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Fractional Executive · Portfolio Consultant

Enterprise experience, right-sized for your business.

I've spent a couple of decades solving hard problems for global enterprises. Now I do it for businesses like yours: board-level operations, technology and strategy leadership, by the day, the month or the project. You work directly with me, and every engagement ends with something you can act on.

Book a call See how it works

Senior only

You get me, not a pyramid of analysts. The person you meet on day one is the person doing the work on day ninety.

Actionable always

Every engagement, even a single day, ends with a written, prioritised set of actions. You could execute them without me. That's deliberate.

Right-sized commercially

Day rates, monthly subscriptions or fixed-price projects. Any minimum term is short and stated before you sign. No surprises on the invoice.

Who it's for

Different businesses, the same wall

Problems get enterprise-sized long before the budget does. I've watched the same walls appear at every scale. Wherever you are on the curve, there's a right-sized way through.

Small businesses

Think you can't afford this? Think again.

Board-level thinking in your corner every month, for less than half the cost of your cheapest employee.

Owner-managed SMEs, £1m–£20m

You've outgrown the way you work.

Heroics are holding it together and the founder is the bottleneck. Get the structure and rhythm of a bigger business, sized for yours.

Scale-ups & VC-backed

Enterprise discipline at start-up speed.

Post-raise, everything must professionalise at once. Install the discipline investors expect without killing the pace.

Mid-market, £20m+

Senior capacity without the headcount.

C-level attention for the initiative your exec team can't spare, then I step away. No recruitment fees, no severance risk.

PE portfolio companies

Value creation, delivered.

The plan is agreed; the bandwidth isn't. Operating partner-calibre execution, reported in the fund's language.

Not started yet

Still on the payslip, plotting the escape.

The ceiling on what you can charge gets set in your first month, usually by accident. One day before day one fixes that.

Founder Launchpad →
None of the above?

Not sure what you need?

More common than you'd think, and nothing to be embarrassed about. That's exactly what a first conversation is for.

Let's just talk →
Track record

Patterns recognised, results delivered

A broad selection from two decades in the engine rooms of global enterprise: lessons other companies paid a fortune to learn, now available by the day. I won't name any of them, and the details are deliberately blunted, because with clients like these discretion is most of the job. I'll gladly talk specifics under an NDA.

Financial services · Identity & assets

Three firms, one operating model

Three related businesses, each doing the same things a different way, and nobody able to see the whole picture at once. So we went and looked: over 1,600 observations, sorted into five patterns and a sequence to fix them in. Several million a year in duplicated licences nobody had spotted, and a set of audit findings closed along the way. Opinion would have been quicker. It would also have been wrong.

Post-merger integration

Two operating cultures, one network

A global investment bank had bought a trading platform where downtime cost six figures a minute, and the integration was already under way. Nobody had asked the question the whole thing turned on: how integrated should these two actually be? Not fully, as it turned out. The path we mapped kept the smaller team's speed inside the bigger one's governance. Most acquisitions answer that question by accident, and pay for it later.

Software · Business model change

The same product, a different business

A software business whose product an entire profession relied on daily, and whose customers had begun asking to buy it by subscription rather than by licence, at a time when there was no playbook to copy. Multi-tenancy and data segmentation, regulatory exposure, which pricing model actually fitted, what skills to buy or build and in what order: leadership needed help identifying half the questions before anyone could answer them. Same product throughout. A different business underneath it.

Legal · Security operations

From reactive to ready

A global law firm's security team, firefighting daily and known internally as the department that says no. The instinct was to buy better tooling. We started somewhere duller: who decides what, and what this team is actually for. Once that was written down, the staged roadmap to round-the-clock cover almost designed itself. The tooling was never the hard part. It rarely is.

There's plenty more: cloud strategy and operating models in Nordic banking, a China market entry for a global software platform, a telecoms task force, and work across payments, media, energy infrastructure and retail, in the UK, the Nordics, the US, mainland Europe and Asia-Pacific. What strikes me looking back is how little the sector changed the answer. The walls arrive in much the same order wherever you are.

Closer to home

What all of that means for you

Every pattern above was learned somewhere expensive. Here's how it translates when the business is yours: the same problems, at a scale you might recognise. Real problems, real results, from work at this size. If one of these sounds like your Tuesday, that's rather the point. And when these stories say "we", they mean exactly that: the business owner and me, working it out together. There's no office full of consultants behind the curtain. Ask me about any of them and I'll tell you what actually happened, including the parts that didn't work. If you'd rather hear it from them than from me, say so and I'll see who's willing.

Independent estate agency

Fewer instructions, better instructions

A well-regarded local agency competing on fee against corporate chains and online listers, working harder each year for thinner margins. We repositioned the firm at the top of its market: brand, fee structure and a service worth the fee, saying no to the stock it used to chase.

+40% average fee per instruction, on two-thirds of the volume
Family-run precision manufacturer

The founder took a holiday

Second-generation engineering firm where every quote, schedule and dispute crossed the owner's desk. We installed written decision rights, a weekly operating rhythm and a quote-to-cash process that didn't need her in the middle of it.

-30% quoted lead time, and her first fortnight off in nine years
Regional IT services provider

Profitable growth, not busy growth

Revenue climbing, profit flat, team exhausted, and an owner convinced he needed more salespeople. Customer-level profitability analysis showed a fifth of clients consumed half the service desk. We repriced, exited the worst, and refocused sales on the profile that actually paid.

+25% profit on flat revenue within twelve months
Direct-to-consumer retailer

Their voice, machine speed

A brand built on its founder's voice, spending heavily on an agency for content that sounded like everyone else's. An AI Context Sprint built the context pack and workflows to produce her voice at machine speed in-house, with the agency retained only for campaigns.

3x content output at half the outside spend, in the founder's own voice
New founders · Escaping the rat race

From payslip to top of the local market

A steady line of employees-turned-founders, from personal trainer to dog groomer to bookkeeper, each launched at the top of their local market rather than the bottom of it. Together we built the sharp value proposition, pricing with a spine, a healthy pipeline before day one, and all the plumbing (brand, tools, process, numbers) a business needs to launch, grow and scale. The pattern holds in every trade: position on value, not price, and the right customers find you.

Dozens of launches across a range of trades, none of them competing on price
That launch, productised: the Founder Launchpad →
In their words

Don't take my word for it

A few lines from people who've been in the room, taken from my LinkedIn recommendations.

An outstanding consultant and team member who galvanised the team to get the best out of everyone. I would rate Ian as one of the most pragmatic consultants I've worked with.

”
Principal security assurance consultant, global financial services

That rare combination of a leader with deep technical skills and experience. His ability to engage and influence stakeholders, together with deep analytical skills, sees Ian deliver complex programmes with ease.

”
Technical principal, global cloud provider

The ability to write a technical document that can be understood by non-techies, while providing a clear business case. I recommended him to one of my good customers: the ultimate litmus test of trust.

”
Software company co-founder, and a client

Calmness under pressure, attention to detail and, above all, willingness to share his considerable knowledge and to mentor the less experienced. It sets him apart.

”
Founder, AI transformation consultancy

There are more where these came from: read them on LinkedIn →

Offerings

How we work together

Start small, scale when it earns its keep. Prices are indicative ballparks: complexity moves them, the SOW fixes them, and no VAT is added to any of them. Every offer below comes with the same choice: drop me an email, or schedule a chat and talk it through. Wondering about IR35, confidentiality, or what happens if it isn't working? The questions people actually ask are answered here. There's one more just below for the AI-curious, and one for those who haven't founded anything yet.

Small business subscription

Growth Partner

Senior judgement as a subscription. A standing session every month to work the biggest problem on your desk, and a straight answer on the phone whenever something can't wait.

From £950 per month, indicative · rolling, 30 days' notice
  • Monthly half-day working session
  • Written actions after every session
  • Sounding board between sessions
Start the conversation
Or schedule a chat →
Retainer

Fractional Executive

A senior executive on your team without the hire. Fractional COO, CTO/CIO or strategy lead, embedded in your leadership rhythm.

From £2,800 per month, indicative · three months to start, then rolling
  • Advisory: 2 days a month, from £2,800
  • Fractional: 1 day a week, from £5,900
  • Embedded: 2 days a week, from £11,200
  • Three months to begin with, because nothing useful happens in the first one. Then rolling, 30 days' notice.
Discuss a retainer
Not convinced a fraction beats a hire? I've done the maths.
Or schedule a chat →
Fixed scope, fixed price

Project Engagement

A defined outcome, delivered. Operating model redesign, technology selection, integration playbook, or a value creation plan turned into an executed roadmap.

From £9,500 typical range £15k–£45k
  • Agreed scope and outcomes in writing
  • Milestone billing, defined acceptance
  • Trusted associates where scope demands
Scope a project
Outcome not defined yet? That's what a Diagnostic Day is for.
Or schedule a chat →
Before day one · For the not-yet-founded

Founder Launchpad

Still on the payslip, plotting the escape? Most people launch at the bottom of their market and spend years climbing. We spend a day together making sure you start at the top: an honest verdict on the idea, and the launch plan that earns proper prices from customer one. Dozens of founders have done exactly this, and none of them compete on price.

From £1,250 typically · half day from £750 · fixed in the SOW
  • The verdict, honestly: validate the business case, reshape it, or save you from it
  • Value proposition, pricing with a spine, and a first-customers plan, in writing
  • The plumbing list: brand, tools, terms and numbers, in the right order
  • A 30-day check-in call once you've launched
Start before day one
Or email me about it
Or schedule a chat →
And by conversation

Not everything needs a product name and a price tag. If it needs senior judgement, ask.

Advisory board seat

A standing seat at your table: quarterly board rhythm, available between meetings, invested in the long game. Increasingly, that includes helping boards think clearly about AI: what it means for risk, culture and accountability, before the regulator or the competition asks.

Exit readiness review

Selling in a year or three? Find what a buyer's due diligence would find, and fix it before it costs you the multiple.

Second opinion

Before you sign something big: a system, an acquisition, a lease, a restructure. Cheap insurance against expensive mistakes.

Spotlight · AI The topic of the moment

Mind the AI context gap

Your AI doesn't know your business. Two weeks, and it does.

Tried ChatGPT and got something that reads like everyone else's? Suspect competitors are pulling ahead? Or does the whole thing just smell like hype? All three instincts are reasonable, and they share one root: AI without your context is a very confident stranger. Closing that gap is a business exercise, not a technical one.

Fixed once scoped · Two weeks

AI Context Sprint

A short, sharp engagement for wherever you're starting from: tools that disappoint, healthy scepticism, or a blank sheet and a nagging feeling. It ends with tools that actually know your business, doing only the jobs they deserve, and not a whiff of AI slop reaching your customers.

From £2,950 typically · fixed in the SOW · delivered in two weeks
What the two weeks produces →

Why now, and why with me

Enterprises spend millions learning that AI output is only as good as the context behind it. I've led that work at global scale, and the lesson translates directly: the winners aren't the businesses using AI loudest, they're the ones using it with judgement.

If your competitors are visibly using AI and it shows, that is not a threat. It's an opening.

One part of that context is what a business sounds like, so I built a tool for it. smarticulate.io measures how your writing actually reads and turns it into rules a person or a model can follow. It runs separately from this, and the first measurement is free.

Close the gap → Or schedule a chat

Want to know who you'd be working with? Meet your consulting partner →

Want a feel for how I think first? Read something I've written →

Not sure what you need? Let's just talk →

Ian Sharpe, mid-walk in the English countryside

Start with a conversation

The easiest first step is a free 30-minute call about your most pressing problem, or the thing you can't quite name, leading to a Diagnostic Day if it fits: one day, a written plan within 48 hours, and nothing to lose but the problem. Not sure it's the right fit? Book or email anyway. If I can't help, I'll say so and point you towards someone who can.

Book a 30-minute call Or email me instead

Too busy to stop and think during the day? There's a limited number of evening slots, 6pm to 8pm Monday to Thursday, for exactly that reason.

Prefer to type? [email protected] · Or connect on LinkedIn.

Based in England, about an hour from London, if you fancy a cup of tea or something stronger. But my postcode doesn't scope the work: on site anywhere, London, the UK, the US or beyond, with travel recharged at cost wherever the table is. Remote everywhere; the experience was earned worldwide and travels well.