Fractional Commercial Director — KaYu Solutions

Most businesses don’t need a full-time Commercial Director. But they need one badly enough that not having one is costing them money they can’t see: in revenue left on the table, in sales teams without direction, in pricing that doesn’t reflect what the market will bear.

The Fractional CD engagement is the answer to that gap. Kate steps into the CD role directly, not as an advisor observing from a distance, but as the person accountable for the commercial function. She owns the revenue targets, the sales structure, the hiring, and the strategy, for as long as that’s what the business needs.

What this looks like in practice

The clearest illustration is what happened at a small-group adventure travel company Kate joined as a sales agent.

Year one: she doubled revenue. Working at the pace required to do that alone (unsustainable), she recognised early that the constraint wasn’t effort, it was structure. With the owner’s agreement, she brought in a second sales person, took on the head of department role, and trained her. Revenue doubled again.

Year three: she restructured the department entirely. Three sales roles and a dedicated support function, because for a company running hiking tours with gear rental, post-booking support is operationally complex and, if mishandled, directly damages conversion and repeat booking. Revenue doubled for the third consecutive year.

Three years. Three doublings. Eight times the revenue the commercial function was producing when she arrived.

The work in subsequent years moved further into commercial strategy: designing the full tour offering based on past demand analysis, building the pricing matrix, setting clean individual and team targets, running interviews, implementing sales incentive structures, managing the pipeline, and working directly with marketing to monitor content effectiveness and lead generation. The kind of work a CSO does, except she was already doing it before that title applied.

What Kate builds

The distinguishing characteristic of this engagement is that Kate builds structures that outlast her involvement. Any capable salesperson can drive revenue while they’re pushing. What takes senior commercial thinking is designing the team, the targets, the process, and the incentives so that growth continues after the initial push, without the business remaining dependent on one person’s output.

This means the engagement typically involves:

• Assessing where the commercial constraint actually sits (which is often not where it appears)
• Restructuring or building the sales team around roles that match the business model
• Setting revenue targets that are ambitious, defensible, and connected to real business drivers
• Designing individual incentive and motivation structures
• Building the pricing and product offering around demand and margin reality
• Establishing pipeline management and funnel discipline
• Aligning with marketing on lead generation, content effectiveness, and handoff quality
• Running hiring processes for commercial roles

What you get

Direct senior involvement from the first conversation. Kate is the person in the room, not a team she manages from above or a framework she leaves behind. The engagement scales to what the business needs, and ends when the internal capability is in place to carry it forward.

If your commercial function is the constraint on your growth, get in touch.