For deal teams, portfolio operations, and CEOs
Advisory from a practicing CTO.
A few hours a month where it helps to have someone who runs an engineering organization today, has done ten-plus acquisitions, and has no stake in the answer. Not a retainer to run the company; a standing source of judgment for the people who do.
Where it fits
Around the diligence, not instead of it
Most advisory relationships start after a diligence, when the firm wants the person who wrote the register to stay available to the team running it. Some start cold, with a portfolio company that has a question nobody on the board can answer.
Pre-deal
Technical diligence
An assessment of the architecture, the team, and the main risks, scheduled around your IC date.
Learn more →Stage 1 of 4First 100 days
Your team runs the plan
The register is written to become the 100-day plan. Your operating team or the incoming CTO runs it; I stay available to them.
Learn more →Stage 2 of 4Hold period
Advisory
A few hours a month where a sitting CTO's judgment is useful: reviews, hiring, board read-outs.
Learn more →Stage 3 of 4Exit
Sell-side review
A buyer's-eye read on the technology six to twelve months before a process.
Learn more →Stage 4 of 4
After close
Supporting the team that runs the plan
The register becomes the plan
The diligence risk register is written to be handed, unchanged, to the operating team or the incoming CTO as the first draft of the 100-day plan. I walk them through it and stay available while they run it.
Check-ins at 30, 60, and 100 days
A short review of what moved, what didn't, and what the register missed. The output is a one-page note to the sponsor.
Hiring the permanent CTO
A scorecard written from the register, technical interviews for the shortlist, and a candid read on each finalist. I've hired for this seat from both sides of the table.
A direct line for the CEO
When something is off plan, an email to someone who has been in the seat and can say what they'd do. Usually that's the most-used part of the arrangement.
Hold period
What a few hours a month covers
Portfolio technology reviews
A consistent one-page technology read on each company, once or twice a year: delivery cadence, reliability, cloud spend, key-person exposure, security posture, and whether the roadmap and the plan are the same plan.
Board read-outs
A technology page for the board deck that a non-technical board can read in five minutes, and a voice in the room when the CTO's plan needs an independent second.
Second opinions
A rebuild proposal, a platform migration, a major vendor contract, an AI investment. The expensive decisions where the cost of a wrong answer is high and the cost of a second read is small.
Add-on integration planning
Before an add-on closes: what to consolidate, what to leave alone, how to sequence identity and data, and how to keep the acquired team. Built from doing this ten-plus times at Cordance.
Cloud cost
Twelve months of invoices and an afternoon usually find the savings. At MyFitnessPal that was 25% of AWS spend; the pattern repeats.
AI claims and plans
Whether a portfolio company's AI feature is a model or a wrapper, what it costs per customer, and where AI would actually move a number in that company. See the point of view below.
Point of view
On AI in the portfolio
Nearly every CIM now has an AI slide. In practice it usually describes one of three things: a vendor API with a prompt in front of it, a real capability whose unit economics nobody has checked, or an actual differentiator. Sorting out which is a large part of the diligence job in 2026.
In diligence
Model and vendor concentration, inference cost against gross margin, training data rights and provenance, how mature the evaluation and monitoring are, and the security surface (prompt injection, data leakage) that hasn't been tested.
In the plan
The EBITDA lines I'm willing to put in a plan are engineering productivity, support deflection, and internal operations. I size them from the company's own numbers with adoption assumptions I'd defend to a board.
In practice
I set the AI adoption strategy and tooling framework across Cordance's portfolio, and I use these tools every day as a CTO. The advice comes from operating them rather than reading about them.
Exit
Sell-side review
A buyer's diligence team will find what your own diligence found. A sell-side review six to twelve months out means fixing or explaining those items on your schedule rather than theirs.
Buyer's-eye assessment: The same scope as a buy-side diligence, run against your own company, with a remediation list sequenced to land before the data room opens.
Documentation: Architecture, data flows, security posture, and operating procedures written so a buyer's advisor can review them without a call.
Management prep: Preparation for the technical management presentation and Q&A, including the questions management would rather not get.
Engagement model
How it's structured
Advisory retainer
Defined projects
Summit Foundry Group is a small practice I run alongside my role as CTO at LINQ. I take one diligence at a time, or one or two advisory relationships, and I'll tell you on the first call if I'm full.
FAQ
Questions firms ask
What does an advisory relationship look like in practice?
A standing slot, usually two to four hours a month, plus availability by email in between. The firm or the CEO brings the questions: a plan to sanity-check, a CTO candidate to interview, a vendor decision, a board deck that needs a technology page. I read what's sent ahead of time and come with a view.
Can you step in as interim or fractional CTO?
Not at the moment. I'm CTO at LINQ, and that comes first. If a portfolio company needs someone in the seat, I'll say so on the first call and, where I can, point you to people I'd trust with it. Where I can help is choosing and onboarding that person.
How is this different from a diligence engagement?
Diligence is a project: two to three weeks, a defined scope, a written readout. Advisory is a relationship: no fixed deliverable, a small amount of time each month, and the value comes from context that builds up over a hold period.
How many of these do you take on?
Summit Foundry Group is a small practice I run alongside my role as CTO at LINQ. I take one diligence at a time, or one or two advisory relationships, and I'll tell you on the first call if I'm full.
Where are you based, and do you travel?
Denver. Advisory is almost entirely remote. I'll travel for a board meeting or a management presentation when it matters and my schedule allows.
Have a question a practicing CTO should answer?
Describe the company and the decision. I'll say on the first call whether it's something I can help with, and whether I have the room.
Or email signals@summitfoundrygroup.com. I reply within one business day.