The practice of providing executive-level leadership services on a part-time or project basis to organizations that need specialized expertise.
24 episodes
Jim Hasty, founder of Cogle Group, discusses his company's evolution from technology consulting to AI-powered software products. He shares lessons from building Plan Checkers, an AI tool that reduces municipal permit review time from weeks to minutes, and outlines a crawl-walk-run framework for enterprise AI adoption focused on automating emotionally draining tasks rather than chasing adoption metrics.
Neil Miller, a partner emeritus at Tech CXO with nearly 20 years of fractional CFO experience across 70+ companies, shares his career journey from public accounting through multiple CFO roles at public companies to pioneering fractional executive work. He discusses value creation stories including Cloud Sherpas (acquired by Accenture) and Boomtown (90M+ revenue exit), the current venture capital environment, and how AI tools are compressing startup development cycles while raising the bar for execution speed.
Louis Gump, fractional CEO/COO and author of Inside Innovator, discusses his career building mobile businesses at CNN and The Weather Channel, the critical differences between entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, and how founders can successfully transition into larger organizations post-acquisition. He emphasizes that innovation requires leadership commitment, cross-functional collaboration, and understanding when to adapt entrepreneurial instincts to corporate environments.
Mike Martin, fractional CMO at Tech CXO, discusses his career building breakthrough brand campaigns—from the Truth anti-tobacco campaign's guerrilla marketing tactics to Super Bowl spots for Monster.com. He shares lessons on creative courage, navigating difficult bosses, and how AI is transforming marketing while emphasizing that creativity still requires human oversight and strategic foundations.
Ted Stone, a 72-year-old fractional CFO, discusses his decades-long career in financial leadership, including multiple private equity-backed M&A transactions, integration strategies, and current work helping companies navigate recapitalizations and ESOP transitions. He shares lessons from rolling up businesses, managing post-acquisition culture clashes, and why he continues working seven years past traditional retirement age.
Virginia Glaenzer, fractional CMO and author, shares her journey from moving to Silicon Valley in 1998 with four suitcases to building tech companies during the dot-com era. She discusses how AI is reshaping work, why communities should be built into brand DNA rather than added as tactics, and introduces her 'economy of abundance' framework that challenges scarcity-based business models by asking 'how much is enough?'
Brantley Fry, partner at Tech CXO, shares her unconventional career path from environmental litigation to political operations to human capital management. She discusses her work on major environmental disasters (TVA coal ash spill, BP oil spill), serving as state director for a U.S. senator, and helping a health tech startup through acquisition. The conversation explores employment agreements, non-traditional hiring, and building culture through M&A transitions.
Joe Gruca, newly joined partner at Tech CXO, shares his journey from corporate VP of Sales through founding Higher IQ (an AI-powered interview platform acquired after raising venture capital) to fractional revenue leadership. He discusses navigating the 2008 financial crisis as an accidental entrepreneur, building predictable sales motions for early-stage B2B SaaS companies, and how AI is transforming both sales execution and customer success while the fundamentals of relationship-building remain constant.
A fractional CTO demonstrates using Claude AI with deep research mode to generate a comprehensive business development plan. By uploading marketing materials, case studies, and service offerings, the AI produces detailed ideal customer profiles, multi-channel outreach strategies, budget allocations, and personalized contact sequences—illustrating how experienced professionals can leverage AI to automate strategic planning while maintaining the judgment to guide and refine outputs.
Bob Brogan shares four decades of operational and strategic consulting experience, from early data warehousing work at IBM subsidiaries to leading turnarounds and exits. He discusses his approach to business transformation through modular design, cash cycle management, and the importance of mentorship—both as an angel investor evaluating founders and through his Legacy Guild charity providing scholarships to students who've lost parents.
Teja Yenamandra, founder of Gun.io, discusses building a talent-first freelance marketplace that connects senior software engineers with companies based on merit rather than price. He shares insights on remote work culture, AI's impact on software development, the importance of relationship-focused venture capital partnerships, and how the developer job market is shifting toward backend and AI implementation work.
Michael Weinstein, a fractional CFO with decades of Wall Street and corporate finance experience, analyzes the current economic uncertainty driven by tariff policy, Federal Reserve decisions, and structural market challenges. He explains how tariffs function as a massive tax increase, why venture capital liquidity has frozen, and how uncertainty prevents corporate investment—while arguing that entrepreneurship and new business formation will ultimately lead the economy out of stagnation.
Matt Oess, a sales and marketing consultant and executive coach at TechCXO, discusses his coaching practice for C-suite leaders, his deep dive into AI productivity tools over the past 14 months, and his advisory role with Purdue's Croc Institute for Tech Diplomacy. He demonstrates practical AI automation workflows he's built using platforms like Make.com, explains the maturity progression from zero-shot generative AI to multi-agent systems, and shares insights on how AI is transforming business operations and the SaaS industry.
Alan Gold, a 30-year marketing and sales veteran, discusses his career spanning Wi-Fi launches, speech recognition, and AI tools across startups and M&A. He covers current market uncertainty, the shift from sales tactics to strategy, AI's impact on entry-level roles, and why promoting top salespeople to management typically fails. Gold emphasizes listening skills, differentiation, and strategic thinking over tactical execution.
Bryan Dennstedt, fractional CTO at Tech CXO and sustainable investing advocate, discusses 2025 trends with host Todd. They cover venture capital's conservative shift post-SVB, AI's permeation across business (from agents to trust frameworks), the rise of niche podcasts and influencer marketing, and crypto's regulatory thaw under new US leadership. Core insight: AI and blockchain will become as fundamental as electricity, but organizations must navigate trust, compliance, and the trough of disillusionment before realizing transformative value.
Kirby Winters, fractional CISO at TechCXO, discusses his journey from telecom to cybersecurity consulting, emphasizing leadership lessons from Eagle Scouts and entrepreneurship. He covers the evolving threat landscape—from social engineering to AI-enhanced phishing—and explains how fractional security leadership helps SMBs navigate SOC 2, HIPAA, and CMMC compliance without full-time hires. The conversation explores VPN evolution, cyber insurance realities, and the critical need for proactive security planning before customer mandates or breaches force action.
Rich Makover, a fractional Chief Revenue Officer and executive coach at TechCXO, discusses his journey from Penn State lacrosse player to CPA to sales leadership at Avon and beyond. He shares insights on hiring athletes for sales roles, the importance of resilience over winning, situational coaching methodologies, and his transition to fractional leadership and executive coaching, including his decade-long mentoring program for Penn State lacrosse.
Three fractional IT executives discuss cost optimization strategies during economic downturns, including cloud infrastructure waste, vendor management, and strategic hiring decisions. They share specific examples of reducing AWS spend by 50-75%, eliminating unused software licenses, and the risks of cutting technical staff without preserving domain expertise.
Katherine Hunter-Blyden, a fractional CMO, discusses her career journey from Fortune 500 companies like Ford and Progressive to serving small businesses. She covers the evolution of marketing measurement, the importance of email marketing and content strategy, brand versus direct response tactics, and how AI tools are transforming marketing efficiency while many professionals remain hesitant to adopt them.
Rob Reesor shares his journey from early AI expert systems development at Intellicorp through pioneering e-commerce at Virtual Vineyards to executive technology leadership across multiple private equity-backed companies. He discusses the evolution of software development practices, the challenges of technical debt management, and the critical importance of trust-based leadership in building high-performing engineering teams.
Jay Kleinman, a 30-year healthcare sales and business development veteran, discusses how lessons from playing D1 football at Auburn under Pat Dye shaped his approach to building commercial teams for early-stage healthcare companies. He covers segmentation strategy, discovery-based selling, and the transformation of elder care through digital health and telemedicine adoption accelerated by COVID-19.
Jan Heybroek shares his 17-year journey building and selling a medical market research company to a medical education firm in 2021. He discusses the M&A process, post-acquisition integration challenges, healthcare industry trends including personalized medicine and AI diagnostics, and lessons learned about transparency, perseverance, and the value of fractional executive talent for scaling startups.
Lewis Goldman, a growth marketer at TechCXO, discusses his career evolution from advertising psychology to digital transformation leadership at major companies like CNBC, Citigroup, and MetLife. He shares lessons from the dot-com era, explains modern marketing channel dynamics between Google and Meta, and describes how AI is reshaping both targeting capabilities and content authenticity in digital marketing.
Maria Goldsholl, fractional Chief People Officer at TXO, discusses authentic leadership, building trust-based cultures in startups, and the value of fractional executive services. She emphasizes psychological safety, transparent communication, and learning from career setbacks as foundations for effective leadership and organizational growth.
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