Your next senior hire: permanent or fractional?

When a business decides it needs senior expertise — in finance, operations, marketing or technology — the default assumption is to recruit a full-time director. It's worth pausing on that assumption, because it's often not the best first move.

Ask honestly how much of that person's time you genuinely need. Plenty of growing businesses need a finance director's judgement two days a month, or a marketing director's leadership one day a week — not a full-time seat. If so, a full-time hire means paying for a lot of time you don't need.

There's also the risk question. Recruiting a senior full-timer is a big, expensive bet, and if it's the wrong person, it's costly to unwind. Starting fractionally lets you get the expertise now, prove what the role actually needs, and de-risk the decision.

A common, sensible path is to start fractional, let the person build the function and define the role properly, and then — if and when the workload genuinely justifies it — convert to a full-time hire with a clear brief. Sometimes the fractional leader even helps you recruit their own successor.

The question isn't 'permanent or fractional forever'. It's 'what's the right first step?' — and that's often fractional, until the need for full-time is proven rather than assumed.