Expand 03 / Fractional CAIO
One owner for where AI goes across growth and operations.
Strategy, governance, operating model, and a build team behind the advice. One accountable leader decides where AI runs, what it may do alone, and who says yes. Agents do the work. People keep the decisions.
01 What the role owns
Most companies have AI. Few have an owner for it.
Tools arrive team by team. Nobody decides what a system may do alone, where approval sits, or who answers when it breaks. That is an ownership problem. The role exists to close it.
Owns 01
Strategy
Where AI goes first, and why. Growth and operations in one view and one sequence.
Owns 02
Governance
What each system may do alone, written down. Who approves. What is recorded.
Owns 03
Operating model
Owners, boundaries, gates, and records for every workflow AI touches. How the company runs with it.
Owns 04
Build team
Senior operators and partner firms who install and run it. Advice with hands behind it.
Reports to the CEO, or to the operating partner across a portfolio. Scope and cadence are set in conversation, then written down.
02 Source
The governance model
Owner. Boundary. Gate. Record.
The governance model the CAIO installs is the one we run ourselves. One layer for every workflow, in sales and on the plant floor. Nothing external moves without a person saying yes.
- /01OwnerA named person accountable for each workflow.Accountability
- /02BoundaryWhat the system may do alone, written down.Authority
- /03GateHuman approval before any external action.Control
- /04RecordEvery decision logged and reviewable.Audit
In our own business, a pipeline review agent surfaced $1.75M in stalled pipeline and stopped at its authority limit. It did not act. It routed the finding to a person. That is the system working.
Decision 01
Where AI runs
Which workflows, in which order. Sales, operations, or both.
Decision 02
What it may do alone
Read, draft, score, recommend. Nothing external without the Gate.
Decision 03Gate
Who says yes
A named person for every send, publish, write, and change. Recorded.
03 How we deliver
Four ways to work. One rule.
The role is scoped to the problem. Then we match the mode. Your team learns to run the system as it is built.
Delivery modes
Mode 01
Strategy intensives
Short, senior, decision-focused. Where AI goes first, and what it may do alone.
Mode 02
Blended teams
Our operators inside your team. One accountable leader across both.
Mode 03
Enablement
Your people learn to own, bound, gate, and record the work themselves.
Mode 04
Build cycles
Governed workflows installed and running, one cycle at a time.
Operating principle
We would rather leave than stay.
The engagement works when your team can run the system without us.
04 Who it fits
One owner, whatever the size.
Three situations where the role fits. If yours is not one of them, we will say so.
Fit 01
Founder-led companies
AI decisions keep landing on the founder's desk. The role takes them, with a plan the founder can read in a page.
Fit 02
Mid-size companies
Several teams are piloting. None of it connects. The role sets one direction and one set of rules.
Fit 03
PE operating partners
One governance model across a portfolio. Each company keeps its own Owner. The partner gets one standard and one view.
Not a fitIf the need is a one-time assessment with no one to own what follows, we will say so in the first conversation.
05 The bench
One firm
One leader. A build team behind the advice.
The fractional CAIO is one of our senior operators. Behind the role: 18 partner firms, more than 500 professionals, and a team of governed agents. One firm. One point of accountability.
18
Partner firms, working as one firm with us.
500+
Professionals across our operators and partner firms.
6
Named agents, each with one job and a written boundary.
Practice leadFounder
Michael Lee
Founder. Fractional CRO and Chief AI Officer.
- Runs a multi-agent operating stack in production in his own business. Builds and runs the systems he sells.
- More than 20 years scaling revenue organizations across technology, managed services, AI consulting, and transformation.
- Led turnarounds, taking over operations that were losing clients and people and rebuilding the system around them.
- Writes as From Pilots to Platforms on LinkedIn, for executives and operators.
06 Start
Scoped in conversation.
No price on this page. Scope follows the workflows, the team, and the portfolio. Thirty minutes. Free. No pitch.
Where this leads