Leadership you can hand the result to.
Fractional Chief Sales, Financial, Marketing and Operating Officers for growing companies in Europe. One or two days a week, one result, reviewed regularly. When a seat is the wrong answer, we say so.
For companies
Four seats, each with one result.
A seat is a leadership role with a defined responsibility, one result it answers for, and a set number of days a week.
Chief Sales Officer
Growth has outrun the owner's calendar. Deals wait for one person, and the forecast lives in one head.
The resultNew recurring revenue, and a forecast the board can plan on SeatChief Financial Officer
Cash, margin or investor reporting need a leader who owns them, beyond the accountant.
The resultCash and runway, margin, and the accuracy of the forecast SeatChief Marketing Officer
Pipeline depends on the owner's network, and marketing produces activity rather than opportunities.
The resultQualified pipeline from marketing, and what each opportunity costs SeatChief Operating Officer
Volume has outrun the way the company delivers. Promises made in sales are broken in operations.
The resultDelivery on time and in quality, and the cost of serving each customerCPO and CTO seats on request.
Why a fractional leader
An experienced leader, for the days your company needs.
For the moment when a leadership seat matters, but does not need five days a week.
Senior experience, sooner
Someone who has done it before, at a level you could not yet hire full time.
More seniority for the money
For the budget of a mid-level hire, you get one or two days a week of a leader who has done this before.
Starts in weeks
A full-time search for a senior leader takes months. A fractional leader can start within weeks of the Seat Check.
Owns a result
Sits in your leadership team, decides within agreed limits, and is measured on the result.
Grows with you
Reviewed every month. When the seat needs more days, you scale up, or we help you hire full time.
How it works
Start with the result you need. Then find the person who has delivered it before.
Seat Check
One seat, looked at properly. A plain answer: is a fractional seat the right answer here, yes or no.
Seat Brief
What the seat owns, the result it answers for, its authority, days and first 90 days, in writing.
Seat Match
If it helps, introductions to people we know who have done similar work. You decide, and agree the terms with them directly.
Seat Review
A monthly check on the seat and a quarterly review of the result, with you and the leader.
Why two days are enough now
More of what matters, in fewer days.
Companies increasingly buy a result, and look for the person who has delivered it before. AI now does much of the preparation that used to fill a leader's week: reports, analyses, first drafts. That leaves an experienced leader's days for decisions and people, so one or two days a week carry more than they used to.
There is a limit. Judgement and attention do not scale with software. AI may let a fractional leader take on a third company. It will not make anyone a leader for ten.
Who we are
A chair is more than a title. It is a responsibility, earned regularly. Chairborn is for leaders ready to carry it, and for companies ready to hand it over.
You will be talking to one of us.
Both of us hold fractional seats right now, which is also how we know what makes them fail. There is no account manager and no intake team. Every conversation, with a company or an executive, starts with one of us.
Martin Fabry
Co-founder
Fractional CSO. More than seventeen years in international B2B sales, eleven of them at 3M, then CSO and board member in growing companies, including Be Lenka.
Publishes on commercial leadership and the succession gap, including in TREND.sk.
Vladimír Houba
Co-founder
Eighteen years of commercial leadership in Central Europe, at Gemius and RTB House, and since 2016 with his own consultancy company.
ICF executive coach and Gallup-Certified CliftonStrengths Coach. Chairman of the Croatian-Czech Chamber of Commerce. Founder of FLITT, exclusive distributor of Reclimb for Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary and Austria.
A seat owns a result.
A leader who owns nothing measurable is an advisor with a better title. Every seat we work on has a result attached to it, agreed before the work starts.
The result is reviewed regularly.
We look at it together with the company. When it moves, the seat continues. When it doesn't, we help to change what needs changing, including the seat itself.
Most sales problems are leadership problems.
A strong leader dropped into a broken system fails like everyone before them. That is why we look at the system before we look at the people.
Experience is not proof.
Twenty years on a CV says what somebody sat through. What they can carry shows under pressure, and nobody gets our recommendation without showing us how they work there.
For senior executives
Thinking about fractional work? Start here.
Across Europe
Chairborn Circle
For leaders working out what comes next: going fractional, growing, finding a mentor, or slowing down. The waiting list is open, and Circle 101 is free.
Join the waiting list
Free webinar · Wednesday 25 November · 19:00 CET
Is a fractional role your next move?
One evening on how a fractional role works in practice, what it pays, and how to tell if you are ready.
Save my seatBefore you contact us
Three questions worth asking yourself first.
Are you ready to hand over real decisions? If the authority has to stay with you for now, a seat would be advice with a bigger invoice. A review of the system is the better start.
Do you need someone to own the result, or a strategy document? If it is the document, there are good firms for that. We are not one of them.
Has your product found its market yet? If not, you still belong in every conversation, and no seat should take that from you.