For a long time, product leadership was binary. Either you had a full-time Head of Product, or you didn’t. Either you built your own strategy—or you hired someone to own it all.
But that model is starting to break down.
More companies are turning to fractional product leaders—experienced VPs and CPOs who embed with the team part-time—to help them build focus, momentum, and clarity without needing to make a full-time hire. And it’s not just startups trying to save on headcount. It’s Series B and C companies that need to scale fast. It’s founder-led orgs looking to shift decision-making to the team. It’s growth-stage companies realizing that having someone “own the roadmap” isn’t the same as having strong product leadership.
The Trend Is Real
Fractional product leadership isn’t just a one-off workaround—it’s part of a broader shift in how companies think about building product capability. More product executives are choosing to work fractionally, and companies—from enterprises like Oracle and BCG to fast-growing startups—are embracing flexible ways to bring in experienced leadership without committing to a full-time hire.
Mentions of fractional executive roles on LinkedIn have more than doubled over the past two years. And product is one of the fastest-growing categories in that mix—reflecting both rising demand and a growing supply of product leaders rethinking how they want to work.
The reasons are clear: slower hiring cycles, pressure to extend runway, and the need for experienced leadership without long onboarding timelines. At the same time, many product leaders are stepping off the treadmill of permanent roles in search of work that’s more focused and impactful. Fractional roles are often scoped around a specific outcome—getting a product to market, defining a roadmap, coaching a team—so product leaders can concentrate their time and expertise on driving results, rather than getting pulled into broad responsibilities or internal politics.
What Exactly Is Fractional Product Leadership?
A fractional product leader is a senior product executive—usually someone who’s built and led product teams across multiple stages of growth—who works with a company part-time. They step into critical moments of transition: post-funding, pre-hiring, pre-launch, or post-product/market fit. They work directly with product teams, founders, and leadership to bring clarity, structure, and strategic focus.
Unlike a consultant, a fractional leader isn’t just there to give advice. They’re embedded in the day-to-day, accountable for outcomes, and often take on interim leadership responsibilities—driving execution, guiding teams, and making decisions alongside you.
Let’s Be Clear About What This Is Not
- It’s not a placeholder. The goal isn’t to “fill a seat” while you wait for a hire—it’s to make real progress now. Fractional leaders often leave the team stronger than they found it.
- It’s not just coaching. Coaching might be part of it, but fractional leaders are also hands-on: reviewing strategy, defining outcomes, pressure-testing roadmaps, and helping the team say no to distractions.
- It’s not just for early-stage startups. Fractional product leaders are showing up in Series B, C, and even post-IPO companies—especially when the product org has grown faster than its operating model.
Why Companies Are Choosing Fractional Product Leadership
- You don’t need full-time to get full value. Sometimes, the highest-leverage work—defining product principles, aligning teams, reframing the roadmap—doesn’t require 40 hours a week. It requires clarity and experience.
- It’s faster than hiring. Even if you plan to hire a full-time product exec, that search could take 6–12 months. Meanwhile, your team needs direction. A fractional leader can help you move now.
- It makes your next full-time hire more successful. A fractional leader can lay the groundwork—clear up messy team dynamics, set up goal frameworks, and fix decision-making—so that when your permanent leader comes in, they inherit a healthier org.
- It supports your internal team. Fractional leaders often serve as coaches and mentors, helping existing PMs grow in confidence and capability. Many product managers haven’t had strong product leadership before—this is a chance to build that muscle across the team, not just at the top.
When Fractional Isn’t the Right Fit
Fractional product leadership isn’t a fix-all. It works best when a company has a clear focus—whether that’s preparing for a fundraise, improving execution, or aligning the team around outcomes. It’s less effective when a company is looking for someone to “own product” indefinitely without a defined scope or when day-to-day decisions require constant, full-time availability.
If what’s needed is deep cross-functional alignment across dozens of stakeholders or continuous oversight of a large team, a full-time hire is probably the better fit.
From the product leader’s side, fractional roles may not be the right choice if you’re looking to embed deeply in a single company, manage a large org over time, or take full ownership of a long-term product strategy. Some leaders are energized by guiding a company through inflection points and stepping away once the team is set up for success. Others are looking for the sustained depth and ownership that comes with a full-time role.
A New Path for Product Managers, Too
Fractional work isn’t just a lifeline for companies—it’s also a viable path for product leaders who want to work differently.
Many experienced product leaders are rethinking what career success looks like. Some are coming off intense scale-up roles or feeling burned out by internal politics. Others simply want more control over their time and the ability to focus on real product problems—not reorgs and headcount battles.
Fractional work offers variety, autonomy, and the chance to create meaningful impact across multiple companies. It’s also a way to stay close to the craft—coaching PMs, driving strategy, and shaping how teams operate without getting pulled into permanent overhead.
“What I love about fractional work is being able to help businesses reach outcomes they’ve been chasing for a long time. Sometimes they haven’t had the budget for a full-time product leader—or even a clear picture of what great product leadership looks like. But once we start making progress, you can feel the shift. The team is more focused, the work starts landing, and suddenly the goals feel achievable. In one engagement, we went from a stalled roadmap and constant rework to shipping a critical product milestone in just two months—something the team had been spinning on for nearly a year. It wasn’t just about speed—it was the first time in a while that what we shipped was clearly tied to real customer needs and made a visible difference to the business.”
—Lisa Hagen, Fractional Product Leader at Ready Steady
For Companies. For Product Leaders. For Product.
Fractional product leadership isn’t a half-measure. It’s not a temporary fix. It’s a strategic choice.
For companies, it means clarity, speed, and product leadership that actually sticks.
For product leaders, it opens up new ways to work, grow, and contribute—on your own terms.
It challenges the old model. And that’s a good thing.
Lisa Hagen is a fractional product leader and coach at Ready Steady, where she works with startups and growth-stage companies to turn vision into market success. She’s the co-author of Ready Steady Grow, a hands-on guide to building confident, high-impact product teams. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Boston Product Management Association.
