FossAI Advisory
Fractional Chief Data and AI Officer leadership for companies too small for a full-time one and too serious to wing it.
The Problem
The first option is to hire a full-time data and AI executive at $300k plus equity and hope there is enough work to justify it. For a company between $10M and $500M in revenue there usually is not, at least not yet. The role gets scoped down until it is really a senior analyst with a title, or it gets scoped up into something the company cannot actually staff underneath, and either way the hire is unhappy within a year.
The second option is to let it happen. Somebody in operations is curious, somebody in marketing signed up for a tool with a credit card, and finance is quietly running numbers through something nobody has vetted. Eighteen months later there are a dozen disconnected subscriptions, no governance, no shared standard for what may be uploaded, and company data sitting in vendor systems nobody reviewed. None of this shows up as a problem until it shows up all at once.
The market does not serve this size well. The large consultancies will take the meeting and then staff the engagement with people learning on your budget, because an engagement this size does not get their senior attention. The boutique AI shops are often genuinely good at implementation and sell it without the governance layer, which means you get a working pilot and no answer when someone asks who approved the data leaving the building.
Then the forcing function arrives from outside. An enterprise customer's security review starts asking AI questions. A regulator, an insurer, or an acquirer wants to see the policy. A board member reads something and asks what the company's position is. At that point the question is not whether AI creates value. It is whether anyone can produce a document.
Who This Is For
A straight answer on where AI creates real capacity in this business, and a position the board and your customers can be shown.
A sequenced roadmap tied to actual workflows, scored by value against difficulty, rather than a list of tools to try.
Vendor consolidation, a defensible spend, and governance that holds up in a customer security review or a diligence process.
The written policy and vendor standard that security questionnaires are starting to ask for by name.
What We Do
Most engagements start with the advisory day or the assessment and move into a retainer once the roadmap exists. Governance can run in parallel when a customer review or a diligence process is forcing the timeline.
One day, one problem, one clear path forward for a leadership team stuck on a high-stakes AI decision or misaligned on direction. Real-time decision documentation, a written decision brief, and a 30-day action plan. The cheapest way to find out whether we are useful to you.
A focused engagement that maps where AI produces real margin or capacity in this business specifically, scores each opportunity by value against implementation difficulty, and produces a sequenced roadmap. Ends with a board or leadership presentation. If the honest finding is that the data is not ready, the roadmap starts there instead.
Acceptable use policy, vendor AI evaluation standard, data classification, retention and access controls, and an approval workflow for new tools. Built for companies with regulatory exposure or enterprise customers whose security reviews are starting to ask AI questions. Your counsel signs off, not us.
Role-based training for leadership, operations, sales, finance, and customer-facing teams, built on your own workflows rather than generic examples. Same guardrails-first structure as the sports and schools practices, which means the session on what may not be pasted in comes before the session on what the tools can do.
Ongoing executive leadership on a retained basis. Owns the data and AI roadmap, vendor evaluation, governance, and the internal capability build, and sits in leadership meetings rather than presenting to them. Typically one to three days a month, with a six-month minimum because nothing useful happens in eight weeks.
Pricing
$7,500
One day, one decision, written brief and 30-day plan
$18,500
Scored opportunity map and sequenced roadmap, 4 to 6 weeks
$15,000
Policy, vendor standard, classification, approval workflow
$6,500
Per cohort day, role-based tracks
From $8,000/month
One to three days a month, six-month minimum
The retainer floor is deliberate. Capacity for this practice is limited, so the pricing is set to discourage volume and favor a small number of engagements where the leadership team is genuinely committed. Every engagement starts with a discovery call rather than a quote form.
Why FossAI
The executive half
Bryan Fossi served as Chief Data, Analytics and AI Officer in a federal command running one of the largest logistics enterprises in government. That meant owning a roadmap and a budget, sitting in leadership meetings rather than presenting to them, and answering for governance decisions in an environment where the constraints are not negotiable. A fractional CDAO who has never held the role is a consultant with a new title.
The current practitioner half
Bryan currently leads an AI/ML and data intelligence practice at a federal consulting firm, so the technical judgment is current rather than remembered. You get an assessment of what these tools can do now, including an honest account of where they fail, from someone whose day job is shipping them. You also get the person you hired doing the work, with no junior staff layered underneath.
What We Will Not Claim
Every firm in this market has a list of things it promises. This is the list of things we do not, published in the same place on every page.
That AI will replace headcount. We will tell you where it creates capacity. What you do with that capacity is a decision you make, not an outcome we promise.
A specific ROI or hours-saved figure. You will hear numbers from other firms. Ours come from clients who measured it and agreed to be quoted, or not at all.
That we can certify you as compliant. We build policy and practice. Your counsel signs off, not us.
That the assessment will tell you to do a lot of AI. Sometimes the honest finding is that your data is not ready and the first six months of work is unglamorous.
That a fractional CDAO is the same as a full-time one. It is not. It is the right choice at a specific stage and we will tell you when you have outgrown it.
That we are a reseller or an implementation partner for any vendor. We take no referral fees, which is the only way vendor evaluation means anything.
Questions
Get Started
A vendor you cannot evaluate, a board question you cannot answer, or a security questionnaire you cannot fill in. That is the right first conversation.
