Interim & Fractional CTO / CPO — PE Operating Partner
Eugi Bartolo is an interim & fractional CTO/CPO who embeds with private equity firms and their portfolio companies as a hands-on technology operating partner — turning the tech and product lines of the value creation plan into EBITDA, growth, and a cleaner exit.
Selected work
Five engagements, told plainly: who backed it, who I worked inside, what I found, and what changed.
Engagement 01
Engagement 02
Engagement 03
Engagement 04
Engagement 05
Why funds call
Most value creation plans lean on technology and product — new platforms, pricing engines, AI, faster delivery. Fewer portfolio companies have anyone senior enough to make it happen. That gap is where I work.
Scenario 01
The CTO left, or never existed. Founder-led product, a roadmap that reads like a wishlist, and a hold-period clock that started at close. Engineering is busy — but busy isn't the same as compounding value.
Scenario 02
Diligence flagged the risks: architecture that won't scale, key-person dependency, security debt, spend nobody can explain. Now they need an owner with the seniority to fix them — not another report.
Scenario 03
The multiple was paid on a tech-enabled story: platform consolidation, product-led growth, AI-driven margin. The board needs someone who has actually operated those levers, not theorised about them.
Operating model
Not a consultancy, not a bench of associates. One operator, accountable for outcomes, plugged in at the level the situation demands.
Full-time cover when the leadership gap is a value leak. I stabilise the team, re-anchor the roadmap to the value creation plan, install a delivery cadence the board can trust — and then hire my own successor, because an interim who makes themselves permanent has misread the brief.
One to two days a week, one portfolio company or several. Board-grade technology and product judgement at a cost that matches the size of the business — plus sleeves-rolled involvement in hiring, architecture calls, vendor negotiations and the awkward conversations in between.
Pre-deal technology & product due diligence written for a deal team, not a data room: risks ranked by enterprise-value impact, in plain English, with a price tag. Post-close, a 100-day plan built by someone who will be judged on whether it survives contact with reality — because I often stay to run it.
The playbook
The same arc, every engagement: diagnose against the thesis, win the first hundred days, compound through the hold, and hand over something the data room will love.
Phase 01Weeks 0–6
Team, architecture, roadmap, spend, security, AI readiness — audited not in the abstract, but against what the deal actually assumed. Every risk and opportunity ranked by its impact on enterprise value.
A technology value creation plan the board reads — and prices.
Phase 02The first 100 days
Quick wins that fund the harder work. The right people hired — or the wrong structures dismantled. A delivery cadence installed, and reporting the fund can trust without translation.
Operating rhythm running, KPI baseline set, credibility banked.
Phase 03Months 3–18
The roadmap shipped against the value creation plan. Product levers pulled where they move revenue; AI applied where it moves margin, not headlines. Cost discipline without strangling the engine.
Measurable EBITDA and growth contribution, quarter on quarter.
Phase 04Exit window
Architecture, security and documentation diligence-proofed before the buyer's advisers arrive. Succession hired and bedded in. A technology story that raises the multiple instead of surviving it.
A cleaner process, a stronger story, a better-priced exit.
Proof
Proactive, result-oriented, responsible and technically sound — always ready to put all his energy and time in to get the job done. Exceptional troubleshooting, coordination and analytical skills.
Instrumental in helping our team understand and implement new agile ways of working — and programme-managed a complicated multi-track tech development roadmap.
A challenging project, made more so by our inexperience and sometimes reticence to digitise. He coped calmly and soldiered on, delivering the lion's share of what became a valuable new platform.
His understanding, interest and enthusiasm for working agile helped shape the cross-functional team he managed — gaining the trust and respect of everyone he worked with.
Recognition
Awarded on operating record — not potential, not credentials, not promises. Held alongside BCS, Scrum Alliance and SAFe certifications, for the diligence-minded.
Winner · Global CIO Forum
Winner · CIO Online
Winner · Global CIO Forum
Winner · Marlow Business School
Straight answers
A fractional CTO or CPO is a senior technology or product executive who leads part-time — typically one to two days a week — giving a company C-level leadership without a full-time hire. For PE-backed portfolio companies, that means board-grade technology and product judgement scaled to the size and stage of the business.
A technology operating partner turns the technology and product assumptions in a deal thesis into delivered value: pre-deal due diligence, post-close 100-day plans, building or restructuring engineering and product teams, installing delivery and reporting cadences, and preparing the technology story for exit. Unlike a consultant, an operating partner is embedded and accountable for outcomes.
Typically at three moments: when a portfolio company has a leadership gap after a departure or acquisition; when the value creation plan depends on technology or product outcomes no one in the business currently owns; or when diligence has flagged risks that need senior hands on them from day one. An interim CTO stabilises, delivers, and hires their own successor.
Architecture and scalability, security posture, team capability and key-person risk, product roadmap credibility, delivery velocity, technology spend, and AI readiness — each ranked by its impact on enterprise value. The output is a plain-English report the deal team can price, plus the seed of a post-close 100-day plan.
Three models: interim CTO/CPO (full-time cover for a defined period, usually 6–12 months), fractional operating partner (one to two days a week across one or more portfolio companies), and project-based work such as due diligence or 100-day plans. Based in London, working across the UK and Europe, on-site and remote.
Start here
A thirty-minute call: bring the deal, the portco, or the problem. You'll leave with a view — and, if it's the right fit, a plan for the first hundred days.