How is this different from the Fractional Executive Retainer?

The Fractional Executive Retainer is product- and engineering-led — a CTO-shaped role. The Digital VCP is broader and shallower in pure engineering, but owns marketing, data, AI, and demand-gen alongside the platform. Pick this one when the value-creation thesis lives across the funnel, not inside the codebase.

Can you run this across more than one portco?

Yes — that is the Portfolio Technology & Growth Advisor engagement. The Digital VCP is single-portco, embedded. The Portfolio Advisor is multi-portco, horizontal, and built around shared playbooks and synergies.

Do you replace the CMO and the CTO?

No, you coordinate them. Most engagements run alongside a fractional or full-time CMO and CTO who are each strong in their lane. The Digital VCP is the connective tissue and the board-facing owner of the combined number.

What does the sponsor get out of it directly?

One operator at the table on the digital agenda, monthly board-grade reporting tied to the value-creation thesis, and an honest read on whether the digital line items in the IC pack are actually being earned.

How quickly do the agency savings show up?

Inside the first 60-90 days for most engagements. The savings are real but they are a side effect, not the headline — the headline is a coherent digital function that the board can defend.

What is the minimum commitment?

Three months. Most engagements run six to twelve, and several extend through the hold period.

Inside the business

One operator across the entire digital value chain.

A fractional partner who owns the digital value-creation thesis end to end — platform, data, AI, marketing, and demand generation — instead of forcing the portfolio company to coordinate four separate vendors who each see one slice.

Scope the engagement

From $12,000/month · 3-month minimum

When it fits

When this engagement makes sense

The value-creation plan depends on digital — pricing, channels, data, AI — and no single operator owns it.
The portco has a fractional CTO and a fractional CMO and the two have never been in the same meeting.
Marketing spend is up, pipeline is flat, and the data layer is not trusted enough to tell you why.
An AI thesis is in the IC deck and the portco has no internal capacity to operationalize it.
You are consolidating five agency relationships into something accountable to the board.
Demand generation needs to step up two gears in 90 days and the existing team does not have the playbook.

The problem

Most portfolio companies have a CTO who does not own marketing, a CMO who does not own data, and an AI initiative no one owns at all. The value-creation thesis assumes these workstreams compound; in practice they collide. A vendor stack of four agencies and three consultants produces overlap, contradiction, and a board pack no one trusts.

What you get

The deliverables

Single owner across the digital stack

One named operator who carries the thesis across technology, data, AI, marketing, and demand generation. Board-facing, sponsor-aligned, accountable to the value-creation KPIs.

Digital value-creation thesis and 90-day plan

Audit of the current stack and spend, mapped against the sponsor's hold-period thesis. A sequenced plan with owned KPIs, not a slide of suggestions.

Vendor and agency consolidation

Rationalize the agency roster, kill duplicate scopes, renegotiate retainers, and stand up one accountable structure. Typical run-rate savings of 20-40% inside the first quarter.

AI and automation execution

Concrete agentic and AI workflows wired into marketing, sales ops, and customer operations. Built, not advised on. Sized to the company, not the demo.

Demand-gen and pipeline reliability

ICP refresh, channel mix rebuild, attribution that the CFO will sign off on. The pipeline number on the board pack stops being a guess.

Monthly board-grade reporting

One report covering the full digital P&L impact — pipeline, conversion, cost-per-acquisition, technology spend, AI leverage. LP-friendly, sponsor-ready.

How it works

The engagement

Weeks 1-2

Land and assess

Sponsor and management alignment, audit of the digital stack, agency roster, data layer, and current pipeline. Baseline KPIs locked.

Weeks 3-6

Plan and consolidate

90-day plan delivered. Vendor consolidation begins. Quick wins shipped — usually on attribution, paid spend hygiene, and one AI workflow.

Months 2-3+

Operate

Embedded part-time inside the leadership team. Weekly cadence with the CEO, monthly cadence with the sponsor and board. KPIs tracked against the value-creation thesis.

Engagement shapes

How this is priced

Advisory

$12,000/month

2 days/week equivalent

One portfolio company, stable team, needs senior digital ownership without a full-time hire.

Embedded

$20,000/month

3 days/week equivalent

Active value-creation phase, vendor consolidation in flight, AI build alongside demand-gen rebuild.

Intensive

$30,000+/month

4+ days/week equivalent

First 100 days post-close, integration of an acquisition, or a stalled portco needing decisive operator presence.

Who it is for

A good fit if

PE sponsors holding a digital-first or digital-enabled portco where the thesis depends on the stack performing.
Portco CEOs whose board has lost confidence in the marketing or data number.
Operating partners coordinating a roster of fractional execs who need one throat to choke on digital.
Companies between $5M and $100M in revenue where a full-time CDO or CMTO is overkill but a single agency is underkill.

Who it is not for

Probably not if

—Pure-play product engineering shops — that is the Fractional Executive Retainer.
—Brand or creative-led problems with no technology, data, or demand-gen dimension.
—Companies looking for a single-channel performance marketing agency.

A recent engagement

Five vendors collapsed into one accountable function in 90 days.

A sponsor-backed B2B services company had a fractional CTO, two marketing agencies, an SEO retainer, a data consultancy, and a paid AI pilot — none of which reconciled to the same pipeline number. Inside the first quarter the roster collapsed to two owned workstreams under one operator, attribution was rebuilt against the CFO's revenue ledger, and an agentic workflow took 11 hours a week out of sales ops. Run-rate spend dropped 28%; qualified pipeline rose 41% by month five.

Questions

What buyers ask

Related engagements

Ready to move?