Fractional Partnership Director
Senior capability inside your leadership team. One to two days a week. Shared accountability.
The Problem
You need senior partnership capability. You can’t justify a full-time hire.
Most ventures between Seed and Series B reach a moment where partnerships start to determine outcomes; channel relationships, institutional sponsors, technology integrations, ecosystem allies. The work is too important for a junior BD hire and too inconsistent to justify a full-time Director. The result, usually, is that the founder absorbs it on top of everything else, the work degrades, and the partnerships under-perform.
A fractional retainer fixes that without the overhead of a full-time hire. I sit inside your leadership team one to two days per week, not as a consultant who delivers a report and leaves, but as a part-time executive who shares accountability for the outcome.
What It Looks Like In Practice
I run the partnership function
- I attend your partner meetings, usually as the senior voice in the room.
- I chair your partnership operating committees and lead the governance with named partners.
- I sit in your weekly leadership meeting so partnerships are not a separate workstream, they are part of how the business runs.
- I write the partnership section of your board pack, every cycle.
- I bring the Fab Campaigns frameworks, Stage Gate, FabCube, Five Principles, and apply them to your live cases.
- I share accountability for the partnership metrics agreed at the start of the engagement.
How It Works
Embedded from week one, scoped from quarter one
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Discovery · two conversations
One conversation about whether this is a fit at all. A second, longer one to scope what the first quarter looks like. Both at no charge.
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First two weeks · immersion
I read the deck, talk to your top three customers and your top three partners, and produce a one-page partnership map you can challenge.
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Quarter one · install the operating model
Governance rhythm, metrics, partner-by-partner plans. End of quarter we review whether the retainer should continue, expand or close.
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Quarter two onwards · run it
The engagement settles into a rhythm. You decide whether to grow capacity, hold it, or, when the function is mature enough to hand over, taper it.
What I Will And Will Not Do
The retainer is senior, not infinite
I will
Own partnership strategy, lead the governance, sit in your leadership meeting, write the board section, manage the relationships I am best placed to manage personally, and bring my network where there is overlap.
I will not
Be a full-time substitute, run a partnership team of five, do junior BD outreach, write your CRM, or absorb workstreams that belong elsewhere. The retainer works because it is bounded.
Investment
From £6,500 per month
Monthly retainer, three-month minimum, thirty days’ notice after that. Travel beyond Winchester / M25 charged at cost. Framework licensing for one team included for the duration of the engagement.
Looking for less commitment? The Advisory Board Member role gives you one day per month of board-level partnership counsel from £2,000/month, useful when you need senior judgement without operational involvement.
If this sounds like what you’re looking for
I take on a small number of fractional engagements at any time, typically three to four. The first conversation costs nothing and is the only way to find out if there is a fit.
