Past product-market fit, short of operating weight.
The product works and the funding is there, and the company still feels slower each quarter. The structure that suited a small team is now in the way.
What changes at this size
Amsterdam scale-ups meet the same four walls:
Founders are in every decision
A company several times its old size still routes approvals through the same few people.
Several offices, one way of working
A sales team abroad, engineering elsewhere, and nobody owning the operating rhythm across them.
The finance function is a bookkeeper
Investors and future acquirers expect forecasts, a clean close and an audit trail.
Hiring outpaces onboarding
People join faster than the company can explain how it works.
A fractional executive knows this stage from the inside. They put structure in while the business keeps moving, and hand over to a permanent hire once the seat is full time. The agreement is between two companies, so there is no contract to unwind.
Who this is for, and who it is not
Best for
- Companies that have outgrown founder-led informality but cannot yet fund a full C-suite
- Finance functions that need to become board and investor grade
- Revenue still riding on founder relationships rather than a repeatable engine
- Teams and culture straining as headcount climbs past what informal management holds
- Leadership gaps that would stall growth if left open for a full hiring cycle
Not for
- Early startups still searching for product-market fit
- A single function a ready full-time executive should already own
- Businesses wanting advice on a deck rather than an operator in the work
- A one-off project better suited to a specialist contractor
How we stay involved at scale
A scale-up changes every quarter, and so does the brief. We stay in the engagement to keep the two in step.
Brief and business in step
Every quarter we revisit the engagement with you and rewrite the brief as the company changes shape.
Colleagues who have scaled
When growth raises a question outside your executive's own function, colleagues across our collective of 800+ can give a second view.
A managed handover
When the seat becomes full time, or your executive moves on, we run the transition and any new search, building on what the first one taught us.
Chosen for this stage
We match on growth stage and temperament. A leader from a large corporate can find a fast-growing company too loose to manage.
From diagnostic to infrastructure that scales with you
Our process runs at the pace of a scaling company, not a hiring cycle.
Scale diagnostic (weeks 1–2)
Map the current state: operational stress points, financial infrastructure gaps, commercial engine gaps, people risks.
Engagement design (weeks 3–4)
Design the right fractional leadership configuration, which roles, what scope, what priority sequencing.
Infrastructure build (month 1–3)
Fractionals embed: operational systems, financial infrastructure, commercial engine design, people frameworks.
Adapt to the growth (ongoing)
As you grow, we adjust the configuration. The goal is always the right leadership for the current phase.
What changes in the first 90 days
A scale-up engagement is judged on what moves early. These are the shifts a fractional operator is there to make.
The scale-up leadership stack
Each role below owns a different part of the scale-up: finance, operations, commercial, people or technology.
Leaders who have scaled
