Fractional CMO. C level marketing, part time.
Hire a fractional CMO when the company needs a marketing leader with scars, not another agency deck. Niklas Lindahl has been CMO of a 500M EUR group and now holds one or two fractional CMO seats at a time.
What the seat covers
The fractional CMO owns the marketing function end to end: what the company says, who it says it to, what it charges, how demand is created, and who does the work. Team leadership, agency accountability and the number that marketing is judged on are all inside the mandate.
What it is not: a strategy document, a workshop series, or a fractional title on top of an unchanged team. If nothing in the operating rhythm changes, the seat is not being used.
When a part time CMO beats a full time hire
- The company needs C level marketing judgement but the workload is not yet a full time seat.
- The CMO left and the search will take six months, so coverage is needed now.
- Revenue has plateaued and nobody senior owns the diagnosis.
- An investor wants the commercial engine professionalised before the next round or exit.
- A capable marketing manager needs a boss who has done the job at scale.
How the engagement runs
Weeks 1 to 3. Diagnosis. Funnel, pricing, positioning, team capability and the last twelve months of spend against the last twelve months of pipeline. The output is a short written read, not a deck.
Weeks 4 to 12. Rebuild. One sharpened position, a demand plan with owners, a weekly commercial cadence shared with sales, and the wrong spend stopped.
Month 4 onward. Compound. Hold the cadence, build the team, and prepare the function so a full time CMO can inherit it or so it no longer needs one.
Track record
CMO of a 500M EUR group, turnaround CEO, founder. Based in Milano, working in Swedish, English and Italian across Italy, the Nordics and the rest of Europe. Background on the about page, press coverage on the press page.
To start: a written brief through the contact form.
Frequently asked questions
- What is included in fractional CMO services?
- Ownership of the marketing function: positioning, pricing narrative, demand generation, brand, the marketing team, agency management and the reporting line into revenue. A fractional CMO runs the function, they do not advise the person running it.
- How many days a month does a fractional CMO work?
- Usually four to eight days a month, concentrated into a fixed weekly rhythm rather than scattered calls. The rhythm matters more than the volume: a predictable weekly operating meeting beats twice the hours spent reactively.
- Fractional CMO or interim CMO, what is the difference?
- A fractional CMO is a permanent part time seat, held alongside one or two other companies. An interim CMO is full time for a defined window, usually covering a departure or a launch. Both are available here; the choice depends on whether the gap is capacity or coverage.
- What size company should hire a fractional CMO?
- Companies from roughly 5M to 200M EUR in revenue. Below that a strong marketing lead is usually enough. Above that the workload normally justifies a full time CMO, though a fractional CMO is often the right bridge while that hire is made.
- How is the work measured?
- Against commercial numbers agreed before the start: pipeline created, cost per qualified opportunity, win rate, price realisation or share in a target segment. Impressions and follower counts are not outcomes.