EXECUTIVE ADVISORY
Strategic HR and leadership guidance on a monthly retainer — for growing companies that need senior thinking on every major people decision but aren’t ready for a full-time CHRO. An ongoing partnership, calibrated to your stage, with the strategic depth of a Fortune 500 HR executive at a fraction of the cost.
The seat between "we need someone" and "we need a CHRO"
Your company has grown past the point where one HR generalist can handle everything, but you are not ready for a $300K+ executive on payroll. Leadership is spending too much time on people decisions that should be delegated or systematized. Hiring, terminations, compensation, and culture decisions are being made without senior expertise behind them. A board or sponsor is asking sharper questions about talent than you currently have answers for. Or you are approaching a strategic moment — acquisition, capital event, restructure — where the people-side risk is real but you do not have a senior HR partner to navigate it. A Fractional CPO sits in that seat: senior, part-time, ongoing, and calibrated to where you actually are.
Who This Is For
- CEOs and founders at companies with 50–1,000+ employees where one HR generalist (or no HR function at all) can no longer keep pace with the strategic demands of the business
- Companies approaching a capital event, acquisition, or other strategic moment where the people-side risk warrants senior advisory partnership
- Organizations whose HR team is operationally strong but needs strategic direction from a senior practitioner who has done this before
- PE-backed portfolio companies where the sponsor expects sophisticated people strategy but the company is not yet sized for a full-time CHRO
- Leadership teams spending too much time on people decisions that a senior advisor could systematize or take off their plate
- Companies between the size where HR generalists suffice and the size where a $300K+ CHRO makes sense — the fractional model fits the gap exactly
Fractional CPO Is Not Interim CPO
These two services are routinely confused, and the difference matters. A Fractional CPO is a part-time, ongoing strategic advisor who works alongside your existing leadership — the right choice when you need senior HR strategy but cannot justify a full-time executive. An Interim CPO is the near-full-time, temporary head of the HR function — the right choice when the CPO seat is actually empty and the function needs someone to lead it now.
The simplest way to tell which you need: do you have a CPO? If the seat is filled and you want strategic depth alongside your existing leader, that is a Fractional CPO engagement. If the seat is empty, or emptying, and the function needs a leader, that is an Interim CPO. We will help you place that line clearly in a discovery call.
Our Approach
A Fractional CPO engagement is built on a simple idea: the advisor functions as a senior HR partner at your executive table — but part-time, calibrated to the depth your situation actually warrants. They are not a consultant producing reports and walking away. They are not a generalist filling tactical gaps. They are a senior practitioner who brings strategic depth to every major people decision, builds the people infrastructure with you over months rather than weeks, and develops your existing HR team along the way.
Every engagement runs on a structured cadence — not informal availability, not ad hoc consultation. A 30-day onboarding sprint produces an honest read of your people landscape and a 90-day advisory plan. A steady-state rhythm of standing calls, between-call support, and quarterly planning sessions turns advisory access into actual organizational progress. The work compounds across quarters because it has a working rhythm, not a schedule of one-off engagements.
Three Tiers, Sized to Where You Actually Are
Fractional CPO is offered at three tiers along a depth ladder. What moves an engagement up the ladder is how much of the senior HR role the advisor is asked to carry — the call cadence, the time at the executive table, and the breadth of work in scope. Most clients start at Advisory Standard. We will recommend the right tier in a discovery and scoping conversation. All three operate on a 6-month minimum with month-to-month continuation thereafter on 30-day notice.
Advisory Light — $6,500/month
A strategic sounding board for founders and CEOs at smaller companies (50–150 employees). Best when you have a handful of strategic questions per month rather than ongoing weekly work — the senior judgment without the heavier cadence.
What you get: Two 60-minute strategy calls per month, email support for strategic questions and document review (24–48 business-hour response), and access to the TGC resource library.
Engagement: 6-month minimum ($39,000), billed monthly. Month-to-month thereafter with 30-day notice.
Advisory Standard — $13,500/month
Weekly strategic partnership for growing companies (100–500 employees) with active people challenges. The sweet spot — and the most common starting point — for companies in active growth or transition. A weekly call cadence anchors the rhythm; a quarterly planning session deepens the work.
What you get: Four 60-minute strategy calls per month (weekly cadence), a 2-hour quarterly strategic planning session that produces a People Strategy Summary suitable for board or sponsor sharing, one annual leadership assessment with debrief, plus email support and document review (within 24 business hours).
Engagement: 6-month minimum ($81,000), billed monthly. Month-to-month thereafter with 30-day notice.
Fractional CPO — $18,500/month
Embedded partnership at the executive table for companies (200–1,000+ employees) treating people strategy as a leadership priority. The advisor functions as the people-side voice at your executive table — twice-weekly call availability, quarterly on-site presence, monthly leadership team attendance, and same-day crisis support.
What you get: Everything in Advisory Standard, plus eight strategy calls per month (twice-weekly availability), a quarterly on-site day (travel billed separately), monthly leadership team meeting attendance, a second annual assessment with debrief, annual engagement survey design and analysis, and same-day crisis phone support for urgent situations.
Engagement: 6-month minimum ($111,000), billed monthly. Month-to-month thereafter with 30-day notice.
How It Works
Discovery Call
A free 30-minute conversation to understand your situation, the people challenges driving the inquiry, and whether the advisory model is the right fit. No pitch — an honest assessment of whether what you need matches what the engagement provides, and a recommendation on the tier that fits.
Scoping & Proposal
A 60-minute deep dive into the specifics. Confirms the tier, identifies the priorities for the first 90 days, and produces a written proposal with scope, timeline, and investment. The decision goes to you with everything you need to evaluate it.
Onboarding Sprint & Steady-State
The first 30 days are a structured diagnostic — stakeholder interviews with your leadership team, review of your existing systems and documentation, and analysis of your people landscape — that produces an HR Onboarding Sprint Report and a 90-day advisory plan. From there, the engagement runs on the standing-call cadence with quarterly planning sessions that produce a People Strategy Summary every 90 days.
Transition When the Time Is Right
Engagements end well. Whether you have built internal capability, hired a permanent senior HR leader, or simply reached the next phase, the transition is structured — knowledge transfer, a Go-Forward Guide for the next 12 months, and a post-engagement cadence that keeps the relationship intact for when conditions warrant returning.
Frequently Combined With
A Fractional CPO sees the whole people function — so an engagement often surfaces specific bodies of work that warrant focused project engagements alongside the retainer. These are genuinely separate engagements, scoped on their own terms:
- Organizational Design & Restructuring — When the advisory work surfaces structural issues that warrant a dedicated org design engagement: reporting structure, spans of control, role clarity, post-acquisition integration.
- Change Management Consulting — When a major initiative (M&A integration, restructure, system implementation) warrants structured change management beyond what the retainer covers.
- Talent Management Consulting — When the engagement surfaces the need for a formal talent review, succession planning process, or calibration system.
- CPO / CHRO Selection Support — When the engagement points toward hiring a permanent senior HR leader, the search itself is a distinct body of work.
- HR Due Diligence (Sell-Side or Buy-Side) — When a transaction is approaching, the people-side diligence is its own scoped engagement.
[Placeholder: Add a testimonial from a Fractional CPO engagement. Focus on the rhythm of partnership — what changed in how leadership handles people decisions, how the engagement freed up bandwidth, or how it positioned the company for a strategic event.]
Common Questions
How is a Fractional CPO different from an HR consultant who produces a report and leaves?
A consulting project gives you deliverables; an advisory engagement gives you a thinking partner. Across a 6-month or 12-month engagement, you have a senior HR practitioner at the table for every major people decision — hiring, terminations, compensation, organizational design, leadership team dynamics, board reporting, M&A. The deliverables are real (quarterly summaries, frameworks, assessment debriefs) but the value comes from the rhythm — knowing there is structured strategic input every week, not project-by-project.
Which tier is right for us?
Most companies start at Advisory Standard. If you have a handful of strategic questions per month and want a sounding board rather than ongoing weekly work, Advisory Light fits. If you are approaching a strategic event (capital event, acquisition, leadership transition) or need the advisor at the executive table month-over-month, Fractional CPO fits. The scoping call is where we confirm which one is right for your situation; you can also change tiers during the engagement as needs evolve.
Can this work alongside our existing HR generalist or manager?
Absolutely — that is the most common setup. Your internal HR team handles tactical work (recruiting execution, employee relations, benefits administration, day-to-day operations). The advisory engagement provides strategic direction, mentors your HR team, and handles the complex issues that warrant senior expertise. The two work as a system rather than a replacement.
What is the time commitment on our side?
Advisory Light is approximately 4 hours per month of leadership time. Advisory Standard is approximately 8 hours per month — the standing call plus periodic email back-and-forth. Fractional CPO is approximately 16 hours per month including the monthly leadership team meeting attendance. Your commitment is calibrated to the tier; nothing in the engagement requires more leadership time than the tier supports.
What happens at the 6-month mark?
Most engagements continue past the initial 6 months — the working rhythm has formed and the substantive work compounds across quarters. At Month 5, we have an explicit commitment review conversation: continue at the current tier, adjust tier based on what has actually emerged, or wind down because the engagement has produced what you needed. Whatever is the right call, you are not locked in beyond the initial 6-month commitment.
How do engagements end?
The healthiest outcome is the engagement ending because you have built internal capability or hired a permanent senior HR leader. When the engagement transitions, the wind-down is structured — a 30 to 45 day transition window with knowledge transfer sessions, a Go-Forward Guide that positions the next 12 months of people work, and a post-engagement cadence that maintains the relationship for when conditions warrant returning (acquisition activity, next capital event, sustained organizational stress). Strong endings produce strong long-term relationships.
Do you handle compliance and employment law questions?
The advisor can provide strategic guidance on people decisions and help you think through complex situations, but is not an employment attorney. For specific legal questions, we will point you to qualified counsel — and can recommend strong employment attorneys if you need referrals. The advisory engagement and your employment counsel work as complementary resources, not substitutes.
What about HRIS, payroll, and benefits administration?
The advisory engagement is strategic, not tactical. The advisor can advise on system selection, help you think through vendor evaluation, and weigh the trade-offs between options — but does not administer payroll, run benefits enrollment, or operate HRIS systems. If you need tactical HR operational support, we can recommend strong outsourced solutions or help you scope what to hire internally.