The Digimasters Podcast - The Fractional Career, How to build your portfolio with CxO Lab

Watch this episode on YouTube HERE or https://youtu.be/MZZOOjH1sAc

Join us in Episode 2 of the DigiMasters Podcast as host Adam Nagus and special guest Rob Saltrese from CxO Lab delve into the dynamic world of fractional careers. 🌍

To register for the Empower event click this registration link - https://bit.ly/empower-ldn2_digimasters

🔥 In This Episode:

Special Guest Rob Saltrese: Gain insights from the co-founder of CxO Lab on the evolving landscape of fractional careers.
Deep Dive into Fractional Careers: Discover what a fractional career entails and how it's shaping the modern workforce.
Adam Nagus' Journey: Adam shares his personal transition from a full-time role to a diversified portfolio career.
CxO Lab's Vision: Learn about the innovative approach CxO Lab brings to consulting and advisory, bridging the gap between traditional recruitment and contemporary career needs.
💡 Key Takeaways:

Understanding the difference between traditional job roles and fractional careers.
The rising trend of portfolio careers among senior professionals.
Insights into managing a diversified career and balancing multiple roles.
The importance of personal branding and networking in a fractional career.
📣 Engaging Discussions:

The potential of fractional careers for different professional levels and industries.
How CxO Lab facilitates connections between businesses and fractional career experts.
The significance of adapting to a rapidly changing job market.
🔗 Stay Connected:

Email: podcast@digimasters.co.uk
Website: https://digimasters.co.uk
Follow us on social media for updates on upcoming episodes and events.

👏 Thank You for Tuning In:
Whether you're contemplating a shift in your career or are already navigating the waters of a fractional career, this episode is packed with valuable insights and practical advice. Don't forget to subscribe and join us as we continue to explore the frontiers of the digital and career landscape

Transcript

Adam N: 0:12

Welcome to another episode of the digimasters podcast I'm your host again Adam Nagus and I'm very pleased to have a special guest with us on Today's episode and that is Rob Saltrese So welcome, Rob.

Rob Saltrese: 0:24

Thanks, Adam. Nice to be here.

Adam N: 0:25

Good. You can see from our setup, I know most people are listening, but for anybody looking and watching us on, on YouTube, you can see I took the fireside chats, quite literally. so we're, we're, we're sitting right in front of a fire, although it's not on and it is a minus one degrees outside in Hertfordshire today. This is true.

Rob Saltrese: 0:45

I think it's probably time to light the fire.

Adam N: 0:48

Well, I was thinking about, do we start a tradition that when we're doing a fireside chat wherever possible, I have the guest actually attempt to light the fire and see how good they are.

Rob Saltrese: 0:58

Why not? It's memorable, it's different, let's give it a go. Do you want a challenge? Yeah, go

Adam N: 1:01

on then, let's try. Okay, so, I'm using a brulee torch or a little mini flamethrower to start. I

Rob Saltrese: 1:09

know one of these in my kitchen anyway, to be honest with you. I've got one in

Adam N: 1:12

every room. I

Rob Saltrese: 1:14

don't need to show off. I haven't got one yet and I cook a lot. So perhaps it's time to try one.

Adam N: 1:19

Well, the first one I got was for my 3D printing business., because once things come off the 3D printer, you get wisps of, the bioplastic. It's made from corn,, it's called PLA. And if you just quickly use a brulee torch over it, they all just Crinkle up, and then fall off. It's the easiest way of cleaning a 3D print. So that's what I use my brulee torch for. And then I got one for lighting candles, and then one for lighting the fire. Because I don't know. It's just more satisfying, I feel, than just a normal match. Anyway, let's get on. Go ahead, and Anybody on YouTube, as I said, can watch this. Toby's having a shake. We'll, we'll see later on if you've ended up taking your jacket off because I left the heating off because you said you're a very warm person, Rob.

Rob Saltrese: 2:04

Yeah, I think hot's probably a bit of a, an over.

Adam N: 2:07

if I called you hot, it would sound like I'm flirting with you. So, which,

Rob Saltrese: 2:11

you know. Occasionally, you know In

Adam N: 2:15

general or you mean I often flirt with you you have to be very clear

Rob Saltrese: 2:18

It can be one or the other more in restaurants my my other half would laugh to be honest with you if we discussed the Attention that sometimes comes my way from from waiters, but yeah, well, we'll leave it at that Let's let's not go down that route for the moment. But anyway, it seems to be working. So yes, well They're gonna cross my Hillary skills are coming to the fore.

Adam N: 2:37

Perfect. So I guess we should really talk about what today is about obviously you're, you're here in, in my little, study studio in Hertfordshire and you're in Hertfordshire as well. I think you're just over in the St. Albans direction.

Rob Saltrese: 2:49

Indeed local boy, St. Albans lad round the corner. So yeah, all of 20 minutes away. So nice to be here.

Adam N: 2:55

Excellent. And, we're here today to talk about what's called a fractional career or sometimes called a portfolio career. And I, I guess. My first question really to you, Rob is what does that even mean?

Rob Saltrese: 3:09

Good question. Something that a lot of people will probably not know of or quite understand if they have heard of the terminology, exactly what it refers to. So both of those are what I've seen personally in the last, you know, three, four years in particular, but I guess you can trace it back to, I think a lot of it started with the CFO world where, you know, people will hear of fractional careers, but they'll certainly know of CFOs that work in kind of multiple. Organizations they work on multiple projects at any one time and they they go and do deliver services for different organizations That's really what it pertains to this isn't interim This isn't a contract role where you go and spend five days a week with the same company on a day, rate it's got nothing to do with that. This is Really a true reflection of the way the world has changed I guess particularly since COVID for me And, you know, with things like work from home, the ability to, work on teams, be able to work in organizations around the world from your home or from a fireside chat, wherever it may be, it means that people can now not have that same job doing the same thing every day, same people. Chasing the same next step, career growth, you know, promotion, whatever it may be. A lot of people now want to take their expertise of, 20, 30 years behind them, particularly in the startup and scale up world, which is where we focus and go in now and advise other organizations and actually take. Their knowledge really put it to good use. But what it means is they might be able to work for five different companies one day a week, each for two, three, four, five months on a very particular project, specific outcomes and deliverables, but going in and helping founders with a problem to solve, but their expertise, they can deliver one day a week and be incredibly impactful.

Adam N: 4:52

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And I guess that kind of leads on to, how we know each other. because. I think we first met, was it 2016, 2017, 2016, 2016, I was,, the global director for Visual analytics in Accenture digital. So I had a very much a standard job as a consultant, but that was all my main job. I didn't have a fractional career back then. But, I have to inform you, you're, you were probably the catalyst. That enabled Digimasters to start and the rest of my portfolio to grow mainly because I think at the time you were running a recruitment business, is that correct?

Rob Saltrese: 5:35

Indeed I was, yeah, my previous company Streamline,

Adam N: 5:37

yes. Streamline, and you brought me a very interesting offer from one of the big fours. obviously a competitor and, it definitely gave me the confidence, to think about,, my skills seem to be in demand. I was asked to again, start and found a brand new, analytics capability, and recreate the success I'd had with Accenture, but for a competitor. And whilst I was thinking about that. That's when I thought well do I want to do it for myself do I have a strong enough network to start my own company or do I want to go into a very large organization with no network. compared to obviously being in a very large consultancy with a huge network. So there was different types of challenges. So we're both excitements. And one was focusing more on private equity, which is something I hadn't done much at the time. Obviously that's changed a lot since then. But, yeah, no, it was, it was definitely your first, Company streamline that really gave me that kick to start the conversations and think about doing digimasters So, thank you

Rob Saltrese: 6:43

pleasure glad I could glad I could help and be the inspiration for the move into you know Something which is clearly, you know, seven eight years down the line proved incredibly successful

Adam N: 6:53

I'll take your word for that.

Rob Saltrese: 6:55

It's fine. It is you've done very well. Trust me anyone he's There's a reason I'm here.

Adam N: 7:01

Oh, that again, link is a link into why would you come on the Digimasters podcast? Why did you want to talk to me about the fractional career?

Rob Saltrese: 7:10

Well, to be honest, you know, it was obviously digging into your career, which I don't think is something you've realized is quite a powerful topic at the moment, even how you've ended up getting here and what it can mean for others who are looking at this a minute, but predominantly is, as you well know launched our new business last year with my colleague Nico CXO Lab Which is an advisory consultancy business that focuses on helping founders of the scale ups and start ups through Series C, A, B, C, predominantly in the SaaS and the tech space, help really achieve their goals. That is to help them get through, as a founder myself for 23 years, I understand a lot of the complexities and problems, it is. Being a founder, you know, it's incredibly lonely, very difficult, a lot of problems, a lot of obstacles will come your way. And we've had some very challenging times, particularly in the last three years, you know, who would have thought the different things that we've had come our way from peaks, troughs, peaks, troughs, you know, it's incredibly difficult time. So we can help them navigate that by understanding, you know, where they're at and what they're trying to achieve predominantly in the next 24 months. It's usually a good indicator time. And that then will allow us to understand they might need some help with. Developing the revenue team, creating a revenue structure, go to market piece. It could be something around setting up a marketing function from scratch, which I may not have done before. But what we do is our employees are very experienced C and VP level fractional experts. They've been there and done it before, but they work on a fractional basis so we can utilize their expertise to come in. A very high impact work and success over a two, three, four, six month period, for example, dependent on the project, but that is only allowable by the fact that this world of a fractional career has started to exist, right? So one to two days a week. Can be affordable which I don't think a lot of the startup and scale up community of founders Realize is doable as an interim or five day week or perm entirely unaffordable So this way it is achievable.

Adam N: 9:09

So from my point of view, do you class what I've got? or how I do my professional life as a portfolio or fractional career.

Rob Saltrese: 9:19

Absolutely. That's one of the key reasons, you know, you and I said right at the start, which is why I wanted to have this, this chat with you in the first place is very much you work on Multiple engagements, all different days of the week. You do not spend four or five days a week doing one thing for one organization. You very much mix your time between multiple organizations, different sizes, different complexities, very different types of projects, but all related to your field, as well as running a podcast, as well as doing, you know, multiple other things that you like getting involved in from a tech perspective, and that is the ultimate definition of a fractional career. It's project based delivery focused. With many things wrapped into it.

Adam N: 10:01

So I need to update my CV slash resume to say also fractional career expert

Rob Saltrese: 10:06

fractional advisory go to market strategist Yes, I think would be a good tagline

Adam N: 10:11

So let's let's continue with the examples to make sure everybody understands the different definitions So when I was running a startup, but just running Digimasters, that's not a fractional career That's I'm a founder and I'm running a consulting advisory business The fact that when I joined FTI Consulting. And they wanted to acquire DigiMasters long story short, it became an acqui high where my staff and contractors went over and I luckily got to retain DigiMasters still. I was allowed to obviously be a director of another limited company. I had that in my contract as an agreement, which meant as long as it wasn't a conflict of interest, I could still do different types of work through DigiMasters. Whilst my main job was being the managing director for digital delivery in FTI consulting. So that's. An example of how I change from a founder to an actual fragmented, a fractional or portfolio career.

Rob Saltrese: 11:11

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's, that's it in a nutshell. And actually it's one of, I'd probably say the easiest way for people to transition. And in fact, I actually had a call all of two hours ago with a CTO who's very much looking to do this himself and is already fully aware of what a fractional career is and where he wants to get to. But at the moment, he's just negotiated going down to three days a week of a very hectic full time role in a very well backed startup, but leave him two days a week where he can go and work on a couple of different projects, start to build his network, start to build his contacts. Understand what it's like to work a day a week on a project for a different organization and how to be flexible and move between different opportunities because it is a new skill to learn and dealing with different people, different founders, you know, different tech stack, et cetera. But that is the ultimate way you can do it. You can have the security of the three day a week permanent role whilst starting to build the opportunities to get that chance to go into a fractional role.

Adam N: 12:14

I mean, from my point of view, I found it quite difficult to think about going back to not having a portfolio career. So when I became the chief data officer for Pearson, again, that's a big permanent role. And. I, again, had the agreement to continue being the managing director or CEO of Digimasters. And I could do a lot of mentoring still, so I continued to do my mentoring business, like mini career mentoring. And I was also helping startups, you know, in the evenings, giving advice in my own personal time. And then I was doing, you know, quite a bit of speaking engagements as well as obviously being a chief data officer right now. I'm, you know, full-time doing consultancy and advisor, again through Digi Masters. But I'm continued to do mentoring. I I run an Etsy store from a 3D printing perspective. We've got Digi Masters Shorts, which is a, a daily podcast to the sister podcast, to the Digi Masters podcast. And that is an experiment in gen AI and, and automation. So, anybody that hasn't tuned into our daily AI and tech news podcast please do just search for Digimaster shorts on your favorite podcast app and it should pop up. But after that plug, well, the example I'm trying to give is I'd have many different. Things going on and I can't carpart mentalize that and time box that so there's a bit of time. I'm looking after the Etsy store making sure the marketing, you know, manufacturing posting all of that's happening. I've got a daily podcast that goes out. I've got this podcast and then I've obviously got the consulting and advisory work. But you know, at time it is very challenging trying to balance all these different things. And if you're not running your own company and you still have a permanent job and other people watching what you're doing, what advice do you have for people to actually get started or find out even if they're have the personality traits or the skills to even become somebody that has a fractional career?

Rob Saltrese: 14:14

Well, they can reach out to me for one and I can have a conversation with them with CXO Lab. But I mean, joking aside, I mean, I can do that, just free advice, you know, I'm happy to speak to any individual who wants to understand a bit more about it, what it means, what does it look like, what types of projects could they do, you know, what does it mean from a day to day, week to week perspective, etc., both from a working, being able to distill that into separate days, as well as an earning perspective. If not, I would certainly go and, you know, have a look around. There are, you know, quite a few fractional people and experts you can find on LinkedIn. You know, there's different people that you could, you may know already who you don't know necessarily have started that career. My advice is always just go and reach out to anybody. Try and have a conversation with them. Understand what it means. They could always give you a call, possibly. Not that you have much time. But that would be my advice, right? The more people you speak to the better, but I hope at least from between the two of us, we could give someone a pretty good steer and you know, give them the good, the bad and the ugly, right? There is no, there's no set formula. This isn't a quick win and there is no magic button that you can press that kind of makes it happen. And it's no different to becoming a founder. You know, I don't think people truly understand how hard it is to become a founder of a business. You'll see all these posts on LinkedIn and people telling you. It is. If you think it's X hard, triple it. However,

Adam N: 15:35

it's easy to become a founder, but it's hard to become a successful very true. Yes. And I work out pound to HMRC and restore a limited company. Technically, you're a founder.

Rob Saltrese: 15:45

There could be a million new startups by tomorrow. Yes, if people just pulled the button. But I guess it's about the You know, just understanding kind of what it involves. However, when you get it up and running, what I've seen from all the people that I deal with, and you know, we've got a hundred plus people in our ecosystem and community is the rewards that it gives from a work perspective, dealing with multiple people, actually helping solve problems, getting organizations fit for purpose, growing, solving a problem, you know, it's incredibly rewarding without the need for desperation to go up the ladder to. Increase your salary to make sure you get through that one to one at the end of the year, whether you're a VP or C or not, you know, that's what you're looking to do. Or am I going to exit this business? It becomes too much of a strain and a pressure. And I think lots of people understandably within the world of startup, the amount of times I've had over, you know, conversations in the course of the years in my previous job of, you know, the talent and the hiring space. You People always want to know about equity. What does it mean? You know, can I exit? Will I suddenly make hundreds of thousands, you know, a million pounds? They're few and far between so this is a different way of life different lifestyle It's still complex, but I personally think has more rewards and it's it's trust me in the next two three four years This is going to be the way that execs start working

Adam N: 17:04

Something springs to mind as you've been talking is that I would say at the top end Of the spectrum as in somebody that's quite senior and has, as you said, 20 or 30 years under their belt, they tend to have a portfolio career. So most of the C level people in private equity or large enterprise I know, maybe an NED non executive director of a company. I know people have their own investment companies, so they are angel investors. I know people that obviously do mentoring as well. And it's tend to be that top end. And the other side, the bottom end, I've seen that change as well, as you mentioned, through the internet with the gig economy. So people being able to You know, put their portfolio on Fiverr and so you can just go onto Fiverr and say, go and find somebody in any country in the world, make me a logo, please. And then then they can obviously have a full time job, but if they're working from home or in the evenings, they can then go ahead and then make somebody a logo, make a voiceover, do all these different types of things. It's the people in the middle. You know, not the, the Gen Y or Gen Z or Z they're the ones that I haven't seen too much branch out or don't want to take that risk. Do you, do you see that as well? It's more people very early career and very late career that do it.

Rob Saltrese: 18:32

Not just late, late career. I mean, I think realistically where it's happening at the minute for me personally is around, and it's not to do with age, it's really to do predominantly with experience and where you're sat within an organization, if you're a VP or a C within. SAS tech startup scale up, you know, whatever round they're at doesn't really matter if you've been through that, you know, one or two, three, four times over, you've been through a company's growth, funding raises, you know, the development, all the good stuff and the pitfalls that come with it. Those are the people have got the ability to now say, I've got a bit of a playbook. I've, I've been through the good times and the bad times I've learned what not to do. Let's be honest. We all learn when more and have more success when things are challenging. That's really when we kind of get to grips with it. It's those people that I've seen at the moment, particularly who are able now to start transitioning into this type of career.

Adam N: 19:28

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So. From a CXO lab perspective, what I understand is you're running a consulting advisory business because how do you know if you're a startup or a scale up or even an enterprise, who you need to call if you want somebody very senior and experienced, but you don't have. 100, 200, 300, 000 pounds to throw at them, to attract them from their day job. Even knowing that, you know, people will come and work for a day or two or three days part time as well as keeping their own jobs. Where do you go? And is that how you found the gap in the market? You couldn't easily answer that question.

Rob Saltrese: 20:13

I mean, being really been chewing over the idea since 2019, 2020 is to exactly. What has turned into CXO Lab and we formulated it at the end of 2022 in the beginning of last year when we kicked it off, but it was very much that gap in the market of people were looking to make a change. They wanted to make a change in their life and their career, didn't know how to get it, didn't know where to go, and were asking me for advice. And in all honesty, when I couldn't find them a solution, you know, these are good friends as well, some people couldn't tell them where to go. It made me really understand that this was where something could then be put into good use, but having spent years and years and years now dealing with founders organizations and helping them scale their businesses and their teams. But then seeing the problems, the issues, the gaps, but this is also speaking to thousands of candidates along the way on a monthly basis. Seeing what's happened in their organizations, there are so many problems. I mean, we look what the failure ratio of a brand new startup in year one is 80 percent of that 20 percent they get through. Only, you know, 55 percent is still not making it past that next on a three, four year hurdle. And that's really sad. And we want to try and help reduce that. rate bring it down Increased chances of success and allowing companies very few are going to be a unicorn But can you make a good go of it? Can you be successful enjoy it along the way? You might get to an exit some description merger buyout, you know Whatever it may be in lots more in the VC world now looking to buy organizations who are more at series B and series C It's starting to happen So now that seems more achievable. So how can we help companies get there? And that's really what we wanted to do was empower founders who now have the ability to bring in top talent that they never would have thought possible 12 months ago. I think,

Adam N: 22:04

I think for me it was a little bit different. I was very, very lucky. Because I was in a large organization and instead of thinking I can do this better, I had the opportunity to create my own company with inside another company. So I got to create my own capability. I wanted to focus on visualization and UI and UX. Basically, I was in the data landscape or the business intelligence arena and it was all about making reports and I felt nobody was actually using them. It wasn't really adding very much value. And then in 2007. When the iPhone came out and Steve Jobs and everybody is talking about great user interface, simple user interface, great user experience and creating apps, I'm thinking, why are we not got that sort of rigor inside? The analytic space, it was just about tables and reports and then data visualization came along, but that was just about charts and pie charts. There was no change in the methodology and how you actually think about creating an actual what became dashboards or even an actual application. And I thought, well, I've got this idea. I wanted to try something different. Do I go off and do it myself? Or do I try and change the culture with inside my own organization? I tried the latter and that's how I grew my own sort of company or capability. And that taught me a lot around how to attract talent, how to change the way job descriptions are written think about methodologies, think about pipeline and sales. So I got to train myself and learn all of that. Well, that was secure, but if I didn't have that, if I just gone with the former option and go, I'm going to go and do this on my own and I hadn't learned how to run a business effectively, then yes, I would need somebody to tell me what the technology stack would need to have been if I wasn't technical, but I couldn't afford a CTO. You know, it's only a startup, but just having somebody to give me that advice and paying them for a day, a week, or just doing a workshop for a few hours would have definitely been a huge benefit. And through the mentoring I do when I'm mentoring actual startups, most of what I'm doing is teaching these entrepreneurs with. Great ideas, how to even set up, let's say a website, how to actually get their email domain working through outlook on Microsoft exchange 365 then teaching them how to use a bookkeeping software like zero. And that's what I'm doing. I'm dropping into part of my portfolio career. I call it mentoring and supporting, but when they need somebody more dedicated, consistent, I don't have the capacity right now to do that. That's where I think they should be calling CXOLab. And you'll find somebody who knows how to set up the tech, knows how to set up the IT, knows how to do go to market, knows how to correctly set up their LinkedIn and their website or design it with them. That's when I would usually give you guys a call. That's what I'm hearing. Is that correct?

Rob Saltrese: 25:09

Absolutely. Yeah. And it goes across the spectrum. You know, we're working at the moment with, you know, founders. You've only got two or three people in their team. They're wise enough to know what they don't know that is that is the key thing is we said it's hard being a founder it is very lonely at the top you're expected to have all the answers but you don't need to know them all yourself and how can you kind of go and find that information and bring it into the business where someone will come and do something specialist just like there's no chance in hell that I would go and do much DIY in my house for example. I've done it up. It looks lovely. I did zero of it because I brought experts in who would do a far better job than I would. It's no different to doing that in reality because no one, dare I mention his name, Zuckerberg included, one of the smartest things he did, which he was only allowed to do by getting a large amount of funding that he did from Peter Thiel originally, was go and get People 20 years his senior been there and done it in Silicon Valley who all help build the functions underneath him whilst he had the brains and mentality. I mean, he is Uber switched on, let's not pretend, but he did that. And that allowed him to scale quickly and fast because his answer to, well, I don't know that he's bringing the best people and that's what we can do. And it could be automation side of things. It could be linking your salesforce and your CRM to go and do something for your sales team all the way through to something more complex about actually setting up the structure. What does your marketing function need to look like? You're inbound, you're outbound, you're messaging, you're branding, whatever it may be. We've got partners who are, you know, branding and brand launching businesses that can help you get out. We've got personal branding, you know, partners that we kind of work with that we can help kind of bring this side to them. But the, you know, I, I had it, it was proven to me, even only the other day, but particularly last year, a good friend of mine, Build a startup from scratch. I was his first ever customer. It was him and a spreadsheet. Within nine years, he'd sold it for many, many millions, been incredibly successful. He left last summer. One of the things he said to me, he's going to come and do some work through us and he's going to be a fantastic exec coach and all the work that he can provide as a Ned and a CEO. He said I spent far more than anyone else I knew, including my board wanted me to do on very senior people to come in and give us that type of consultancy help because I knew what I didn't know and I wanted them to come in and do it better than me and it pays off and actually had a conversation with one of our new partners a partner of a law firm runs AI and in kind of patents, really interesting area that's very relevant, but When I asked him what he understood of fractional he said straight away Yes Best person in my last business we ever had was a fractional C expert who came in one day a week And that to me

Adam N: 27:58

said it all I mean for me I can see that it's not even just startups and scale ups that need this especially with the explosion of AI on the conference circuits last year, most of the questions I was asked was, how do they get started in AI? And these are like big banks. These are big retail companies. These are the CIOs, CDOs. Going I'm being asked to do a I you can imagine the business person coming saying we need to do a I and they go well why or how and I'm trying to get you to do basic data governance and now you want to do a I that's that's fine but we're not exactly sure how to do it and they come to the chief data officer because data means a I but chief data officers aren't typically. Developers or product owners, they don't think and full product development life cycles and a product in my definition isn't just a dashboard. It's a, it can be a dashboard, but it has to have support around it has to have a release cycle. It's got to have features that happen. And these aren't really the things that data teams have typically done in the past. And so as a large enterprise, Probably still if I needed support and advice come to say it's a lab and say I need a product experts ideally with an history of developing solutions with AI to come in and advise us how we can take our data. Develop our own LLMs to enhance, you know, the GPTs out there so that we can differentiate ourselves in the market. It's not typically my own skillset as a CDO. Do you know anybody, Rob, that can come in and advise us in a day a week as a large enterprise on how to actually keep our competitive advantage or, or create one using AI, does that make sense?

Rob Saltrese: 29:52

Absolutely. And it's very much sits in that space too, particularly in that area, right? It's the most relevant, current, you know, unknown that still exists. It's exciting. Everybody's talking about it. And as you said, we want to get into AI. I mean, it is a still makes me giggle. And it's quite a, an interesting comment yet. You're going to hear it every single day. And You know, people who keep an eye on the podcast and come to some of the events that we're going to be hosting, which we can, you know, look at later we'll understand. But yeah, absolutely. Because even now we've got someone on a project at the moment, helping an experienced proven founder. You've done it multiple times. He's exited. He started a business at 18, incredibly successful guy, wanted us to come in with an AI expert to help take his product and his platform to the next level. But he was already quite aware of. And many of the elements that kind of sit within this, but still realize there was, they did not have the skill in the capabilities with his organization. So wanted us to kind of come and do it. Now, the person that we have doing it is a genuine expert, understands data to a T, because if you can't, you can't really work on AI, you've got to work with a very good data team, you know, without data, you don't really have anything. But he could very easily go and sit within a large organization to say exactly the same thing. Take them on the journey from where they are now. What does their data look like? Let's get that construct right first because you have to. But then what can be done? This is what we could build for you. This is what the modeling would look like. These are the types of languages we could build that would be entirely owned by you. This is the information, the data, the solutions it could bring. This is the predictive stuff it could bring to you going forward. This is how it's going to help transform your organization. Rapidly rather than doing big clunky pieces of work in the background and looking at the business from a different angle And in these bigger organizations, as you know, it's like a warship. You can't turn it around very quickly So, how do you? Do something fast? I

Adam N: 31:46

think it's an oil tanker.

Rob Saltrese: 31:48

It is an oil tanker What does it take two miles before it can stop? Yes, and probably three before it can do a circle I mean, it's it's not the best and that is it that's the perfect example, but they'll have to do it They know they need to do it both from a development of an organization perspective If one bank's doing it, everyone's got to do it. You've got to be ahead of the game. No one could be behind same in law firms, you know, all these different big businesses that are crying out for it. You know, they're old school, they're old fashioned. And a lot of us are getting pretty frustrated with some of their services. Let's be fair. So how can you be nimble? And Nimble is doing something like bringing CXO Lab, bringing in a project, you know, short, fast paced, high impact with experts who genuinely been there and done it, and that's what they need and not going to no offense. The other big consultancies who put 50 people on site and it will take them three years to get you something because you've missed the boat because it's going to change by tomorrow.

Adam N: 32:41

Yes as somebody that's hired consultancies and being a consultant in these companies a lot of the time is they, they turn up with the army and the pyramids mainly grads and you feel like they're learning on the job. The

Rob Saltrese: 32:52

Trojan horse and the the strategic consultant who turns up, which is not what you need when you're looking for. Proper expert who's built LLMs and understand your data stack and can actually help build you something as an example.

Adam N: 33:05

Well, your fire is caught quite nicely. And what I think is we should take a break here. And when we come back, what I'd like to understand is a bit more around why you called it CXO Lab. What sort of events and exhibitions and information that you're planning and doing in 2024. How people can find out more. Does that sound good? Looking forward to it. Okay, we'll be back after this message.

Ian: 33:30

Data operations platform Keboola is inviting you to an AI for business event in the heart of London on February 28th. Speakers partners including Emma Wright, Snowflake, Global Tech Advocates, Digimasters and more. At the event we will walk you through how to use AI in your business. Registration is now open and the link is in the description or search for Digimasters on Linkedin. welcome back to the digimasters podcast my guest rob sold So trees, trees, trees, trees. I always messed that up. Sorry. I'm eight years down the line. Don't worry. I always see the spelling. And I was thinking if, if I mentioned you on the Digimaster shorts podcast, because that's AI generated and it's my voice, but and AI is using it's cloned me. Sometimes the pronunciations are quite interesting. I have to spell my name. Adam Nagus with a Y. Cos, phonetically, it's Nagus. N A

Rob Saltrese: 34:30

G U S. Yeah, I'd be intrigued to see what it comes up with in mind, for sure. I mean Most people have struggled for the last 46 years, so we'll have to wait and see.

Adam N: 34:38

Well, as soon as you've got an interesting blog post out I'll send over my, my bot to read it and put it on the Digimaster Shorts. See what it comes up. See what it says, yes. So, yeah, talking about the type of work that you'll be doing and obviously building up CXOLab why did you call it CXOLab?

Rob Saltrese: 34:56

Really relate I mean, it's a very direct correlation to what we do I mean we were trying to be quite specific We didn't get a bit of a an interesting fun funky name These things were actually never that easy to think of it to take me a while to come up with it But really see if you look at it we work with All of the C's. So the X is simply replacing, are we working with a COO, CTO, CRO, CMO, whatever it may be. So we wanted to give it very specific context and from the element of a lab, we're trying to be innovative, right? We are working with innovative organizations who all trying to do something. Forge their path, you know, build their organizations who are literally helping those founders reach their north star So we are essentially a mix of experts who almost like scientists who are going to be putting something together specifically for that individual organization so the lab was a creative way of Putting a spin on that for us to give us a bit of a look and a feel right? That's as much a dare. I'm not saying playful, but Fun, but trying to be specific around what we do without being a too corporate or too entirely off tack that people have

36:03

no

Adam N: 36:03

idea what we do. I mean, I like labs because you know being in the data space myself as well in data scientists We usually put them in a lab function mainly that's the beginning of data science Well, not the very beginning but in the the new fad of data science over the last five years And what it's become, it was, it was very much a lab experimenting to see what data was useful what could actually bring value to the business, et cetera. So, yeah, the lab is, is a, is a cool word. And I set up a lab. When I was doing the VR and AR side of things with Accenture Digital, and that was very interesting, but I always like to know what the thought was behind a certain

Rob Saltrese: 36:46

name. It took a lot of tweaking, but then the CXO bit stuck from the beginning and then it was a case of what could we put around it that gave it enough of a look and a feel that was right for us, that we felt, and also nice and short and sharp and punchy, easy to remember. And I think it's got a nice feel to it and actually is. Maybe not as important as it seems to some people it is to us But everyone we've discussed it with of all that we've had a lot of comments on it from a very positive sense Which is good to know.

Adam N: 37:11

I mean from my perspective. Yes. It's not that you're only focused on doing things for for C levels but if you wanted something short sharp, that's Was cross industry and cross discipline. So you might be somebody who's an HR expert or you could be in a vertical financial services expert. Yes, you might be C level. Yes, you might not be, but you still could have a portfolio career. So how do you sum all of that up to say we're everything for everyone, horizontal and vertical CXO?

Rob Saltrese: 37:41

Exactly. Yeah, it covers everything, which is what we intended it to do.

Adam N: 37:44

Very cool. So I was just thinking in the break about obviously how, you know, we could work together more. So from my perspective I fit in two ways. I fit in the side of I could be a person that you'd call upon. Because I want a portfolio career or I have a portfolio career and so if anybody of your customers or clients need my skill set then I will see you can place me or place Adam or Digimasters depending on how it goes to market within them and then the other side of things is. I could call on you so for some of the digital diligence work that I do around m& a mergers and acquisitions and sometimes I'm in an industry that I might not be that familiar with so I don't need to hire a permanent person or a contractor I just need a week or two. Of somebody that's an expert in I don't know, let's say we're acquiring or helping a company acquire a media company that specializes in animation, something like that. So I might say, do you know anybody that spent, you know, their career in the animation industry and would know what to look for on type of things and any red flags, et cetera, and then. I come to you with that proposition and then you would go out and find somebody that could give me that amount of time to support my diligence program with that work is that right yeah

Rob Saltrese: 39:13

to degree so we wrap it up in a project obviously as you know that we provide you know solutions and services but if you had a need where you needed bigger team separate team you know project piece of something specific to deliver for one of your customers absolutely that's where we can assist you and kind of do it you know in unison together and that's exactly what we'd be able to do.

Adam N: 39:35

I guess, I don't know if it's an elephant in the room, but one of the things that some people might be thinking is, what's the difference between CXO Labs business model and a recruiter? So, what does a, what would you say a recruitment company, which I know you've run obviously before compared to what you're trying to do with CXO

Rob Saltrese: 39:53

Lab? Yeah, there's quite a difference. I mean, if you look at, as you say, I mean, I've spent 23 years in this industry and 20 years running two separate companies that focus on, you know, the high end talent and exec search side of things. So, but really that is very much based on a role, a position. a job spec, a they need someone in the business for the long term, even if it's contracting is still also going to be five days a week. This is the traditional, dare I say old school, but it is a traditional old school way of working. And it's very specific. Yes, you can still build teams. You can work on multiple positions, but that is what we do from or have done from a talent and recruiting perspective. Ours is very different. We are consultancy and advisory business. We uncover. The problems, the gaps through discovery calls, understanding what a customer specifically needs, and then create a tailored proposition utilizing our experts who work through CXO lab on a project. And this could be two, three, four, five people. But again, they then work on that fractional basis or could be doing different numbers of days a week, but on a very specific dedicated. outcome, but it's bringing in the very highly experienced, high impact, sharp delivery that we're after. So there really is quite a distinct difference, I think, between the two. I see

Adam N: 41:10

that now. So. If I needed a business analyst for six months or a year, then it's a job description for a business analyst and I can hire a contractor or I hire a permanent person if it need to go on longer. If I don't exactly know, I've just got a business problem. The advisory side of your business would work out that you need a deep senior expert to come in and kind of define what the program needs to be. And that might take 2 or 3 weeks. And contractors don't typically want a 2 to 3 week contract. They're looking for at least 6 months, etc. And then after that, then I might need somebody else or a couple of people to come in and do some design work. And then they'll leave and then you might need, you know, somebody to come in and do some technical delivery side of things, and there might be some overlap. It's not just, I need someone with a clear job description for six months, and that's kind of the key difference between going to a recruiter with a very specific job description for a person or for you guys to actually work out, it's a blend, it's a pod. Of very different skill sets of people jumping in and jumping out and only people that have a Fractional career would want to do something like that because they've got other things going on and they're not looking for six months nine to five necessarily

Rob Saltrese: 42:32

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that's hit the nail on the head. It's that starting with the discovery piece and the analysis work and understanding what it is you need. And actually, sometimes it's not even that just like we speak to organizations and they think they have a particular problem that isn't in fact the problem that they need to be solving. Nor in fact, is it a problem whatsoever? And then it is. Yes, it's multifaceted. It's different people. It's different timescales, different amounts of work needed to be done. And yes, particularly if it's the short sharp. You know, specific delivery side where you might need them one or two days a week, that is only ever going to fit someone with a fractional career. And this is why I think it's going to be. The big thing and it will transition through it will start naturally with C and VP level senior experts to be an expert. You've got to be senior, right to go and, you know, deliver high impact. But actually, I think it will transition all the way through the market to give people, I genuinely think it's gonna be massive 5, 10 years time. This could cover so many different age groups right the way through. I hope. To you in university grads, because I'm a little bit bored of, you know, a lot of these talented people coming out of university who don't get an opportunity, maybe don't have a 2 1 or a first or the red brick and all the boring things that people tick off to automatically assume that that's the right person for a particular piece of work is allowing them to go in. And what it does actually is it makes it more cost affordable for every business. You're bringing in experts or talent at different levels. To do something for a period of time. Get it done. Do it very well. Move on.

Adam N: 44:05

I think we're able to almost announce, I don't know if it's as grand as that, but going forward on the Digimasters podcast and Digimasters shorts, thanks to CXO Lab, you found our first sponsor.

Rob Saltrese: 44:19

Indeed, yes very exciting very pleased to be working with someone who's been, who's actually our first partner that we work with organization called Keboola, very exciting data organization, tech startup from Prague in the Czech Republic incredibly well backed, growing massively across Europe very much fit in your area, as you know, which is why you're We've already bringing you in to work on an event with them where you're going to be speaking. So keep an eye out for Adam at the Empower event on the 28th of February that Keboola are hosting up in London. But yes, they've agreed to you know, work with us. We're going to be interviewing the CEO and hopefully a couple of other people from the business. Before, during and after the event. Yeah, very exciting. And hopefully we've got a lot more to come. There's quite a few in the pipeline. I believe we've got some of your CDO colleagues that we're going to be speaking to, and hopefully some more of our community, including my business partner. So we can make a, you know, hopefully an interesting series all around this world and this space and how it impacts. Everybody within the

Adam N: 45:14

community. So yeah, you're my problem solver rob. I need a sponsor for the podcast here you go. Adam. How would you like a a data focus company considering you're a cdo? That is building a data operations platform. Oh that is seems like a perfect fit. So yes. Thank you Thank you, rob. So, yes, on the next few days and few weeks, you'll be hearing more about Keboola as the priority puts a bit of an advert advertisement reel within Digimaster shorts going forward to talk about that event on the 28th of February. And yeah, I'm looking forward to getting to know, is it Pavel?

Rob Saltrese: 45:49

Yeah. Pavel, the CEO. Yeah. He's he's going to be joining us on this. So looking forward to hearing all about the business, as I say, the kind of growth plans, what they're going to be doing here about what you two are going to be discussing at the event as well. So yeah, very exciting. It

Adam N: 46:01

reminded me of do you remember the old sitcom, I say it's old depending on your age Frasier?

Rob Saltrese: 46:07

Oh, I loved Fraser,

Adam N: 46:08

yeah. You say Fraser, and I think Fraser was the

Rob Saltrese: 46:12

American way. I think that's the American way, but yeah, sorry, Fraser. Probably should be Frasier, sorry. But then I saw him originally from back in Cheers, which I grew up with in the 90s, which was tremendous. Did you ever, have you been to the

Adam N: 46:22

Cheers bar in Boston?

Rob Saltrese: 46:23

I haven't no I I would like to I watched it religiously as an early teen Friday night. That was when Channel 4 Sorry was epic. Yeah, lots of great shows on on a Friday night for our non

Adam N: 46:33

UK listeners. Yes Channel 4 terrestrial TV for us. Yeah, and I grew up watching Cheers as well But the spin off show Frasier was based in Seattle. It's actually back now. Have you seen it on Paramount

Rob Saltrese: 46:46

Plus? I believe so. I think I've seen some some adverts for Nile if I'm not mistaken for

Adam N: 46:53

Nile his brother Oh, he wasn't in the first season. I don't know if they brought him in. But anyway I have watched some of it on paramount plus and I can't remember his name now. Kelsey Grammer. No, not Kelsey Grammer. That's Frazier. The, the actor that plays Rodney from only fools and horses, another British sitcom.

Rob Saltrese: 47:11

Typical.

Adam N: 47:11

I don't know, but he, I think he's the best thing he's actually in it. Oh, is it? So, yeah, yeah. Rodders is in Frasier now in the,

Rob Saltrese: 47:19

in the new series. I'd have to see how that's gonna sit, because I can't help have a, a certain image of Rodders in my head. He's got

Adam N: 47:25

the same very dry humor. It works very, very well. You, you think these bring back these old sitcoms, I don't think it's really worked very well. I know we're getting a bit off topic, but the reason I did that was When I was looking over the sponsors that you were positioning, I reminded me of an episode of Frasier where he refused to sponsor anything unless he tried the product himself. So, local hot tub manufacturer was like, tell, tell everybody how great our hot tubs were. So he went to the showroom, tried them, and any restaurant. That wanted a sponsor. He had to go and eat all their food. So he felt that when he was talking about it on his radio show, he could talk about it. So, when, when you brought to me like an actual a data platform, and I was able to dig down and get super technical with their their architects. And got quite excited about the platform and this is a very good fit. Sorry about the side conversation. I don't know why that episode of Frasier just popped into my head. It's not a problem

Rob Saltrese: 48:17

for me. I just feel sorry for the listeners. We're going to end up going on about Frasier and cheers and that could end up taking the next hour. So we should

Adam N: 48:24

I'm just wondering how many people are going. What are those shows?

Rob Saltrese: 48:28

Quite a few, but you know, any comments in the messages would be great just to see if anyone else was as much of a fan as we were. But anyway,

Adam N: 48:35

so going back to say CxO lab what events have you got coming up this year or how did we find out more about CXO lab? Yeah, we've

Rob Saltrese: 48:41

got a variety. So, I mean, key thing. Obviously have a look at our, our LinkedIn page CXOLab, you can have a look at my profile obviously on LinkedIn and that's Rob Saltrese. May not be easy to spell but you'll see it tagged in everything underneath or my colleague Nico. Yeah, we've got a variety of things, we've got three or four events just literally finalizing now, in fact one was booked in all of an hour ago. That is a very kind of, It's a niche dinner very much for the VC investment, private equity, you know, family office kind of world with a friend, colleague of mine who runs a business in that space. We're doing a slightly bigger one that you're going to be attending around AI and all about the evolution and revolution which is backed by a couple of our, our sponsors. We're going to be obviously at the empower event with Kabula that we mentioned. So. A lot of our community and C Suite and partners will be there as well. We're also looking at setting up another sort of 40 50 person event still within the data and AI space and the fractional side of things and hopefully running a fractional series too. But, you know, these will keep growing. You know, we've got some brilliant organizations that have been very kind to work with us. The way partnering with that sit within our partner ecosystem to allow us to bring many different services and offerings to founders to help them again, as I said, you know, kind of reach their North star and these could develop into 120, 150 people, you know, panel events, you know, we've got some really exciting things that I know we can do.

Adam N: 50:00

Who do you want coming though?

Rob Saltrese: 50:02

Depends which event it is. I mean, some of them are going to be tailored very specifically to certain groups and communities within that. Others are going to be broader. As I said, the bigger panel events will very much be for people who are let's just say within AI and data for example, but could be, could be founders of businesses. It could be people within the investment VC portfolio world who invest in those types of organizations. Then it could be anyone within the fractional space, you know, at the senior level who's looking to break into that world. Is interesting and being part of it wanting to come to one of our events and kind of find out what they're like and people that they can meet and kind of get involved in because that's the thing when we have partners and then our, our execs, as we call them with our members within our community, you know, we've got 100, 130 people already within that, that are on WhatsApp groups, sharing learning. It's actually the place for personal development and growth. We meet up at different events, people are making new friends, you know, it's quite a it's quite a powerful ecosystem that we're trying to build.

Adam N: 50:56

And you mentioned your business partner Nico a few times where's

Rob Saltrese: 50:59

Nico based? So Nico's actually based just outside of Amsterdam. So we've already started with the the instant two different locations for the organization. Wow, you've gone global already. Oh, we've gone global already. Yeah, massively. I mean, it's all of a few hundred miles across the ocean. But yeah, he's an ex client of mine from years ago. Incredibly talented individual. Nico Fortinow, he's a chief product officer, chief marketing officer. And Actually already been in a fractional career himself advising multiple organizations. He sits on the board of another couple of startups. So again, actually helps us bring real expertise into the company. So when we speak to organizations now, we can say, look, we do know what this is, what it looks like, how impactful it can be. We have someone who's been doing it. Already and it's still doing elements of it now, which I think just kind of gives us a greater edge, you know I think too many people are doing things when they don't actually have The expertise or have done it before nothing wrong with that if you build a new business Sometimes you have to start that way, but we can actually we're not just preaching the converted. We are doing the do

Adam N: 51:57

I was thinking that If I was hopefully enjoying and listening to this episode, I might have more and more questions Not necessarily about CXO Lab, but more about how I can get started. I want to hear more examples of people that have made this a success. So, I was thinking we should potentially have another episode on this where we invite. People that actually have a portfolio career other than the two of us and really speak to them about how they get, they got started. Are they only, you know, Neds, only Neds or are they doing a lot more work such as, you know, charity work or managed to balance being an elite sports person whilst having a permanent job. And the other thing I was thinking of was I have a number of people that have quite sophisticated hobbies. That could be careers some, my 3d printing as an example is a hobby, but then I turned it into a side business as well. And I'd really like to do an episode where I get colleagues and friends that, you know, do lighting engineering or theater productions as a hobby. Or do design work as a hobby or are elite sports person as a hobby or as a side professional career and see how they've. Taking that leap into having a portfolio career or on the cusp of having a portfolio career or deciding that they don't want a portfolio career. They want to keep it as a hobby and don't want to think of it as a potential revenue source or work or something like that. Does that sound interesting? Should we

Rob Saltrese: 53:33

do that? Yeah, I think we could definitely do it. I mean, you can bring people in, but it also shows people. I think there'll be individuals who are doing that who don't actually understand that they've got a fractional career. Or how you juggle. I mean, it's juggling, it's juggling many things. Let's be honest. This is what we're talking about. It is doing something that is having different strings to your bow and you are doing multiple pieces of work. Some could be earning new money. Some might not be depends on the situation, right? Everyone has a different position that they're in where they, you know, cash they need to kind of take home, but yeah, absolutely. I think it'd Okay,

Adam N: 54:05

well, we'll put that down. We'll try and get that done pretty soon. So everybody do please leave us a comment do follow the podcast and then you can find out some more information about a fractional career. And I just finally, I just really want to understand more about, you know, if you are that person that's thinking about that how they could bring on somebody. For a period of time to support their startup, their, their enterprise, no matter what size of company, or if you are thinking of that, you've actually, oh, I have a portfolio career already, or I've got a fractional career and I didn't even know it, or thinking about how do I get into this side of things, what would you, what advice would you give them to get started?

Rob Saltrese: 54:49

They can get in touch with me, first of all, that would definitely be a starting point. Because genuinely we can talk through it and we can give them advice and help and, you know, listen, I'm open to speaking to anybody. Whether it leads to something or not, you know, we're just genuinely here to try and start pushing this, this world because even the people in our community that we've got, they're simply not all going to be working for the same companies all of the time. So, nor can we fund necessarily work all of the time. I mean, in an ideal world, that'd be fantastic, but you know, I might be doing this from a beach in the Bahamas, but but people need to learn how to manage it and how to understand it and how to cope with the, I guess, the good and the bad times are getting quiet or how to keep. Developing their own network, developing their personal brand, which is something that we can help them with. And we're working on a partnership for that and getting out there to try and find other opportunities for themselves. Cause that's what they need to do. So always always here to help. But you know, there's quite a few articles out there that talking about the rise of the fractional world and a fractional C and why it's impactful to businesses. So I would say any organizations who are looking at actually needing help, think they may have something they want to do and being generally honest about it. Again, by all means get in touch at any time.

Adam N: 55:54

Oh, that's pretty good advice. But thank you very much, Rob, for joining us on this episode of the Digimasters podcast. And yeah, I look forward to finding out more about Fractional Career and also working with Keboola so, I will see you at the next event. But thank you for coming along and I hope you enjoyed The Fire.

Rob Saltrese: 56:13

My pleasure, yeah, no, thanks for having me. It's been it's been fantastic very much enjoyed it. I haven't burnt to death yet or got too hot thus far, which is pretty impressive. But yeah, looking forward to exploring things going forwards and you know, see if we can take it.

Don: 56:24

Thank you for listening to The Digimasters Podcast. Be sure to also listen to our sister podcast channel'Digimasters Shorts' a daily podcast covering all the latest news in AI, Technology and business. remember to follow our podcasts and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode. You can follow us on instagram@DigimasterShorts or search for Digimasters on Linkedin and facebook, you can also email us at podcast@digimasters.co.uk