The Portfolio Executives

After working in tech for a long time, across startups and larger organisations, I realised the most useful thing I could do was bring that experience to more than one company. Rather than staying tied to a single employer, I chose to work fractionally so I can step in where teams need senior leadership, help them make better decisions earlier, and move on once things are set up and running well.

I got started through years of work with startups and growing companies, often around venture capital, early ideas, patents, and building products from the ground up. I was drawn to leadership early on, but I kept it grounded in hands-on delivery. Over time, people began asking for help in smaller, part-time roles, and that gradually grew into taking on more clients in fractional positions.

There wasn’t one clear “first success.” I started early, made plenty of mistakes along the way, and those early failures taught me what actually works. Over time, those lessons became just as valuable to clients as the wins – not as something to blame anyone for, but as practical insight that helped teams improve and grow. From there, it was a series of gradual successes that built trust, led to larger responsibilities, and eventually bigger assignments.

I’ve learned that good leadership isn’t just going deep in one narrow area. It helps to understand the neighbouring parts of the business too – product, operations, finance, legal, compliance, HR – so you can make better decisions and move faster without stepping on other teams.

I’ve also learned you don’t need to know everything. You need enough understanding across the board to ask the right questions, spot risks early, and connect the dots – and then trust the specialists around you to go deep. That balance makes you more effective than trying to be a pure specialist in a leadership role.

It works for me now because I’m able to step back and see the bigger picture, identify what actually needs solving, and then break it into clear pieces. Instead of trying to do everything myself, I put the right people on the right problems, support them with context and priorities, and trust them to deliver. That’s what leadership looks like in practice: find the real issues, make them understandable and actionable, and help the team move them to done.

I hope to keep earning the trust and opportunities to share what I’ve learned in a way people can actually use. The goal is to help teams avoid mistakes I’ve already made, build stronger foundations, and reach what they’re aiming for sooner – by supporting their success, not steering it for them