LEAD

Senior technical leadership, for as long as you need it.

Some companies need a CTO before they can hire one. Some need a leader for an AI program that no one on the executive team has run before. Lead puts a named Centractive principal on your side, with real decision rights, for the period the company needs it - and makes the handover to a permanent leader part of the job.

Book a call about Lead

THE WORK

Three ways we lead.

01
Fractional CTO.
Technology direction, architecture decisions, vendor and platform choices, hiring and team design, board and investor conversations. Scoped to what the company needs: from a few days a month for a founder who needs a counterpart, to embedded leadership through a critical stretch. Decision rights and boundaries agreed in writing at the start.
02
AI program leadership.
Ownership of an AI initiative across the business - the roadmap from Plan, the delivery from Build, the governance that regulators and the board expect - reporting to the executive accountable for it.
03
Ongoing advisory.
For leaders who want experienced perspective without an embedded role. Build-versus-buy, vendor selection, architecture trade-offs, hiring for AI roles, and the smaller calls that pile up between them. A few hours a month, with a call when something cannot wait.

DELIVERABLES

What you get.

A named leader your team and your board can reach, not a rotating cast.
Decisions made and owned, with the reasoning written down.
A plan for the leader who comes after, and help hiring them when the time comes.

ENGAGEMENT

How it runs.

Retainer, scoped and reviewed quarterly. The shape depends on the company - stage, size, what is at stake, what it can commit - and is agreed in the first conversation rather than taken from a rate card. Engagements can be stepped up during a critical period and stepped back afterward.

EXAMPLES

Typical scope.

A founder-led company with a strong product team and no technical executive, ahead of a funding round.
A mid-sized business where the AI program has been given to the CIO on top of everything else.
A company between CTOs, with decisions that cannot wait for the search to finish.

BOUNDARIES

What it is not.

Lead is not a permanent arrangement, and it is not an interim placement agency. The aim is to leave the company with its own leadership stronger than we found it.

Where is your AI work stuck?

First calls run 30 minutes over video. We will ask what you are building, what is in the way, and what a good outcome looks like - and tell you plainly whether we are the right people for it.