How can business owners capitalise on fractional leadership & partner ecosystems to scale more profitably?
On Tuesday 21st April, the first Liberti Club Forum brought together business owners from a range of industries to share challenges and advice with partners, principals and Regional Directors from Liberti’s growing network.
Panel debates on partnership strategies and leadership solutions to scale presented insights from fractional providers and business service partners that have helped thousands of businesses to accelerate growth and avoid costly mistakes.
“As the cost and risk of full-time hires has increased, the smartest organisations have moved from who does work to how work gets done, blending full-time, freelance, fractional and agentic workers within the business and a network of partners and advisors to complement delivery,” said Liberti Club Director Alex Evans. “The question is how to orchestrate ecosystems to make the most of it all.”
A thread that ran through the session was the importance of an abundant mindset: sharing knowledge, time and connections to create opportunity and building relationships for the right support at the right time.
“Relationships are what enable founders to scale their businesses, and advisors like us to tell business owners what they need to hear; we call it ‘carefrontation’”, said John Morris, Head of Growth Practice Management at accounting, tax and business advisory firm Blick Rothenberg. “Vulnerability is a source of strength for business owners who can admit that they need experience and expertise they don’t have, because it unlocks so much growth potential.”
Fractional leadership is increasingly seen as a smart way to add capability and capacity to your existing team. It’s an approach taken by insurance advisory firm Partners&, which has optimised fractional solutions to support periods of accelerated growth.
“Our partnership approach brings together the right expertise in a joined‑up, meaningful way and our clear focus is on strengthening our clients’ resilience and equipping them to respond to the real business challenges they face,” explained Billy Manley, Managing Partner (Business Development – South) at Partners&.
“These partnerships allow us to build an ecosystem that goes beyond insurance. It’s a real endorsement of the trust we have in the Liberti Group that we also use them within our own business. Their fractional strategic and operational finance support has increased capacity around our CFO and helped us manage peaks throughout our own journey.”
Building solid foundations for growth
Bringing in the right strategic leadership or advisory partner at the right time can be transformational for growth and helps to avoid costly errors.
Jonathan Dunn, CEO of corporate finance advisory firm Initium has seen a range of avoidable mistakes made by founders he has helped to successfully exit over the last 35 years. “The most common is not measuring the right success factors, knowing who their highest value clients are or tracking performance to give confidence to the investor or buyer that growth will be sustained,” he shared.
“Accurate forecasting, financial reporting and pipeline management are vital, but also building capability to scale. Fractional leadership, whether it’s finance, sales or HR, embeds the systems and processes that drive growth and reduce cost to increase profitability.”
Jennifer Raines founded fractional operational finance provider YRH Finance Team in 2007 and has helped over 1300 businesses scale more profitably. “When you’re growing a business, your focus is on sales, product, customers, and team; and the finance function can get left behind,” she observed. “Somewhere between £1m and £5m, you outgrow basic book-keeping. If you’re looking for investment, you need more accurate reporting and cashflow clarity which our team provides in the most cost-efficient way.”
Business owners can limit their own growth by taking on too much responsibility for sales, or not enough, as Nick Weston, fractional Sales Leader & Regional Director of Kiss The Fish explained: “We often encounter two types of founder: the sales leader who owns all of the client relationships and those who rely on others to sell. Both can block growth.
“Sales leader founders are limited by their own capacity and haven’t had time to build the systems and processes that others can follow to drive sales. Those who prefer to delegate sales rarely have the experience to recruit the right people, define key performance metrics, or manage toxic top billers. A fractional Sales Director can support both types of founder to build systems, drive accountability and make the difficult decisions.”
“Vanity milestones around headcount are being replaced with KPIs about how work gets done, and not just because the cost and risk of bad hires is increasing,” said Mark Eaton, MD London for fractional HR firm People Puzzles. “Organisations can now grow faster and more profitably with a blended workforce. Our People Directors support scale with smarter organisational design and orchestration of all of these elements around clear business performance metrics.”
The evolution of fractional leadership
The scope of executive roles across HR, Finance, Sales and Marketing have expanded, compelling businesses of all sizes to find new ways to increase capacity and capability.
“As commercial leaders, CFOs are pulled into all areas of the business, from sales, marketing and people to technology, to bring a strategic financial perspective,” commented Jamie Mills, CEO UK&I of The CFO Centre. “Even the best execs, working five days a week, are struggling to do everything well, and no-one knows everything. That’s why we have seen more demand for fractional twinning, or CFOs CFO.”
“Like other businesses within Liberti, we’re seeing more demand for fractional twinning, not just supporting in-house marketing leaders with fractional CMOs, but also working alongside finance, sales and tech leaders,” said Lucy Hogarth, CEO of The Marketing Centre. “At the same time, clients increasingly need support to navigate the growing complexity of marketing, with more channels, more data and AI adding another layer. This is driving demand for broader fractional marketing capability to build the right structures, systems and plans to deliver sustainable growth.”
With over 142,000 senior professionals describing themselves as fractional leaders in January 2025, and the fractional executive marketplace predicted to quadruple to $29.4 billion by 2033, businesses have far more to choose from – but how easy is it to find the right one?
“The growing challenge is finding the right solution as so many executives are going fractional, with lone rangers flooding the market,” said Liberti’s Group CEO Sara Daw. “We believe businesses should look for a fractional C-suite solution with a combination of technical, emotional and collective intelligence as part of a joined-up team and partner ecosystem. We look for principals with an abundant mindset, who are prepared to share knowledge, time, connections and even clients because this creates value. This is why we have seen more clients like Partners& working with multiple principals within our group.”
As orchestration becomes the biggest enabler of growth, what makes genuine partnership work?
“Education and communication are vital,” added Jonathan Dunn. “Explaining what everyone brings to the partnership, what sets their services apart, and how they add value to introduce them in the right way at the right time.”
“Fractional leaders are self-managing, help to orchestrate a blended workforce, and ensure businesses gain most value from the right partners at the right time,” concluded Sara Daw. “Ultimately, the future of leadership and growth is partnership, to be stronger together.”
