A fractional IT sales leader who says he was once sacked by his father has launched a part-time executive firm and argues fractional leadership is becoming more common across the IT channel, helped in part by AI.
Jack Walsh, who spent 13 years in IT sales at peripherals distributor JLC Distribution, launched JWI Commercial in May. Walsh said the model allows businesses to access senior talent on a flexible basis and reduces the risk of a poor full-time hire.
How AI is enabling fractional leadership
Walsh said the current economic and hiring backdrop, together with AI, is stoking demand for fractional roles in the channel. “You can now be so much more effective, but you don’t have to be full time,” he said.
He described AI as a force multiplier for solo leaders, saying tasks that previously would have taken a full day—prospecting, writing pitch decks or market research—can now be partly automated. “I can sit at my desk and have 100 leads that fit my ICP [ideal customer profile] ready to go,” Walsh explained. “I’ve got emails, numbers and LinkedIn, and I can just start running the sequence. I can do that far more effectively. I can run it throughout the day, where it will be softly reaching out on my behalf, and then when I get a response, it’s me that takes the wheel.”
Walsh added: “A lot of these organisations, if they get the wrong hire, it can set them right back – that was the idea behind JWI Commercial.” He also said: “Before it would have taken me all day.”
From warehouse packer to fractional founder
Walsh’s channel career began in 2013 when he joined JLC—then known as Jammy Lizard—as a warehouse packer and later helped grow its corporate business. He recalled that he had been dismissed from his father’s stationery company at the end of 2012: “I’d actually just got fired by my Dad’s stationery company.” He added that working for family had left him taking the role for granted and that his father “invited me to leave the business at the end of 2012.”
Walsh has given himself six months to make JWI Commercial work, and JLC signed on as one of his first clients.
Industry participants say fractional leadership offers lower risk for growth firms. Stephen Halpin, whose company PortfolioXD provides “C-Suite as a Service,” said the approach helps founder-led companies access executive experience they might not otherwise afford. PortfolioXD launched in 2023 and claims to have over 2,500 C-suite execs on its books. Halpin said: “Technology, AI and changing expectations around work are clearly making it easier for experienced executives to support multiple businesses.” He added that founder-led companies are no longer constrained by the executive experience they can afford to access.
Halpin also warned that fractional roles are not a fit for everyone: PortfolioXD turns down more than a third of C-suite candidates who apply. “One is people with not enough C-suite experience to give us the comfort of putting them into the companies that we’re working with. But we’ve also got the other end of the scale – namely those from big organisations who are taking the redundancy payments and think they can walk straight into an actual C-suite role within an SME. I think that sounds great on paper, but culturally, operationally, that becomes quite difficult at times,” he said.
Channel veteran Ruth Schofield, who has previously worked as a fractional channel leader, acknowledged the benefits for startups and scale-ups but highlighted limits around commitment and culture. “For start ups and scale ups it’s much lower risk,” she said. “But I don’t think you can replace (even with AI advancements) having someone on the payroll from a commitment and ownership perspective. Also customers and partners tend to gravitate to vendors with someone in a permanent post, especially for senior roles. Senior roles primarily drive culture, which partners and customers tend to trust when they can see a robust culture in place. That’s harder to achieve in fractional roles because they tend to be temporary or part time.”
On whether fractional leaders increase pressure on permanent C-suite roles, Walsh said: “I’d say if one is already installed, potentially not. But growth is always attractive to CEOs – and now a fresh pair of eyes is available at much less risk to the business.” He concluded: “I’ve spoken with a number of fractional C-suite, and they can just move around businesses quite freely and adding serious value, because they’ve spent a number of years within an organisation or within a sector.”
