Fractional CMO and Chief Growth Officer for established eCommerce brands.
If your brand has plateaued, your agency is shipping work but the number is not moving, or you need senior growth leadership you cannot yet justify full time, I take the seat.
I spent 27 years building an international eCommerce consultancy and running the growth function for brands including Hackett London, Grenade, Seiko and Herman Miller. Now I do that from your side of the table: a few days a month, accountable for one growth number, working with your team and your suppliers rather than replacing them.
What a fractional CGO gives you
Senior growth leadership for your eCommerce brand at a fraction of the cost of a full-time CMO or CGO hire. This is not advisory from the sidelines. I get involved.
A seat, not a deck
I join your leadership cadence, own the growth plan and report to you or your board on one number. Weekly working time with your team, not a report every quarter.
The whole lifecycle
Platform, replatforming and integrations on one side. CRO, SEO and AEO, paid media to ROAS, email and lifecycle retention on the other. Most fractional growth leads carry one. I carry both, so nothing falls between suppliers.
Your agency gets better
I ran a 70-person agency and sat on client boards. I know what good agency work looks like, what it should cost and when to say no. Your existing partners stay. They just get held to a standard.
Most brands I speak to are in one of two positions. Either the business is growing and the platform, the team or the marketing is being outgrown, and nobody senior has the time to fix it. Or growth has stalled, the setup has aged, and what worked three years ago has stopped compounding.
Both need the same thing: a clear-eyed read on what is actually holding the business back, then someone to carry the plan.
Sometimes you are too close to your own business to see what is going wrong. I bring an outside view with 27 years of pattern recognition behind it, then stay to implement.
“I built an agency to 70 people and took brands from start-up to a £200m exit. I now bring that to one growth seat at a time.”
Jon Billingsley FCIM
The brands that grow fastest are not the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones where platform, marketing and operations pull in the same direction, with one person accountable for the result.
How a fractional growth engagement works
Consult first, deliver second. I do not open with a pitch or a price. I open by understanding the business and the problem, because that is where the judgement is worth the most and where trust is built.
Diagnose
A fixed-fee diagnostic over two to three weeks: marketing performance, unit economics, platform and data, customer lifecycle and competitive position. You get a board-level read on what is holding growth back, whether or not we go further.
Agree the plan
A prioritised roadmap: what to fix, in what order, and the commercial outcome each step targets. One growth number we both sign up to.
Take the seat
A monthly retainer as your fractional CGO, six months minimum. I run the plan with your team and your agencies, report on the number, and widen scope only where it earns its keep.
Engagements are typically two to four days a month. I take a small number of seats at any one time, so each gets senior attention rather than a share of a roster.
Questions people ask about fractional growth leadership
What is a fractional Chief Growth Officer?
A fractional CGO is a senior growth leader who joins your business part time, typically two to four days a month, and takes accountability for revenue growth across marketing, eCommerce platform and customer retention. You get the judgement and seniority of a C-level hire without the salary, equity or notice period. I work this way with established UK eCommerce and consumer brands.
How is a fractional CGO different from a fractional CMO?
A fractional CMO owns marketing. A fractional CGO owns the growth number, which means marketing plus the eCommerce platform, the integrations behind it, conversion, retention and how the agencies and in-house team fit together. For an eCommerce brand the platform is half the growth story, so I cover both. If what you need is a fractional CMO, that sits inside this.
What does a fractional CGO cost?
Engagements open with a fixed-fee diagnostic over two to three weeks, then run as a monthly retainer with a six-month minimum. The retainer is a fraction of a full-time CGO or CMO salary and is scoped to the days a month the business needs, usually two to four. Day rate and monthly figures are agreed after the diagnostic, when the scope is clear.
Which businesses is this right for?
Established UK consumer and B2B eCommerce brands of roughly £3m to £50m revenue, owner-led or PE-backed, with clear growth or a visible plateau. Too big for template agencies, not yet big enough to justify a full-time growth executive. Shopify, Magento and Adobe Commerce stores are my home ground.
Do you replace our agency or in-house team?
No. I sit on your side of the table and make your existing partners better. I have run a 70-person agency, so I know what good agency work looks like, what it should cost and when to say no. Your agency stays and gets held to a standard. Where there is a gap, I will say so and help you fill it.
Do you handle replatforming and migrations?
Yes. I have led replatforming in every direction between Shopify and Magento, Magento 1 to 2, and from legacy and bespoke stacks, including ERP, CRM, PIM, payment and warehouse integration. I do not build it myself as your CGO; I scope it, choose the partner, and own the commercial outcome.
How quickly can you start?
A first conversation within a week, the diagnostic inside a month, and the retained seat from the month after. I take a small number of seats at a time so each gets senior attention.
Where are you based?
London and Kent, working with brands across the UK, with time in Dubai and the US. Most of the work is remote with regular in-person leadership days.
eCommerce growth track record
27 years building an international eCommerce consultancy and growing the brands it served. Founder, managing director, head of client services, and non-executive director on several client boards.
Jon Billingsley, Axis Shift
I founded an eCommerce consultancy in 1999 and built it into an award-winning international business with teams in London, Dubai and Los Angeles, leading 70 people across development, marketing, DevOps and account management. I owned the client function from first brief to year-on-year growth and reported to client boards. Average client relationship: over eight years.
Grenade. Nine years, from a small start-up team to a £200m+ acquisition by Mondelēz. Replatformed Magento 1 to 2, built the D2C growth programme, international roll-out. Direct-to-consumer revenue tripled.
Hackett London. Head consultant on a 200-person transformation programme. Online conversion from 0.05% to 2% in year one.
Herman Miller (Colebrook Bosson Saunders). Magento 2 replatform for a technical B2B catalogue, product data restructured, internal systems integrated.
Icewear. Multi-generation platform partner, one market to nine, ERP integration for product, stock and orders.
Seiko. The brand’s first direct-to-consumer platform.
Lake Country Manufacturing. In-house Global Marketing Director: B2C revenue up 400%, global sales up 35% year on year.
Also McAfee UK, JennyChem, Pepe Jeans, Best Workwear, UK Oak Doors, Swale Heating and Hi-Life Pet Food.
Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. BSc Management and Digital Innovation (First Class) and BSc International Marketing, University of London.
How to get started
Choosing who to bring into your leadership team is a big decision. Start with a conversation about the business, what is holding it back and whether we are a fit. No hard sell. If I am not the right person for it I will say so and point you somewhere better.
Arrange a conversation about your growth and whether a fractional seat is the right shape for it.