Prepared for Ken Crafford, Greg Higham, Maureen Vavra, Lars Rabbe and Joseph Frascati. Please do not forward.
StrataFusion×Innovative Group
Kickoff · September 2026
Six thousand open seats are looking for exactly what you do. Time they could find you.
A LinkedIn search for fractional CIO returns more than six thousand US postings this week. Interim CIO, the same. Ken Crafford and John Dick founded StrataFusion in 2001 to do precisely that work, and the firm has done it for McAfee, Symantec, Malwarebytes, Gap and Archer Aviation. The hard part, the leaders, is done. The website is the part we get to build together, and we could not be more excited about it.
Trusted byMcAfeeSymantecMalwarebytesGapArcher AviationPorts of AmericaSpecializedEverfox
#9Page one for IT carve-out consulting, alongside BCG and FTI
100Technical SEO score. The structure is clean.
86Domain rank, earned over 25 years
31Named people on the team page, each with a lane
Prepared byInnovative Group Chris Salazar, Ashlesha Khond, David Garcia
ForStrataFusion Ken, Greg, Maureen, Lars, Joseph
FormatWorking document Read in fifteen minutes, decide in one session
BasisPartnership IG builds as part of the alliance. No charge attaches to this work.
00 · The thesis
In 2026 a firm's website is where buyers and AI decide who to trust. Yours already wins one of those fights.
One article, the Private Equity Guide to IT Carve-Outs, put StrataFusion on page one next to BCG. It was written once, on a site nobody had tuned for it. That is not luck. That is what happens when real operator expertise meets a query nobody else has answered properly. This project is about doing that on purpose, for every practice, on a site that loads as fast as the thinking behind it.
"Don't let good be the enemy of great. We have an exceptional team."
Greg Higham, September 1
01 · The demand is already posted
Nobody has to be convinced this market exists. It is on LinkedIn, today.
We ran three searches on September 14 with no filters beyond the United States. Every card below is a real posting, live this week, with the company and the date as LinkedIn shows them. Click a count to run the same search yourself in the room. Then look at who is posting: firms shaped like yours, hiring to grow, and companies with an empty technical seat they need covered right now. Both are your funnel.
The first group tells you the category is growing: competitors are recruiting for the exact seats your partners already hold. The second group is the more interesting one. Every organization posting a CIO, CTO or Chief Digital Officer role has that seat empty for the four to nine months a search takes. An interim or fractional offer that finds them in that window is not competing with the hire. It is covering it.
What the buyer is asking for, in their own words
Gartner is hiring people who look exactly like your partners
From the live Gartner Executive Partner posting
Gartner Executive Programs is an exclusive, membership-based organization serving over 8,500 CIOs and senior IT leaders across 87 countries.
Manage a portfolio of 28+ member relationships.
Consulting and/or CxO roles with 15+ years of progressive technology exposure. Demonstrate exposure to large end-to-end transformative initiatives having led or co-led large critical programs.
Extensive knowledge of a CIO's focus areas and the challenges of today's CIOs.
Demonstrable sales and/or business development experience with CXO level executives.
Read it as a description of the StrataFusion bench
15+ years, CxO roles, large transformations. That is every partner bio on your team page. Lars has forty years of it. Ken has thirty.
Knows a CIO's focus areas. Thirteen of your bios describe sitting in the chair, which is a different thing from advising it.
Sells to CXOs. Twenty-five years of doing exactly that, with the logos to prove it.
The difference. Gartner sells this as a membership, one advisor to twenty-eight members, at Gartner prices. You sell the person who has actually held the seat, on the client's problem, for as long as they need. The website should make that contrast legible in one screen, without saying Gartner's name once.
02 · What great looks like
Six firms that turned expertise into a front door.
Not design inspiration. These are advisory and investment firms whose websites do work: they get cited, they get read, they fill a pipeline. Each card opens to what they did, what it produced, and what it means for StrataFusion. Sources are linked. The first one is yours.
03 · The pattern
Six moves that keep showing up.
Strip the six examples down and the same moves appear in every one. None of them require a new brand or a new platform. All of them are available to a firm founded in 2001 with thirty-one named operators and a real client list.
1
Own one question completely
Fortium took the market map. First Round took founder craft. StrataFusion already holds IT carve-outs. Pick the next one and answer it better than anyone.
2
Let the operators speak
Named operators with real points of view outperform firm-voice copy. Thirty-one people on the team page is thirty-one sources of citable expertise.
3
Make the door obvious
A PE operating partner, a company mid-carve-out, and a board with an empty chair each need to see themselves in five seconds.
4
Structure for the machines too
Schema, speed and clean architecture are what let AI answer engines quote you. The content is the fuel. The structure is the engine.
5
Publish on a rhythm
First Round ran two pieces a week with a team of two. Cadence beats volume, and Points of View already has 21 pieces to build from.
6
Name the category before someone else does
Fortium coined Leadership-as-a-Service and was acquired inside a year of the market map. The coordinated fractional C-suite is an open name.
04 · North stars
Five firms, big and boutique, that show off what they do.
The section above is about results. This one is about craft: how firms like yours present themselves when they get it right. Pick a firm, then flip between what their site does, how they use video, and the artifact they are known for. Two of the videos are embedded and play here. The rest link out to the real thing.
05 · The people
This is the team a client gets. It deserves to be seen.
The StrataFusion team and the Innovative Group team working alongside you. Between the two firms sit decades of interim, fractional and advisory C-suite experience, which is exactly what the market is asking for right now. Every one of these faces is a story the website is not yet telling.
06 · Your story
2001 to 2026. Twenty-five years, one purpose.
The About page says it in a paragraph. Told as a sequence, it is the most persuasive thing the firm owns, because no competitor can copy a history. This is the spine the new site is built on.
2001
Ken Crafford and John Dick see a gap
Executive consulting was either strategy without hands or hands without strategy. StrataFusion is founded to fuse the two: Technology Plus Business, from strategy through implementation to measured value.
The method
Assessment, Mobilize, Shift
A proprietary diagnostic, an actionable prioritized roadmap, then adoption. The same shape the firm still runs today, and the same shape the paid assessment front door is built on.
The clients
The names that trust the work
Security, software, retail, aviation, infrastructure. The logos on the home page today are the proof most firms would give anything for.
McAfeeSymantecMalwarebytesGapArcher AviationPorts of AmericaSpecializedEverfox
The bench
Thirty-one named people, each with a lane
Greg Higham and Benjamin Dai rejoined as partners. Henry Ivey holds security. Lars Rabbe brings forty years of CIO work, and Joseph Frascati carries product and the web. Thirty-one named people, each with a written specialty, is a content engine waiting to be switched on.
The proof
One article reaches page one against BCG
The Private Equity Guide to IT Carve-Outs ranks ninth for a query that fires an AI Overview, in a field of BCG, FTI, Valantic, RKON and LEK. One post, written from real experience, and it is holding.
2026
The partnership, and Fractional 360
StrataFusion and Innovative Group build a coordinated fractional C-suite together. Eight chairs, six of them filled, with Greg and Chris co-leading. The offer does not yet exist on either website. That is the next chapter, and it starts tomorrow.
07 · The full technical C-suite
Your team page already describes a complete technology bench. The site says two things.
The home page leads with IT carve-outs and fractional CISO, and it should: that is the wedge that reached page one. Read the thirty-one bios on your own team page, though, and a much bigger firm appears. We counted every seat those bios describe. Click a seat to see who covers it today. The purple ones are the seats the market is starting to ask for by name, and you already have the people to fill them.
Deep todayCovered todayEmerging, worth namingFuture seat to claim
Why this matters for the website. A buyer searching for an interim CTO, a fractional Chief Data Officer, or someone to own AI governance for a board will not find StrataFusion today, even though the bios say the firm has done that work for years. Every seat here becomes a door on the site: a page, a partner with a point of view, and a query the firm can own. Counts are from the bios on stratafusion.com/our-team on September 14, so they will move as the team page does.
08 · Where you stand
What is already earned, and what is ready to unlock.
The structural figures below were re-checked against the live site on September 14. The speed numbers come from the July audit, so re-running them together is the first thing on the week-one list, and the target is the same either way. The foundation is stronger than most firms twice the size, and none of the unlocks require a rebuild.
Already earned
100
Technical SEO scoreMetadata and structure are clean. The architecture maps to how buyers search.
86
Domain rankBuilt over 25 years. This is authority a new firm cannot buy.
#9
Page one for IT carve-out consultingNext to BCG, FTI and LEK. From one article.
1.9s
Desktop load timeProves the site can be fast. The phone experience just needs to catch up.
21
Points of View publishedReal material from real operators, ready to be structured into clusters.
Done
Title already sharpenedThe home page now leads with IT Carve-Out Consulting and Fractional CISO. That is the July recommendation, shipped.
Ready to unlock
2.5s
Mobile load, from 7.8Lazy-loading the 88 images that load on first paint, plus three known fixes, recovers most of it. No rebuild.
90+
Mobile score, from 64The threshold for AI Overview eligibility. Once crossed, the carve-out ranking starts getting cited, not just listed.
1
A designed share cardMeta description, canonical, og:title and og:description are all in place, and the share image is currently a screenshot of the site. One designed card makes every link posted in Slack or LinkedIn look deliberate.
Schema
Service and Person markupOrganization schema is there. Adding the practices and the partners tells AI engines exactly who does what.
$59.50
The open Fractional CISO queryHigh cost-per-click, low competition, and Henry Ivey holds the chair. One structured guide can own it.
0
Fractional 360 on either siteThe single most valuable empty space in the partnership. Phase B gives it a home on both.
Also on the quick-win list, a placeholder contact address and a small housekeeping pass on the footer. Two minutes each, and the kind of thing every firm has on a page nobody has scrolled recently.
09 · A glimpse
Same brand, same Webflow, sharper doors.
Nothing here reopens the refresh your team shipped. Toggle between the home page as it stands and one version of where it can go: your palette, your type, your headline, with three buyers each finding their door in one click.
stratafusion.com
STRATA FUSION
AboutOur TeamOur ExperiencePoints of ViewCommunity
Get In Touch
For businesses
Innovate Today, Lead Tomorrow.
Fusing strategic transformation and technology execution, shifting the future of business.
Our ServicesAbout Us
Faithful to the live page as of September 14. Real headline, real nav. The look is current and it stays.
STRATA FUSION
Carve-OutsFractional LeadershipFractional 360InsightsOur Team
Talk to a partner
Technology Plus Business · since 2001
Innovate Today, Lead Tomorrow.
The operators behind McAfee, Symantec, Gap and Everfox, available as interim and fractional leadership, or as one coordinated C-suite.
See how we workRead the carve-out guide
Which one is you?
A portfolio company that needs a chair filledPE operating partners: diligence, carve-outs, TSA, interim leadership.
A company mid-transitionCarve-out, merger, a CIO who just left. Full coverage with a clean handoff.
A board asking harder questionsAI governance, security posture, a diagnostic before you hire.
Same headline, same palette, same build. What changed: a door for each buyer, the client proof moved up, and the partnership offer in the nav. Under 2.5 seconds on a phone.
Marketing on a page, StrataFusion edition
The one line
Own IT carve-outs and fractional technology leadership in search and in AI answers, then give Fractional 360 a public home. Everything below serves that sentence.
Who we are selling to
PE operating partnersCarve-out and transition leadersBoards with an open chairCEOs of $50M to $500M companies
Three doors on the home page, one per buyer. Each has its own proof, its own language, and its own next step.
What we lead with
The carve-out guide, then the fractional CISO guide, then a door for every technical seat. The first is already winning. The second is an open category with Henry Ivey in the chair. The third is the thirty-one bios on the team page, turned into pages a buyer can find: interim CTO, fractional CIO, Chief Data and AI leadership, transformation, PMO. All of it is expertise the firm already has.
The programs
A. Foundation. Speed, schema, share tags, the three doors. B. The hub. Fractional 360 on both sites, cross-linked. C. The engine. Insights architecture, a cluster per practice, partner interviews, off-site authority.
The rhythm
Two published pieces a month to start, built from partner interviews so nobody has to write from blank. Points of View becomes Insights and gets structure. Monthly review against the numbers below.
The numbers we watch
Mobile score to 90.Load to 2.5s.Fractional CISO query: page one within 90 days of publishing. Referring domains passing authority up from 41. Inbound conversations from the three doors, counted.
What could slow it
Decisions queuing behind a weekly call. Content waiting on a perfect draft rather than a good interview. Both are solved by one named day-to-day contact and a two-week publishing cadence.
10 · How we work together
Define, Design, Develop, Deploy. In the room or on the board.
The same four stages on every build. Below them, what a working session with us actually looks like: the boards from a recent in-person session with another client, and the live Miro board the Fractional 360 team has been working in since August.
Define: agree the sequence and start moving
The audit exists and the findings are verified, so week one is not discovery. It is closing the five decisions, naming owners, and shipping the quick wins so the project has visible motion from day one.
Close the five decisions. Most are Ken's and none need a meeting.
Name one day-to-day contact on each side.
Ship the quick wins the same week.
Stand up GA4 and Search Console alongside the Webflow stats.
Write down what a win looks like in ninety days, in numbers.
You get
A one-page scope with owners and dates, and two fixes already live.
We need
Five short answers and one name. Slack is fine.
Low effortNo design yet
Design: your house, sharper doors
No rebrand, no new system. Your palette, your type, your Webflow. The design work is about who self-selects in five seconds and how Fractional 360 looks when it lands.
Home page framing pass with the three doors.
Fractional 360 hub in StrataFusion's voice, mirroring IG's.
Insights architecture designed before the first post ships.
Mobile as the primary canvas.
Annotated before and after, reviewed on real pages in one working session.
You get
Wireframes and copy for the home page, the hub and the insights structure.
We need
One review pass from Ken, and Greg's read on the chairs.
Your paletteNo rebrand
Develop: speed first, because everything compounds on it
Build order follows the audit. Performance comes first because the mobile score gates AI Overview eligibility no matter how good the content is.
Lazy-load the 88 eager images. Clear redirect chains, unused JS and CSS.
Service, ProfessionalService and Person schema.
Meta descriptions, canonicals, share images across the site.
Build the Fractional 360 hub, cross-linked both ways with innovativegroup.io.
Internal links between practice pages.
You get
A site under 2.5 seconds on a phone, legible to AI engines, with the partnership offer live.
We need
Webflow access for the build team, and review on anything carrying your brand.
IG buildsYou review
Deploy: publish on a rhythm, measure honestly
Deploy is not a launch day. It is when the engine starts and the numbers start telling us whether the plan was right.
The fractional CISO guide, aimed at the open query.
An IT transformation cluster for private equity.
The carve-out guide enriched and given siblings.
Off-site authority: Clutch, G2, industry directories.
Monthly reporting against the ninety-day numbers.
You get
A publishing rhythm that compounds and a monthly read on whether it is working.
We need
Partner expertise for the content. The half that cannot be outsourced.
CompoundingMeasured monthly
What a session with us looks like, in the room
From a working session we ran this month with a design studio marking its fortieth year. Modules on the wall, values written live and voted with dots, the tensions named rather than smoothed over. We will do the same with you, in person or on a board.
Module 1Values written live, then voted with checkmarks. The winner sits in the top corner.
Module 2Who we serve. Sectors on one color, buyer types on another, today and future for each.
Module 2What gets in the way. The thickest board of the afternoon, and the most useful.
And on the board, with the Fractional 360 team
The Fractional 360 working board, as it stands. Eight chairs, a color legend so every voice is traceable, ground rules the team wrote together, and a parking lot so nothing gets lost. Two sessions ran on this board in August. Greg and Ken have both been in it.
Session 1 into Session 2. The room split principles into two tracks, how we operate and why us, and carried candidates forward for a vote. This is what the output of a working session looks like when the whole team owns the board.
11 · What the website carries
The site is the foundation. These are what stand on it.
Every one of these is already in motion somewhere in the partnership. None of them work properly until the offer has a public home, which is why the site comes first.
Horizon 1
Two sites, one story
Fractional 360 lands on both stratafusion.com and innovativegroup.io, in each firm's voice, cross-linked. That reciprocal link is where partnership authority comes from.
Horizon 1
Henry's chair takes an open category
Fractional CISO carries a $59.50 cost-per-click and low competition. One structured guide, one author who actually holds the seat.
Horizon 2
Private equity as the first framework
Carve-outs, diligence, team build, TSA management: the one place a client wants the whole bench. Greg has a warm path into a major PE operating team.
Horizon 2
Accelerators and Factory Berlin
Founders who need senior judgment before they can hire it. The offer page is what we point them at.
This week
The demand in the job boards
David posted four live fractional CTO and advisor roles on Tuesday. Steve sent a Gartner CIO Advisory posting the same hour. Roles being posted right now that Fractional 360 could fill as engagements. Chris is opening a thread with Greg, Steve and David to work it deliberately.
In motion
The operating model underneath
Norm deSilva leads it with Greg, Ken and Chris. The website does not wait on it, and the conversations the website generates will need it. Two tracks, in parallel, on purpose.
"It's unlikely a prospect will say, 'I'd like a Fractional 360, please'. They're more likely to say, 'what I need right now is a CMO (or CFO, CISO, etc.)'. Our job is to make sure they know we have a fully staffed fractional C-Suite waiting in the wings to assist as and when needed."
Greg Higham, September 8
12 · For the room
Three questions only you can answer.
We bring the build and the market read. The answers to these come from twenty-five years we were not there for. Type straight into the boxes tomorrow, or bring them written.
Which engagement would you put on the home page?
This becomes the first door, and probably the first case study.
What is the sentence a PE operating partner should read first?
It replaces the stock photo, and it is the line the AI engines will quote.
Which partner should the market hear from first?
That is the first interview and the first published piece.
And five decisions that make everything else move
✓
The sequenceFoundation, then the hub, then the engine. Or a different order if one is wrong for the firm.
Ken
✓
Where StrataFusion content livesAn insights section on stratafusion.com, cross-linked with innovativegroup.io. The alternative builds someone else's asset.
Ken
✓
Social home and its ownerOne named person for the StrataFusion LinkedIn page. IG amplifies.
Ken + Maureen
✓
MeasurementGA4 and Search Console alongside Webflow, so the engine can be measured properly.
Ken
✓
Day-to-day contactOne person to work directly with the IG build team. This is the one that most affects how fast this feels.
Lars or Joseph
0 of 5 closed. Tracking is local to this page. The real record lives in the meeting log.
We bring the build. You bring twenty-five years.
Innovative Group is doing this as part of the partnership because we believe the same thing you do: the operators behind McAfee, Symantec and Everfox should not need a stock photo to introduce themselves. Tomorrow is sixty minutes to agree the sequence, name the contacts, and ship the first two fixes before the call ends.
0:00 to 0:12
What great looks like, and what you have already earned.
0:12 to 0:28
The glimpse: three doors, the hub, marketing on a page.
0:28 to 0:48
Three questions and five decisions, worked live.
0:48 to 1:00
Week one, named. Contacts, quick wins, the first interview.
Greg Higham, September 1
