Walner Consulting Walner Consulting, LLC Fractional Technology Leadership
Fractional CTO · IT Director · Technical Program Management

Senior technical leadership, without the headcount.

I step into the seat your org chart is missing — owning architecture decisions, driving delivery across teams and vendors, and translating engineering reality into terms the board can act on. Hands on the keyboard when it helps; accountable for outcomes either way.

Engagements

Where I take ownership

Each engagement has a defined mandate, a decision log, and an exit condition. You should always know what I'm accountable for and when it ends.

01

Fractional CTO / IT Director

Own the technology roadmap, architecture standards, budget, and vendor portfolio. I sit in leadership meetings, defend the technical position, and make the calls a full-time director would — a few days a month instead of a salaried hire.

02

Technical Program Management

Multi-team, multi-vendor programs where dependencies are the real risk. Delivery plans, sequencing, risk registers, and status your executives can actually read. I chase the blockers rather than reporting them.

03

Modernization & Migration Programs

Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, cloud migration, network and DNS architecture, identity consolidation, backup and recovery. Scoped, sequenced, and led to completion — including the cutover weekend and the documentation afterward.

04

Governance, Security & Vendor Strategy

Security posture and access governance for organizations without a security team. Licensing and contract review, MSP and vendor evaluation, and the leverage to renegotiate agreements that quietly stopped serving you.

Approach

How I operate

Assess before recommending. Most engagements open with a short technical and organizational review. You get a written current-state picture, a prioritized risk list, and a roadmap with sequencing — useful on its own, even if you never engage me again.

Decisions get owners and dates. The failure mode in most technology programs isn't engineering difficulty, it's unresolved decisions sitting in an inbox. I run a decision log and close items rather than escalating them indefinitely.

Fewer moving parts. Every tool added is a renewal, an integration, and an outage surface. I'd rather consolidate two systems than deploy a third, and I'll argue for the boring architecture that runs unattended.

You own everything. Accounts, tenancies, licenses, domains, and runbooks stay in your name from day one. Documentation is written so your next hire — or your next consultant — can pick it up cold.

Plain language upward, precision downward. Boards get trade-offs, cost, and risk without jargon. Engineers get specifics without hand-waving. Translating cleanly between those two rooms is most of the job.

Engagement models

How the work is structured

Advisory retainer

A recurring block of hours each month for roadmap, architecture review, vendor decisions, and escalations. The standing technical voice in the room.

Program engagement

A defined migration or modernization program with scope, milestones, and an end date. Priced to the outcome, not to the hour count.

Assessment

A fixed-scope review of your current environment, risks, and spend. Delivered as a written report and a working session. A common starting point.

Next step

Tell me what you're dealing with

A short description of the situation is enough to start — a stalled program, a migration nobody owns, or a leadership gap you haven't filled. I reply to everything within one business day.