Fractional CMO · Marketing leadership
Senior marketing thinking, joined precisely to your business.
Board-level marketing leadership for mid-market and PE-backed businesses, from someone who has built and run the function from the inside. Shaped around what the business needs to get done, not a fixed number of days.
Experience
Pro Global
Lloyd's · London Market Group
LIIBA
Insurance, financial services and businesses that sell expertise.
The problem
Most mid-market firms don't need a bigger marketing team. They need a decision.
When growth stalls, the instinct is to add. Another hire, another agency, another channel. It rarely works, because the problem was never capacity. It was the absence of anyone senior enough to decide what the business should stop doing.
A fractional CMO exists to make that decision with you, and then to make it stick. What you get is growth that is planned rather than hoped for, money spent where it returns, and a board that knows what marketing is for.
What I do
Five ways to bring senior marketing judgement into the business.
A fractional CMO, sometimes called a part-time or fractional marketing director, is a chief marketing officer for part of the week: the same seat at the leadership table, sized to the work rather than to a full-time salary.
01
Fractional CMO
Leading marketing at board level, for as much of the week as the work needs. You get one accountable person for strategy, team, agencies, budget and the numbers, and a function that runs without you having to run it.
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Brand and positioning
Research with your people and your clients, a category audit, and a position nobody else has taken. You get the words, the identity and the website that carry it, so the business can finally say why it is worth choosing.
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Websites
Structure and words first, then design, then a build you own and can run yourselves. Positioning, copy, design and build from one person, so the site argues your case rather than listing what you do.
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Marketing review
Three to four weeks, fixed fee. You get a plain written answer to what marketing is for in your business, what to stop, and what to do in the next ninety days. Enough to act on the day you read it.
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Investor and board support
Before a deal, a straight read on how much of the growth story is real. After it, a 100-day plan the management team can actually run. In between, a senior marketing voice at the board table.
More on this →Who it's for
CEOs who are tired of being the most senior marketer in the room.
Businesses that have outgrown their marketing, but not by enough to justify a full-time CMO.
CEOs and founders
You get someone who has run marketing sitting next to you, so the decisions get made and you can stop being the referee for every campaign.
Private equity investors
You get a marketing plan the investment case can rely on, delivered with the management team rather than to them, and a straight answer when a number moves.
Marketing teams without a senior lead
They get direction, cover at board level and somebody to fight their corner. You get their good work joined up into something that moves the numbers.
Emliss is not an agency. Brand, positioning and the website that carries them come with the thinking, and I will build the site where that is what you need. Running your campaigns and buying your media do not. Where you need a photographer, a developer or a media agency I will find them, brief them and hold them to the brief, and you pay them directly with no margin to me.
How it works
A conversation, a diagnosis, then the work.
No long proposals and no discovery phase that costs money before anyone has said anything useful.
01
A conversation
Thirty minutes on where the business is, what is getting in the way, and whether this is the right kind of help.
02
A diagnosis
A short, fixed-fee review that ends in a written view of what marketing is for here and what should change.
03
The work
An agreed shape and term, with a clear plan and a date to review it.
About
Emliss is Chris Buer.
Twenty years in the London insurance market, including six building and leading marketing at Pro Global from a standing start to a function the board relied on.
I joined Pro Global in 2020 as its first head of marketing and built the function from nothing, with a team of two, through a period of strong and profitable growth. Before that, at Lloyd's, I ran the brand strategy for the London insurance market itself. What that means for you: I have done this before, at your scale, for owners who count.
Questions
Questions people ask before they get in touch
What is a fractional CMO?
A chief marketing officer who works inside your business for part of the week rather than full time. You get the same seat at the leadership table and the same accountability for strategy, budget, team and agencies, without the cost of a permanent hire. It is the same idea as a part-time or fractional marketing director; the title varies, the job does not.
Who is a fractional CMO for?
Mid-market businesses, typically between ten and a few hundred million in revenue, and private-equity-backed companies where the investment case depends on marketing that has not yet been built or led. Most of my clients are in insurance, financial services and businesses that sell expertise, and most are led by a CEO who has become the most senior marketer in the room by default.
How many days a week does it take?
It depends on what needs doing. Some engagements are a day or two a week for a fixed term, some start heavier and taper as the team grows into it, and some run close to full time for a period. We agree the shape before we start.
What does a fractional CMO cost?
A day rate agreed per engagement, for an agreed amount of time and a fixed term. That usually comes to a fraction of the fully loaded cost of a permanent CMO, without the notice period, the equity conversation or the recruitment fee. I will give you a clear figure after the first conversation, once I know what the job is.
Is this the same as an interim marketing director?
Close, but not quite. An interim usually fills a gap full time for a few months until a permanent hire arrives. A fractional CMO is part of the leadership team for as long as the business needs senior marketing judgement. Some engagements do end with me helping to hire the permanent marketing lead.
Do you work outside London?
Yes. I work in person anywhere in the UK, and remotely. Most engagements are a mix of days on site and days working alongside the team from wherever I am.
Talk to Chris
Start with a conversation.
Thirty minutes, no slides, to talk through where the business is and whether senior marketing thinking would move it on. If it would, I will tell you what I would do first.
Book a consultation →