Interim CTO · AI platform specialist · Senior technology leadership, on demand
The board owns technology risk now. You don't need a full-time CTO to carry it.
A full-time CTO costs six figures, plus equity, plus the bench they want to build — and much of the role is keeping aging systems running. An Interim CTO brings the senior judgment when you actually need it: technology direction, architecture, delivery and supplier risk, the AI platform built rather than bought, and reporting to your board in terms it can act on. No surprises, no jargon — and then a clean handover.
Before you sign a permanent contract — a 20-minute conversation. No obligation.
When I'm on the job
Your board asks harder technology questions now. You'll have the answers ready.
Technology risk sits with the board now, and it is moving fast. In Australia, APRA's CPS 230 names technology, data and change management risk explicitly — controls, tolerances and the supplier policy all land with the board. In the UK, 84% of firms now name one individual accountable for their AI.
That is a lot to carry, and most boards are still finding their feet on it. Directors are honest about that: in PwC's survey of around 700 of them, only 15% felt their board had the skills to oversee an AI strategy. It is a new discipline, not a failing — and it is fixable.
You will not be asked to become technologists. You get reporting you can interrogate, tolerances you can approve, a supplier position you can defend, and a clear grasp of the risk you are signing off. That is the part of the job I take off your desk — which is why the engagement runs calm rather than dramatic.
Teaching the board is part of the work, not an add-on. By the time I hand over, the people signing off understand what they are signing.
The person behind the role.
Twenty years of technology leadership across enterprise, public sector and tech. £5M technology budgets owned and cut by 70% in 40 days. A £1B enterprise programme delivered. Aging systems consolidated from 55 down to 15. I build systems the company owns outright, on its own data. That's not a CV line; it's what I'd be bringing to your boardroom.
What a good CTO actually does
Set the technology direction
Architecture, platforms and build-versus-buy calls made with the whole business in view — not just the next release. Decisions your board can sign off with confidence.
Own delivery and vendor risk
I run the programmes and manage the suppliers: scope, budgets, dependencies and the contracts behind them. Risks get surfaced early and handled, not hidden until go-live.
Leave a team that stands on its own
The engagement is designed to end. I hire, mentor and hand over until your people run technology without me — then stay on call for the odd day or board session.
And an AI platform specialist.
Most people offering interim CTO work can pick an AI vendor. I have built, and I run, a production AI platform of my own — private, on hardware the company owns, on the company's own data, with a model choice that is not locked to one supplier.
That changes what I can do for you. I can set AI strategy at board level and then actually build it, rather than handing the hard part to a systems integrator. For a regulated business the argument is simpler still: if the AI runs in your building, data residency stops being a risk to manage and becomes a property of the architecture.
It also makes the concentration question go away. APRA and ASIC name reliance on a small number of providers as a systemic vulnerability, and APRA's amendments to CPS 230 were driven by non-traditional providers — AI and cloud among them. A platform the company owns is a dependency removed rather than one to manage, which is one less line on the risk register.
A full-time hire, or the interim alternative?
Hire a CTO, you get one person. Bring in an Interim CTO, you get the decisions, the delivery and the handover — priced against the outcome.
The honest promise
Hired to make the role unnecessary.
A good technology leader who can't hand over cleanly isn't doing the job. The measure of an interim engagement is that you eventually need less of me, not more — a team that owns the roadmap and a board that understands the risk.
“You don't rent a CTO for a year. You bring in senior judgment for the decisions that matter — and keep me on call whenever you want me.”
The economics
Priced so the engagement pays for itself — then costs less every year.
The engagement
A day rate or a scoped retainer, matched to the decisions you need made — a straight swap against the cost of getting the technology calls wrong.
Years 2+
Once the work is done the cost drops away. What remains is optional: a day a month, a board session, a second opinion when it matters.
The value
A permanent salary you keep paying — or capability you own, documented and handed over, that needs less of me each year.
The end
The engagement closes on a clean handover, not an open tab. You keep me on call at a fraction of what the permanent hire would still be costing.
Rethinking the hire is the first step.
If you're recruiting a CTO, need a board question on technology or AI risk answered properly, are weighing up a platform decision, or need a programme rescued before it gets expensive — we should talk first. A conversation, nothing more.