Fractional
data lead.
Most mid-sized commerce businesses cannot justify a full-time data leader, and suffer for not having one. This is the middle option: one person, accountable, one or two days a week.
What the role covers
- Owning the definitions: what counts as a sale, a return, a cost, a margin — and defending them when a report disagrees with someone's instinct.
- Keeping the reporting honest as the business changes: new markets, new channels, new fee structures.
- Sitting in the meetings where decisions get made, with the numbers, rather than sending numbers into meetings.
- Directing whatever technical help exists — an agency, a developer, a tool vendor — so the work compounds instead of scattering.
- Saying which questions are worth answering, and which are expensive distractions.
What it is not
Not an analyst on call producing charts on request. Not an agency retainer with a monthly deck. The value is judgement and accountability, which is precisely what does not survive being outsourced by the hour.
Capacity
This is a one-person practice, so availability is genuinely limited — two ongoing engagements at a time, plus one project. That constraint is deliberate and it is the reason the work stays senior.
How it usually starts
Rarely cold. Most engagements begin with an audit, continue into building the decision layer, and only then become an ongoing arrangement — by which point both sides know exactly what they are getting.