not really a surprise, because you've not been able to afford or, you know, get those skills packaged up in a way that you could access before.

Speaker 3:

So, um, so I think the there's a few things there that are not specific about fractional right around change and transformation. There's the piece that we talked about earlier, which is that businesses are recognizing the need around change and transformation. There's the piece that we talked about earlier, which is that businesses are recognizing the need for change and transformation. But I think you know what we're. We're kind of tipping into the question what makes an effective fractional leader or effective fractional interim? Yeah, well, the same things, things that make an effective permanent interim or effective leader. You know, vision, interpersonal skills, drive, ambition, deep experience, knowledge, strategic thinking, as well as, usually, real domain expertise, because that's one of the things that drives that authority piece. So we're into a slightly different question, I think there, tim.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think you're right. I think the domain expertise is super important and it's offset normally against the cost of the individual, normally against the the cost of the individual um. So my, my last question is, and if I give some context, if we look at where the market is like at the beginning, you said there's some headwinds, which I think is fair to say, and when there are headwinds, cash flow is tight, balance sheets shrink a bit and people, uh, or business owners, uh, c-level, want to spend slightly less, um, but normally want to get more, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, um. But that will change. That history tells us. That will change over time in terms of the market conditions. And so what's the future for fractional In a much better market, when there is freer cash flow and balance sheets are stronger, our company is going to go. Well, look, we'll just hire someone full-time on a high salary. Is this the new norm or is this a temporary position?

Speaker 3:

Well, again, very interesting question, right. Well, again, very interesting question, right? I don't think that that cost-based piece is a two-way piece necessarily. They may well look to bring in additional skills and capacity if there is the demand, but I think once sampled and once the cost base has been reduced, then it's gonna take a very brave CFO just to say I'm really happy to increase our cost base, right. So it's gotta be value driven, right? But if you reset mindsets and operating models around a new norm or at least a new way of working, why would you want to increase cost base unless there was a specific demand to do so on a case-by-case basis? So I don't think this is something that we will see move away.

Speaker 3:

I think there's another factor right that we haven't explored yet, which I think is really worth putting on the table, which is about who are the people that are driving and want to work fractionally, right, I think when we started this, you said for over 35 years of experience. But you know, um, there comes a point right where you and I know the demands of full-time executive leadership, right, in really scaled organizations, right, the demands of significant transformational leadership. They're very high on people, right. And also there are lots and lots of other factors that come into play, right. A lot of the people who want to operate in this way right, are people who their foremost motivation is not about money anymore. They've usually had pretty long and successful careers right. They've they've actually understood that they can work in a different way and that these opportunities are available to them. So I don't wish to be a stereotypical portfolio fractional individual, but I think a lot of people at a certain stage in their career right, where they have the financial freedoms and flexibility to be able to operate fractionally right, are choosing this because it offers them a different way of balancing lifestyles.

Speaker 3:

Side hustles there are many reasons why people might want to move into fractional right. It creates a significant opportunity for carers, for instance, right, who maybe would have been excluded and have got fantastic skills and abilities but there could be challenges in their personal life that means they want to operate in this way. Um, it could be that it suits them in terms of, you know, a focus on, on, as I say, a side hustle of some sort. Maybe they're starting to get involved in other things like I don't know property or rental or whatever else it is. That's, that's taking a bit of their time and this, this affords a different way of thinking.

Speaker 3:

So I, I, I my journey into this right has not been a. You know, I plan to end up like this, right, I tend to work really hard just on what's immediately in front of me as so, as opposed to, I wanted to be fractional, I wanted to be portfolio. It's been an evolution right, and I absolutely would not go back one way, one iota from the position I find myself in, which is a really brilliant position to be able to have just lots of really, really good conversations with people, right, that aren't outcome focused, that have to be about getting a result in that conversation. So I think there's another piece about the social economics right, where there is a whole group of people now, right at certain points in their career, who are recognizing there is a potential different way of working available to them, right. So I think, whether we call it freelancing or fractional right, you know certain, certain industries digital media might call it freelancing because they've been thinking about it and working with it a little bit more.

Speaker 3:

When you come to the tech industry, we've really worked on firms and contracts for a while, right, but there is a new way. Yeah, I think that is here to stay, because a lot of people really like the ability to be able to move across multiple different organizations. Dipping in and out is a really poor trade, because it's not To actually be able to add value and to help different people at different stages and operate in a way that suits both them and a large portion of the market is really attractive. So I think it isn't just a. We will see a reverse. You might see some blips and jumps, but I think this is a trend which is set to continue and actually what you've said.

Speaker 2:

if, if you want the domain, the deep domain expertise or experience, it's going to come from people who have been doing this for 25, 30, 35 years and, like you say, if, from a almost purely from a lifestyle point of view, those people are only really wanting to do fractional, then it might not even be a choice for the end clients well, that's probably a little bit, you know, excuse me, probably a little bit minoring, right.

Speaker 3:

I mean, they've always got choices. Right, there will be people at different stages, right, it's about trade-offs right, there will be trade-offs in the, in the resourcing questions facing organisations. Right, everything has a trade-off right, and obviously there will be some downsides potentially to are we getting enough of that person? We need a bit more? Oh well, you can't have some more of it because, I'm sorry, I'm busy doing other A, b, c, d type things. So I think it's the trade-off question right, and I think that organisations, right, engaged, smart, forward-thinking organizations will be having proper discussions about the trade-offs and they'll be recognizing that actually there's a need to fill this role.

Speaker 3:

The best way of us fulfilling this now is fractional for a period of time, and it may be that we want to set it up permanently afterwards time, and it may be that we want to set it up permanently afterwards. That is not an uncommon thing putting in somebody fractionally to really shape it right, to get things moved and then actually leave the organization in a shape where it can then take on board a permanent role. So there's a. These things aren't mutually exclusive, right, there's a blend across all of them. Yeah, and that's a very common scenario for a really good fractional type role. We're not quite sure exactly what this needs to look like yet. Can you help us shape this and get it into a point where we can put exactly the right people into place and actually, potentially, can you help us recruit that person?

Speaker 2:

that is quite a common scenario okay, interesting, so it seems like it's here to stay then. Um, that's kind of where I'm at after our conversation.

Speaker 3:

Well, that's interesting, tim. I mean, obviously I didn't imagine that a number of years ago I'd find myself in the business of helping people solve technology challenges through providing people and consulting and advisory services. Through providing people and consulting and advisory services. Right, it's been a natural evolution, right, but I believe it's here to stay. So so, yes, I think fractional is a thing and it's definitely here to stay perfect.

Speaker 2:

Well, we shall end on that note. Thank you very much for your time. It's really appreciated.

Speaker 3:

It's been really insightful tim, it's been a real pleasure to meet you on this um. Good luck with it and thank you very much. And, as we say, you never know when you might be able to help each other, and I look forward to catching up with you again very soon.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely thank you very much.

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