About

This started with a finance practice.

Since 2015 we have run fractional, interim and part-time CFO engagements throughSmeCFO across Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Indonesia. Doing that work, the same conversation kept happening.

A founder would ask whether we knew anyone who could do the equivalent for operations. Or marketing. Or technology. The model plainly worked — senior capability, bought for the share of time the role actually required — and outside the United States almost nobody was serving that need for anything other than finance.

So we built this. Chief Fractional is the front door: what fractional leadership costs in each of 24 markets across Asia and the Gulf, what the local employment and permit rules do to the answer, and an introduction to one firm that does the work properly.

What makes this different from a directory

We have priced and delivered these engagements ourselves, which is why the price index exists and why we are willing to publish a page about when not to hire fractionally. A firm selling its own bench cannot publish either of those honestly.

The trade-off is that we are not neutral in the abstract, and we would rather say so than pretend. Finance mandates in SmeCFO's five markets go to SmeCFO. Everything else goes to an independent specialist. The full disclosure is here.

What we are trying to get right

• Publish the numbers nobody else will, and correct them when we are wrong
• Make one good introduction rather than five convenient ones
• Say no when the answer is no
• Never hold candidate data, in any market, for any reason