Fractional Executive · Owner-managed and growing businesses

Enterprise experience, right-sized for your business.

Heroics are holding it together and the founder is the bottleneck. I spent two decades fixing that inside global enterprises. Now I do it for businesses your size: one day on one problem from £1,450, or a standing half-day every month from £950, and a written plan you could carry out without me, every time.

Book a free 30-minute call See the prices

Offerings

How we work together

Start small, scale when it earns its keep. Prices are indicative ballparks: complexity moves them, the SOW fixes them, and no VAT is added to any of them. Every one of them starts the same way, with a free 30-minute call to see whether it fits, or an email if you'd rather type. Wondering about IR35, confidentiality, or what happens if it isn't working? The questions people actually ask are answered here. The AI Context Sprint has a section of its own further down.

Not sure which of these yet? Start here

Let's just talk

Ninety minutes on whatever is keeping you up, with no brochure and no pitch. Skip the guessing about which of the cards below you need: bring the problem, leave with a view on it and a straight answer on what, if anything, to buy next. If it is not useful inside the first ten minutes, it is free.

£195 paid by card at booking

Book ninety minutes

Read more about it, start with the free 30-minute call, or send me a note if you'd rather.

One-off consultation

Diagnostic Day

One full day on your most pressing problem: pre-reading, a structured working session, and a written action plan within 48 hours.

From £1,450 per day, typically · half day from £850

Findings and recommendations in writing
Sequenced 90-day action list
Executable without further spend

Book a Diagnostic Day

Or send me a note about a day

Small business subscription

Growth Partner

Senior judgement as a subscription. A standing session every month to work the biggest problem on your desk, and a straight answer on the phone whenever something can't wait.

From £950 per month, indicative · rolling, 30 days' notice

Monthly half-day working session
Written actions after every session
Sounding board between sessions

Start as Growth Partner

Or send me a note about it

Retainer

Fractional Executive

A senior executive on your team without the hire. Fractional COO, CTO/CIO or strategy lead, embedded in your leadership rhythm.

From £2,800 per month, indicative · three months to start, then rolling

Advisory: 2 days a month, from £2,800
Fractional: 1 day a week, from £5,900
Embedded: 2 days a week, from £11,200
Three months to begin with, because nothing useful happens in the first one. Then rolling, 30 days' notice.

Discuss a retainer

Or send me a note about it. Not sure a fraction beats a hire or an interim? The three side by side, and what the price should buy you.

Fixed scope, fixed price

Project Engagement

A defined outcome, delivered. Operating model redesign, technology selection, integration playbook, or a value creation plan turned into an executed roadmap.

From £9,500 typical range £15k–£45k

Agreed scope and outcomes in writing
Milestone billing, defined acceptance
Trusted associates where scope demands

Scope a project

Or send me a note about it. Outcome not defined yet? That's what a Diagnostic Day is for.

Not founded yet? The Founder Launchpad is one day before day one, from £1,250: an honest verdict on the idea and a launch plan that earns proper prices from customer one.

By conversation. Some things need senior judgement rather than a product name: an advisory board seat, including the board's questions about AI; an exit readiness review a year or three before you sell; a second opinion before you sign something big. Ask.

Who it's for

Different businesses, the same wall

Most of the work is with owner-managed businesses between £1m and £20m, because that is where the walls arrive fastest and the budget for a full-time executive arrives last. The same walls appear at every scale, though: the £3m business and the $3bn business hit them in the same order, and I've watched both.

Owner-managed businesses, £1m to £20m

You've outgrown the way you work.

Every quote, every hire and every awkward customer still crosses one desk, and the desk is yours. What you need is the structure and rhythm of a bigger business, sized for this one: decision rights that are written down, an operating rhythm that runs without you in the room, and numbers you can read in an hour a week. Board-level thinking in your corner every month, for less than half the cost of your cheapest employee, and a written plan with every engagement, even a single day.

See how it works

Also at home with

Scale-ups and VC-backed. Post-raise, everything has to professionalise at once, without killing the pace.
Mid-market, £20m and up. C-level attention for the initiative your exec team can't spare, then I step away.
PE portfolio companies. The plan is agreed and the bandwidth isn't. Execution reported in the fund's language.
Not started yet. The ceiling on what you can charge gets set in your first month, usually by accident. One day before day one fixes that →
None of the above. More common than you'd think. That is exactly what a first conversation is for: let's just talk →

Closer to home

Real problems, real results, at this size

The four results at the top of the page, in full, plus one more. When these stories say "we", they mean the owner and me working it out together; there is no office full of consultants behind the curtain. Ask me about any of them and I'll tell you what actually happened, including the parts that didn't work.

Independent estate agency

Fewer instructions, better instructions

A well-regarded local agency competing on fee against corporate chains and online listers, working harder each year for thinner margins. We repositioned the firm at the top of its market: brand, fee structure and a service worth the fee, saying no to the stock it used to chase.

+40% average fee per instruction, on two-thirds of the volume

Family-run precision manufacturer

The founder took a holiday

Second-generation engineering firm where every quote, schedule and dispute crossed the owner's desk. We installed written decision rights, a weekly operating rhythm and a quote-to-cash process that didn't need her in the middle of it.

-30% quoted lead time, and her first fortnight off in nine years

Regional IT services provider

Profitable growth, not busy growth

Revenue climbing, profit flat, team exhausted, and an owner convinced he needed more salespeople. Customer-level profitability analysis showed a fifth of clients consumed half the service desk. We repriced, exited the worst, and refocused sales on the profile that actually paid.

+25% profit on flat revenue within twelve months

Direct-to-consumer retailer

Their voice, machine speed

A brand built on its founder's voice, spending heavily on an agency for content that sounded like everyone else's. An AI Context Sprint built the context pack and workflows to produce her voice at machine speed in-house, with the agency retained only for campaigns.

3x content output at half the outside spend, in the founder's own voice

New founders · Before day one

Launched at the top of the local market

A steady line of employees-turned-founders, from personal trainer to dog groomer to bookkeeper, each launched at the top of their local market rather than the bottom of it. Together we built the sharp value proposition, pricing with a spine, a healthy pipeline before day one, and all the plumbing (brand, tools, process, numbers) a business needs to launch, grow and scale. The pattern holds in every trade: position on value, not price, and the right customers find you.

Dozens of launches across a range of trades, none of them competing on price

That launch, productised: the Founder Launchpad →

Where the patterns came from

Learned somewhere expensive

Two decades in the engine rooms of global enterprise, where other companies paid a fortune for the lessons above. Unnamed and deliberately blunted, because with clients like these discretion is most of the job; specifics under an NDA.

Financial services · Identity & assets

Three firms, one operating model

Three related businesses doing the same things three different ways, and nobody able to see the whole picture. So we went and looked: over 1,600 observations, five patterns, a sequence to fix them in, and several million a year in duplicated licences nobody had spotted. Opinion would have been quicker. It would also have been wrong.

Post-merger integration

Two operating cultures, one network

A global investment bank had bought a trading platform where downtime cost six figures a minute, and nobody had asked the question the integration turned on: how integrated should these two actually be? Not fully, as it turned out. Most acquisitions answer that by accident and pay for it later.

Software · Business model change

The same product, a different business

A software business an entire profession relied on daily, whose customers had begun asking to buy by subscription rather than by licence, with no playbook to copy. Leadership needed help identifying half the questions before anyone could answer them. Same product throughout. A different business underneath it.

Legal · Security operations

From reactive to ready

A global law firm's security team, firefighting daily and known as the department that says no. The instinct was to buy better tooling. We started somewhere duller: who decides what, and what this team is for. Written down, the roadmap almost designed itself. The tooling was never the hard part. It rarely is.

There's plenty more: banking, payments, telecoms, media, energy, retail and software, on three continents. Looking back, the sector barely changed the answer.

In their words

Don't take my word for it

A few lines from people who've been in the room, taken from my LinkedIn recommendations.

An outstanding consultant and team member who galvanised the team to get the best out of everyone. I would rate Ian as one of the most pragmatic consultants I've worked with.

”

Principal security assurance consultant, global financial services

That rare combination of a leader with deep technical skills and experience. His ability to engage and influence stakeholders, together with deep analytical skills, sees Ian deliver complex programmes with ease.

”

Technical principal, global cloud provider

The ability to write a technical document that can be understood by non-techies, while providing a clear business case. I recommended him to one of my good customers: the ultimate litmus test of trust.

”

Software company co-founder, and a client

Calmness under pressure, attention to detail and, above all, willingness to share his considerable knowledge and to mentor the less experienced. It sets him apart.

”

Founder, AI transformation consultancy

There are more where these came from: read them on LinkedIn →

Spotlight · AI The topic of the moment

Mind the AI context gap

Your AI doesn't know your business. Two weeks, and it does.

Tried ChatGPT and got something that reads like everyone else's? Suspect competitors are pulling ahead? Or does the whole thing just smell like hype? All three instincts are reasonable, and they share one root: AI without your context is a very confident stranger. Closing that gap is a business exercise, not a technical one.

Fixed once scoped · Two weeks

AI Context Sprint

A short, sharp engagement for wherever you're starting from: tools that disappoint, healthy scepticism, or a blank sheet and a nagging feeling. It ends with tools that actually know your business, doing only the jobs they deserve, and not a whiff of AI slop reaching your customers.

From £2,950 typically · fixed in the SOW · delivered in two weeks

What the two weeks produces →

Why now, and why with me

Enterprises spend millions learning that AI output is only as good as the context behind it. I've led that work at global scale, and the lesson translates directly: the winners aren't the businesses using AI loudest, they're the ones using it with judgement.

If your competitors are visibly using AI and it shows, that is not a threat. It's an opening.

One part of that context is what a business sounds like, so I built a tool for it. smarticulate.io measures how your writing actually reads and turns it into rules a person or a model can follow. It runs separately from this, and the first measurement is free.

Close the gap → Or schedule a chat

Or send me a note if you'd rather start by typing.

Want to know who you'd be working with? Meet your consulting partner →

Want a feel for how I think first? Read something I've written →

Deciding between a fraction, an interim and a hire? The guides, with the numbers in →

Not sure what you need? Let's just talk →

Ian Sharpe, mid-walk in the English countryside

Start with a conversation

The easiest first step is a free 30-minute call about your most pressing problem, or the thing you can't quite name, leading to a Diagnostic Day if it fits: one day, a written plan within 48 hours, and nothing to lose but the problem. Not sure it's the right fit? Book or email anyway. If I can't help, I'll say so and point you towards someone who can.

Book a 30-minute call Or send me a note instead

Too busy to stop and think during the day? There's a limited number of evening slots, 6pm to 8pm Monday to Thursday, for exactly that reason.

Prefer to type? Send me a note · Or connect on LinkedIn.

Based in England, about an hour from London, if you fancy a cup of tea or something stronger. But my postcode doesn't scope the work: on site anywhere, London, the UK, the US or beyond, with travel recharged at cost wherever the table is. Remote everywhere; the experience was earned worldwide and travels well.