Liberti Club spoke to Mark Nunny, an Investor at BGF, about the evolving role of fractional leadership in supporting businesses at different stages of scale.
LC: Where do you see fractional C-suite being most optimised amongst your clients?
MN: The businesses I work with have used fractional CFOs to rapidly upskill a finance team, act as a bridge to bringing in a perm CFO, and provide support in specific areas where an incumbent CFO is less experienced, such as in completing an acquisition. I’ve also seen them used to support a company to get ‘investment ready’ which has been particularly helpful in acting as a conduit between an investor and founder.
We’re seeing a broad church in how fractional talent is used. When we invest in businesses, we sometimes find that entrepreneurs have not invested as much in areas that are non-revenue generating, such as HR and talent. For example, we may see situations where there are strong HR professionals, but they may lack strategic insight, so we look at fractional support around that.
Technology is another area that needs strategic capability, particularly around cyber security. Finally, we find that growing a sustainable sales team is a challenge for most businesses. We therefore see a lot of investment in fractional sales leadership, especially in B2B firms.
LC: Has your view of the role of fractional leadership changed, from enabling different stages of scale to being a longer-term part of the board?
MN: I think it’s applicable over many evolution points in the business. When we invest, we’re very conscious of not overloading a board with permanent hires, as that’s very expensive, so you can fill gaps between key senior hires with fractional support. This allows you to bring the right expertise in at the right time. We have found that, when you work with the right fractional leader, they can have a different frame of reference that the management team, which is valuable to the teams we back as they look to grow.
LC: Are you using fractional twinning to support in house members of the board?
MN: We are seeing this used more with senior functional leaders within the business, be it HR or technology or finance, to bring an alternative skill set, or complement the leader’s existing experience because they are looking for an outside perspective.
LC: How is BGF supporting its portfolio businesses with its partner network?
MN: At BGF we ensure we provide a significant value creation offering to our portfolio. This includes helping our businesses to build effective boards through our Talent Network; access to operating specialists; and a community programme called Scale that connects a lot of the functional leads within our portfolio for events and to exchange information and share best practice. To support this, we often work with wider people networks, from groups such as Liberti to individuals and non-execs, to enable the businesses we’re backing to access the right people at the right time.