The Problem Nobody Talks About

Your ERP is 15 years old. Changing anything takes months and requires your historical vendor who charges €150/hour.

Your teams work in Excel. Orders in one file, accounting in another, logistics in a third. Nobody has the same version of the truth.

Your competitors ship features in weeks. Yours take months.

You hire more developers to go faster. You go slower.

Every time you fix a bug, two more appear. In different parts of the system. That shouldn’t even be connected.

Your AWS bill doubled. Again. Your CTO or vendor says you need to “optimize.” You optimize. It’s still growing.

Senior developers quit after 6 months because they’re tired of fighting the system instead of building product.

You want to add a new payment provider. “Simple,” you think. Your tech team estimates 3 months. You think they’re joking. They’re not.

The worst part?

Everyone knows something is wrong.

Your CTO and IT team know it.

Your operational managers know it.

Your CFO is starting to ask questions about “IT ROI,” your investors about “technical roadmap.”

But nobody can fix it. Because fixing it means stopping. And stopping means falling further behind.

You can’t hire your way out of this. You can’t sprint your way out of this.

You need someone who can see the whole picture while your team keeps shipping.
Someone who’s done this before.
Who knows what “good” looks like.

Someone who makes sure every strategic technical decision
(architecture, infrastructure, tooling, team structure, …)
doesn’t just fix today’s fire—but prevents next quarter’s fires from starting.

That’s what a Fractional CTO does.

Technical decisions must serve your business goals - Not fight them.

Why Your CTO Needs Help (Even If They Won’t Admit It)

Your CTO is good. Maybe great. But they’re drowning.

They’re in back-to-back meetings. They’re fixing production incidents. They’re hiring. They’re firefighting. They’re explaining to investors why the roadmap slipped again.

They don’t have time to think.

And strategic technology leadership isn’t something you do between meetings. It’s not a weekend project. It requires stepping back, seeing the system as a whole, and making decisions that will matter for years.

That’s where a Fractional CTO comes in.

Not to replace your CTO. Not to take over. But to be the external brain that thinks strategically while your internal team executes.

Give your CTO the strategic partner they need

What Makes Architecture Work (And What Doesn’t)

Most “enterprise architects” will sell you a 120-slide PowerPoint deck with boxes and arrows.

You’ll nod politely. Your developers will ignore it. Nothing will change.

Here’s the truth: architecture isn’t about diagrams. It’s about decisions.

The right architecture starts with one question: What value are we actually delivering?

Not: “What’s the coolest tech stack?” Not: “Should we do microservices?” Not: “How do we scale to a billion users?”

But: “What are the core domains of our business, and how do we model them so our tech serves our goals instead of fighting them?”

Get your domain design right, and deployment becomes easy. Scaling becomes predictable. New features don’t take 6 months anymore.

Get it wrong, and you’re re-platforming every 18 months while your competitors eat your lunch.

What a Fractional CTO Actually Does

This isn’t a consultant who drops a report and disappears.

This is strategic partnership, on a flexible timeline.

Strategic Technology Leadership

We work with you on the decisions that matter:

Architecture strategy: Where should your system go? What’s the 12-month technical vision?
Build vs. buy decisions: When to use third-party solutions, when to build custom
Tech stack evolution: What to keep, what to replace, what to modernize
Team structure: How to organize engineering for speed and autonomy
Technical roadmap: Aligning tech investments with business goals

Think of it as having a senior technology leader on speed-dial, without the full-time salary.

Architecture & System Design

Your domain design matters. A lot.

If you model your business domains correctly, everything else becomes easier. Deployment. Scaling. New features. Team independence.

Get it wrong, and you’re re-platforming every 18 months while your competitors eat your lunch.

We help you:

Domain modeling: Breaking your system into clean, bounded contexts
Event-driven architecture: Making services loosely coupled so changes don’t cascade
Cloud-native patterns: Building for resilience, not just “putting stuff in AWS”
Pragmatic modernization: Migrating away from legacy without a big-bang rewrite that never finishes

The goal isn’t “perfect architecture.” It’s architecture that lets you move fast without breaking everything.

TL;DR: We help you make the right technical decisions, implement them with your team, and build a roadmap that actually aligns with your business goals.

Hands-On Execution Support

Good strategy dies in PowerPoint if nobody implements it.

So we work with your team:

Code reviews on critical paths
Pairing sessions with your senior devs
ADR (Architecture Decision Records) so decisions don’t get lost
Workshops to align product, engineering, and business
Technical due diligence support for investors

CTO Coaching & Leadership

Your CTO isn’t failing. They’re overloaded.

We help them:

Prioritize technical debt vs. new features
Communicate tech decisions to non-technical stakeholders
Build a technical roadmap that aligns with business goals
Mentor their senior engineers
Prepare for board meetings and investor updates

This isn’t a takeover. It’s reinforcement.

Want this for your company?

Why Work With Me

Strategic thinking happens in calm. Execution happens under pressure.

When you need to step back and design the right architecture, we take the time to think. When that architecture needs defending in a room full of stakeholders, or when a critical decision needs to be made on-site, I’m there.

I’m based in the Netherlands and work across Belgium, Luxembourg, Western Germany, and Northern France. Amsterdam, Brussels, Cologne, Lille—if you’re within 3 hours, I can be there.

Face-to-face matters for the moments that count: workshops, brainstorming sessions, critical architectural decisions, or aligning your entire leadership team around a technical roadmap.

You’re capital-efficient. You don’t have infinite VC runway to “figure it out later.”

You need technology that works now and scales later—not the other way around.

I’ve worked with NS (Dutch Railways), L’Oréal (digital supply chain), Thales (critical systems), and Mazars (IT transformation).

From critical infrastructure to growing SMEs: I know what “pragmatic” means in tech terms: deliver value today while building foundations for tomorrow.

Nine years as founder and CTO of Exxan. From zero to twelve people. The real trade-offs: tech stack choices, team building, vendor management, budget decisions.

Then at Mazars, as an external partner: all the technical decisions for a growing business unit, with the CEO as the only decision-maker above me. Not a report dropped and goodbye.

That’s precisely the model I’m offering today.

Who This Is For

This works best if:

You’re an established SME (50-500 people) digitalizing your operations and need tech leadership without hiring a full-time CTO
Your IT is expensive (legacy ERP, Excel everywhere, multiple vendors) and you want to regain control without breaking everything
You’re a scale-up (50-200 people) that’s outgrown its first architecture and tech is becoming a bottleneck
You’re a growing start-up (10-50 people) preparing for your next funding round and need strategic tech leadership
Your CTO is overwhelmed and needs strategic backup to focus on execution
You’re entering a new market (Benelux, Germany, France) and need local technology expertise

This doesn’t work if:

You’re pre-product-market fit and need hands-on development (you need a dev, not strategic counsel)
You want someone to write all your code (I help your team level up, not replace them)
You need a full-time employee for day-to-day operations (this is strategic leadership, not operational management)

How It Works

Step 1: Discovery Call (30 min, free)
We talk about your situation. No sales pitch. Just: “Is this actually a fit?”

If not, I’ll tell you. If yes, we move to step 2.

Step 2: Initial Assessment (1-2 weeks)
I dive into your context. Talk to your team. Look at your system, your roadmap, your constraints.

You get a clear report: what’s broken, what’s working, what to do next.

Step 3: Ongoing Partnership (Flexible)
Depending on your needs:

8-16 hours/month: Strategic guidance, key decisions, architecture reviews
2-3 days/month: Hands-on work with your team, pairing, workshops
Project-based: Specific transformation (e.g., modernizing your architecture, preparing for Series B tech due diligence)

You’re not locked in. You scale up or down as needed.

Investment

Fractional CTO engagements start at €8,000/month — typically 1.5 to 2 days per week on a monthly retainer, minimum 6 months.

Not ready to commit to a long-term engagement? Start with a Technical Diagnostic at €3,500 — two days on-site or remote, a clear written report, and actionable recommendations. It’s the fastest way to know exactly where you stand before committing.

First call is always free and takes 30 minutes.

The Bottom Line

Your tech should be an accelerator, not an anchor.

If every new feature feels like pushing a boulder uphill, you need strategic help.

If your competitors are moving faster with smaller teams, you need strategic help.

If your CTO looks tired and says “we need to refactor everything,” you need strategic help.

You can’t fix strategic problems with more developers. You fix them with better decisions.

That’s what a Fractional CTO does.

Let’s Talk

No 120-slide decks. No enterprise buzzword bingo. Just a conversation about whether this makes sense for your company.

Book a 30-minute call—let's see if we're a fit

Or email me directly at laurent@exxan.nl.

Frequently Asked Questions

: A senior technology executive who works part-time across multiple companies, providing strategic leadership without the cost of a full-time hire. You get the expertise and decision-making capacity of a seasoned CTO, scaled to your actual needs.
: A consultant delivers a report. A Fractional CTO stays involved: attends your team meetings, reviews code, makes decisions with you, and is accountable for outcomes. The relationship is ongoing, not transactional.
: Typically 8–16 hours/month on a retainer, or project-based depending on your needs. We define the scope together during the discovery call, and you can scale up or down as the engagement evolves.
: Fractional CTO engagements start at €8,000/month (typically 1.5–2 days per week, 6-month minimum). A Technical Diagnostic is available at €3,500 — a standalone engagement to get a clear picture before committing.
: Both. I'm based in Houten (Utrecht) and work on-site within a 3-hour radius: Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, western Germany, northern France. Remote is fully possible for the rest of Europe.
: After a 30-minute discovery call, I can deliver an initial assessment within 1–2 weeks. Ongoing engagement typically starts the following month.

Fractional CTO