What is a Fractional COO—and Do You Need One?
Scaling a business is a bold and thrilling endeavor—but it also comes with growing pains. If you're a founder or small business owner, you know what it’s like to juggle big vision with daily execution. One minute you’re leading strategy; the next, you're dealing with broken systems, siloed communication, or unclear accountability. That’s often the sign it’s time for a Fractional COO.
So, What Is a Fractional COO?
A Fractional Chief Operating Officer (COO) is a seasoned operations leader who steps into your business part-time to help build structure, improve execution, and position your company for sustainable growth. Unlike a full-time executive, a fractional leader is scalable—you get the high-impact strategy and systems-building experience without committing to a full-time salary.
After two decades of building operational and HR infrastructure in startups, nonprofits, and global organizations, I’ve seen how vital operational leadership is to growth—and how many businesses wait too long to bring it in.
What Do They Actually Do?
Here’s what a strong Fractional COO brings to the table:
Translate Vision Into Action: You know where you want to go. A Fractional COO helps you get there, step by step—with process, clarity, and alignment.
Systematize the Chaos: Whether it's your hiring, onboarding, customer delivery, or team meetings—scalable systems are key to scaling your business.
Drive Accountability: No more “Who’s doing what?” or “Did that get done?” Just clear roles, metrics, and follow-through.
Lead Cross-Functional Teams: Someone who sees across departments and ensures operations, HR, finance, and marketing are pulling in the same direction.
Build Infrastructure for Growth: From people systems to performance management, they help you lay the foundation to scale with confidence.
Do You Need One?
Ask yourself:
Are you spending more time putting out fires than planning for the future?
Is your team growing but your systems haven’t caught up?
Are you hitting a revenue ceiling and unsure how to scale beyond it?
Do you need more strategic bandwidth, but can’t justify a full-time exec?
If the answer to any of those is “yes,” you’re likely in the right phase to benefit from fractional leadership.
Why Fractional?
Hiring a Fractional COO is a strategic move for companies that need senior-level guidance but aren’t ready for—or don’t need—a full-time executive. It’s also a smart move when your team is ready to level up, but internal bandwidth is limited.
You get:
Executive-Level Insight Without Executive Overhead
Agility and Focus—Only When You Need It
Proven Playbooks from Someone Who’s Done It Before
I've worked with organizations of all sizes—from fast-growth startups to 10,000-employee enterprises—and the common thread is always this: clarity and alignment create momentum. A Fractional COO doesn’t just “keep the trains running.” They build the tracks and make sure the destination still makes sense.
Final Thought
At PeopleSpark, we believe scaling a business should feel like building something exciting—not like barely holding it together. If you're in that in-between space—past the startup hustle, but not yet at the polished enterprise level—it might be time for fractional leadership. And if your operations and people systems need alignment, even better. That’s where I thrive.
Let’s talk about how we can take you from reactive to ready.