Fractional CMO & strategy agencies, reviewed and ranked

Senior marketing leadership on part-time terms. Scored on whether they diagnose and make tradeoffs, or arrive with a playbook from their last company.

14 evaluated, of which we would put 12 in front of a client and cut 2.

You are buying judgement, so test the diagnosis

The heaviest dimension here is whether they can diagnose market, customer, positioning, funnel, economics and organisational constraints — then make explicit tradeoffs about what not to do. The tell is in the first conversation: an operator asks uncomfortable questions about your economics; a vendor presents a framework.

Ask what they have actually run, at what stage

Pattern recognition is stage-specific and category-specific. Someone who scaled a $50M brand has genuinely little to offer a pre-product-market-fit company, and the reverse is equally true. Named former CMO or equivalent operator experience at your stage is what this rubric rewards, not seniority in the abstract.

The output should include a team that can continue

Good fractional leadership leaves durable capability behind — hires made, processes established, people who can run it after. If the engagement's value evaporates the day it ends, you rented a consultant rather than building a function.

Evaluated

And the ones we cut, so you can judge the rest

Named, with the reason and the sources.