Fractional CIO | IT Strategy for High-Stakes M&A | Faster M&A, Smoother Exits | De-risking IT & unlocking value | Author

Most technology integrations miss their synergy targets. Not because the technology is wrong, but because the right leadership wasn't in place early enough.

That's where I come in.

I'm an Interim / Fractional CIO specialising in Transformation & Resilience. I work with CEOs and boards of multi-site, acquisition-led businesses, typically PE-backed, 500–10,000 employees, to turn technology from a source of risk into a source of value.

When integration timelines slip, cyber posture is unclear, or the estate has grown faster than the team can manage, I step in to stabilise delivery, simplify complexity, and build a roadmap the board can trust.
Recent engagement:

VetPartners (BC Partners-backed, £1B revenue, 14,000 staff, 9 countries). Built the Group IT Strategy from scratch. Created acquisition integration blueprints. Accelerated new practice onboarding by 30%. Simultaneously ran IT operations for 540 UK practices.

Career outcomes:

£700M+ M&A technology integration across the platform and bolt-on acquisitions
£15M+ annual EBITDA contribution through operational excellence and cost optimisation
Technology leadership across automotive retail, consumer goods, and veterinary services

Clients call me when:

→ Integration is off-track, and synergies are at risk
→ The board wants cyber confidence before exit, audit, or due diligence
→ Technology is a red flag in the data room
→ They need senior leadership fast—without permanent headcount

I also serve as NED (Digital & Technology) at Age UK, and I've published on AI governance, IT leadership, and board-level technology strategy.

Available for select interim and fractional mandates.

Let's talk: DJ@Starkhorn.co.uk

Daniel J. Jacobs

The AI didn’t fail. It did exactly what we asked, just not what we meant.
We built an agent that ran flawlessly… until everything around it started quietly breaking.

 If you're leading AI deployments or planning to, this reflection might save you some heartache.

👇 Read it here: Reflections on Agentic AI, Human Trust, and the Space 

Between Promise and Reality

What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned deploying AI in the real world?

Interim / Fractional CIO (Transformation & Resilience) | Board-level clarity on Technology (Risk • Cost • Delivery) | Multi-site & acquisition-led businesses | M&A integration • Cyber resilience • Operating model

View newsletter: Digital Disruption Digest

The system did what we asked. It just didn’t do what we meant, and we didn’t realise the difference until something subtle broke. Reflections on Agent

Open article: The AI didn’t fail. It did exactly what we asked — just not what we meant. by Daniel J. Jacobs • 7 min read

The AI didn’t fail. It did exactly what we asked — just not what we meant.

“We won’t fix the legacy stack, it’s too complex and too expensive. Let’s add AI and show progress.”

That move can create a short-term win.

The short-term gain

➡️ Nicer dashboards and “insight” layers
➡️ A quick story for the board: “We’re doing AI”
➡️ Lower upfront disruption than a proper rebuild
➡️ Faster cycle times in a few workflows (support, sales ops, reporting)

It feels like momentum because some metrics will move.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫-𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭 (𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭)

If the core systems are brittle, AI becomes a high-gloss layer sitting on low-trust data and fragile processes.

You end up with:

➡️ Automation of mess (you scale inconsistency, not performance)
➡️ Rising change cost (each “quick win” increases architectural debt)
➡️ Hidden operational risk (every new model relies on unstable integrations)
➡️ A strategy trap (it looks modern, so the real modernisation never happens)
➡️ AI outputs nobody trusts (because the underlying data is wrong or incomplete)

AI on broken foundations doesn’t transform the business; it amplifies whatever the business already is.

𝐀 𝐂𝐄𝐎-𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭

Don’t ask, “Where can we deploy AI?”

Ask, “Where do we have clean ownership, stable data, and a repeatable process so AI can compound value instead of compounding risk?”

𝐑𝐮𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐛:

If a process can’t be measured, governed, and explained without AI… Adding AI won’t fix it. It will just make it faster and harder to debug.

𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Where in your business is AI used to modernise, and what would fixing the foundation unlock instead?

Kicking off 2026 with renewed energy and big goals, but what I’m hearing from leadership teams isn’t “new year, new me”.

It’s urgency.

After months of planning in 2025, 2026 is shaping up as the year of decisive execution. The “nice-to-have” transformation work is becoming “must-have” modernisation, and the question has changed:

𝐍𝐨𝐭: “Should we modernise?”
𝐁𝐮𝐭: “How fast can we move without breaking what already works?”

The companies that win this year will treat technology as a strategic lever, not a support function:

➔ IT optimisation as a weapon, not a cost centre
➔ M&A integration as value creation, not operational admin
➔ Cybersecurity as business enablement, not just risk management

If 2026 is the year you’re aiming to reduce complexity, strengthen resilience, or become acquisition-ready, I’m happy to compare notes.

What’s your biggest technology challenge heading into 2026?

#ITStrategy #DigitalTransformation #Cybersecurity #BusinessGrowth #2026Goals

New IT strategy question for 2026:
How fast can you change your mind—without breaking the business?

That confession will sound familiar to anyone who has watched organisations cycle through enthusiasm and quiet disappointment. Project NANDA’s prelimi

Open article: New IT strategy question for 2026:
How fast can you change your mind—without breaking the business? by Daniel J. Jacobs • 7 min read

70% of digital transformations fall short. It's not because the technology fails, but rather because the operating model remains unchanged. (McKinsey/BCG)

After years spent guiding transformations and saving millions across PE-backed businesses, one truth is impossible to ignore:

“Technology rarely breaks a transformation.
Behaviour, capability, and ownership do.”

Because if the organisation doesn’t change how it works, the tooling becomes nothing more than expensive wallpaper.

Here’s how this destroys EBITDA:

𝟏. 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐞

If leaders don’t change how they work, new systems become old habits wrapped in a new interface.

Commercial impact:
→ £300k–£700k in unrealised value for a mid-market portfolio company.

𝟐. 𝐋𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲

You can’t scale with a workforce that doesn’t believe in the new system—or lacks the skills to use it.

The hard truth:

- 60% of work can be automated
- 70% of teams fear the capability gap
- 80% of leaders mistake resistance for stubbornness (instead of upskilling)

Commercial impact:
→ 10–15% rise in operating costs (often £500k+ annually)

𝟑. 𝐙𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩

When nobody owns decisions, transformations collapse under their own weight:

- No clear accountabilities
- No single owner for platforms
- No clarity on “who delivers what, by when”

Commercial impact:
→ £5M–£10M wiped off the exit valuation due to poor execution discipline

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐛:

Spend your first 30 days on:
✓ Shifting behaviour
✓ Upskilling teams and rebuilding capability
✓ Establishing clear ownership and decision rights

When behaviour, capability, and ownership move in tandem, PE-backed companies typically see a 1–4% annual improvement in EBITDA.

Because successful transformations were never about technology —
They’re about disciplined execution.

Repost ♻️ if you’re tired of seeing transformations fail for the same avoidable reasons.

P.S. CIOs, which mistake (1–3) do you see most often in the field?

Early in my career, I measured myself by how much I was needed.

Every escalation that landed on my desk felt like proof I was valuable.
Every decision that required my sign-off confirmed I was essential.

Then I took two weeks off. And the wheels came off.

Not because my team wasn’t capable.
Because I’d built a system that required me to function. I’d confused being needed with being effective.

That was a hard lesson. And it shows up fast in boardrooms and due diligence.

When investors assess a business, they’re not only looking at EBITDA.
They’re quietly asking: what happens if this person leaves?

If the honest answer is “things slow down” or “decisions stall”, that risk gets priced in, even if performance looks fine today.

The harsh reality for technology leaders is that being indispensable isn’t a sign of strength; it's a sign of vulnerability masked as importance.

The shift that changed how I lead:

𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠, “How do we perform when I’m here?”
𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠, “How do we perform when I’m not?”

Design decision rights so choices don’t bottleneck.
Build operating rhythms that run without you in the room.
Create clarity so your team doesn’t need to check with you; they already know.

That’s operational maturity: not a leader holding things together, but a system that doesn’t need holding.

What’s one thing you’ve deliberately built to work without you?

PE firms don’t buy technology.
They buy better EBITDA.

This is the non-negotiable truth of Private Equity.

Most CIOs still believe PE wants:
• New platforms
• AI implementation
• Modern tech stacks
• Big transformation programmes

This is “technology theatre”.

After delivering £1.5M in savings across multiple PE-backed businesses in 10+ countries, one pattern is consistent: 𝐏𝐄 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬.

Here's the brutal truth. PE partners aren't interested in shiny tech. They need commercial clarity.

They priorities:

𝟏. 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧:
Reducing operational cost through vendor optimisation, licence rationalisation, and system consolidation.

𝟐: 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:
Eliminating technical and vendor debt (including the £500k penalties and £3M true-ups we routinely uncover) that can erode exit value.

𝟑. 𝐀 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐱𝐢𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲:
Building a simple, scalable platform that guarantees growth. Allows the next buyer to pay a higher multiple (as seen in the 10x outcome achieved for one of our clients).

This requires the CIO to become the Chief Value Officer.

Every transformational decision (from renewing a Salesforce contract to integrating a new acquisition) must be tied around its direct commercial outcome— otherwise it's noise.

P.S. What is the single biggest "tech for optics" investment you’ve seen that failed to deliver a measurable EBITDA-level return? Comment ↓

AI in growth planning has moved from experiment to operating system. Five evidence-backed patterns, and what actually changes in your next planning cycle

The shift isn't about faster spreadsheets. It's about fundamentally rethinking how organisations sense, decide, and adapt. Something quiet but profoun

Open article: 5 Ways AI Is Reshaping Growth Planning in 2026 by Daniel J. Jacobs • 5 min read

5 Ways AI Is Reshaping Growth Planning in 2026

Your M&A integration strategy should do one thing above all: protect EBITDA.

Most integrations fail because leaders start with systems rather than commercial reality.

They obsess over:
- Buying new tools
- Implementing platforms
- Rebuilding CRMs
- Chasing “transformation theatre.”
- Forcing teams to adapt before they’re ready

And the consequences are predictable.
Here’s how EBITDA leaks when leaders ignore commercial reality:

𝟏. 𝐒𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬:
Misaligned teams delay integration by 30–60 days, resulting in £500k+ in EBITDA leakage.

𝟐. 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬:
Each delay increases deal costs by 10–15%, often adding £500k–£1M in extra operating spend.

𝟑. 𝐒𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐬:
A 60–90-day delay can reduce valuation by 0.5x–1.2x EBITA multiples, wiping £5M–£12M from the exit story of a mid-market portfolio company.

And once EBITDA leaks, you almost never get it back.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐬:
Protecting EBITDA is unrelated to technology.

It begins with stabilising people, contracts, and processes in the first 90 days (long before systems are touched).

Because if teams aren’t aligned, contracts aren’t secured, and processes aren’t controlled, the exit clock is already ticking. Every month of delay permanently erodes value.

This is why the best CIOs ruthlessly remove duplication, noise, and complexity.
They lead with clarity, disciplined sequencing, and clean commercial execution.

The result?

𝐂𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 £𝟐𝟓𝟎𝐤–£𝟓𝟎𝟎𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝟗𝟎 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 (as we’ve seen repeatedly across multiple PE-backed businesses).

Commercial stability comes first.
Systems come last.

Repost ♻️ if you’re tired of watching the same integration failures repeated across the industry.

P.S. What’s the most expensive integration mistake you’ve seen CIOs make? Comment below ↓

Alt text for the Image: M&A Integration Strategy Fix

Most execs don’t realise it… 
Every time employees use public AI tools for sensitive work, they could be training their competitors’ systems.

After Samsung’s $100M wake-up call, and seeing similar risks across industries. I built a framework to help leaders turn AI governance into a competitive edge.

Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eDRYMFFt

💊 Data Doctor 📅 AI & Automation Expert 🙋‍♂️The Worlds 1st Chief Generative AI Officer 🗣️ Key Note Speaker 🏆 9x Global Award Winner 🏆 7x LinkedIn Top Voice 📕 Author 🍿 44k+ LinkedIn Connections

I am a highly accomplished CEO, board advisor and thought leader with decades of experience as a practitioner, educator and consultant for global brands on leadership, AI, intelligent automation, data analytics, strategy and digital technology.

I am the winner of multiple awards and accolades. I have been recognised as a World's Top 200 Business and Technology Innovators and a Top 14 people to follow in data. I  was also named as a Top 25 Thought Leader Generative AI 2025,  a Top 50 Global Thought Leader and Influencer on Agentic AI 2025.

My numerous awards and recognitions attest to my outstanding contributions to the fields of AI, digital technology, data analytics, leadership and innovation. I am widely respected as a thought leader, consultant, speaker and innovator. 

I have authored four influential books and hundreds of articles that have shaped industry perspectives on digital transformation, data analytics, intelligent automation, leadership and artificial intelligence.

My company, Kieran Gilmurray and Company, helps businesses get huge value from AI, data, automation, their leadership teams and digital technologies. My team is fluent in both technology and business outcomes – a rare combination in a noisy market.  

Over the past 30 plus years, my team and I have:

  •	Scaled enterprise AI, automation, and analytics for FTSE 100 and S&P 500 organisations
  •	Delivered multi-million-pound gains in operational efficiency 
  •	Trained over 3000 business leaders in leadership, data analytics, digital tech, AI strategy and delivery
  •	Scaled and restructured businesses 
  •	Coached boards, c-suites and executives teams to win
  •	Delivered research, advisory and message amplification to get you the MQLs and SQLs you need

Our approach is practical, and relentlessly results-focused - we deliver what we promise.

What others say:

• Kieran’s market and technical expertise are outstanding. Deep insight, absolute clarity, backed by real world experience you can trust.
• A true authority who delivers confidence and results. 
• Outstanding to work with. A once in a lifetime opportunity to learn from someone truly extraordinary.
• Exceptional. Brilliant. A rare chance to meet and work with someone at this level.

If your business wants a partner with real-world strategy to implementation experience then let’s talk.
📅 Book a call: https://calendly.com/kierangilmurray/introductory-call-linkedin

🕵️‍♂️ Find Kieran's books on Amazon - https://tinyurl.com/MyBooksOnAmazonUK 
🌍 Company Website: https://KieranGilmurray.com
📩 Email - kieran@gilmurray.co.uk

Kieran Gilmurray

Are you generating value from AI? 

According to BCG’s latest research, just 5 percent of organisations globally qualify as “future built” and are generating significant revenue and cost impact from their AI investments. 

The 5 percent have figured out how to extract real, scaled value from AI, and that value is going to continue to grow, as is the way of technological gains.

What sets the leaders apart?  

It is not AI or digital tools alone. 

High performers embed AI deeply into their operating models, build robust data and technology foundations, recruit and upskill the right talent, and treat AI as a strategic business priority rather than a set of isolated experiments. 

The gap in value creation is widening and it matters for competitiveness. 

Leaders capturing outsized returns are reinvesting them to accelerate further. They plan to spend 26% more on IT and dedicate up to 64% more of their IT budget to AI in 2025. 

As a result, they expect to see twice the revenue increase and 40% greater cost reductions in 2028 than laggards do in the areas where they apply AI.

For executives thinking about AI strategy today, the message is clear: successful AI adoption requires disciplined strategy, governance, and change management alongside technical deployment. 

The positive news for those that hadn't moved yet is that there is proof at scale at other organizations of where value delivery can really happen.

The playbook that future-built firms follow is clearly delineated and available to all. 

It’s a roadmap that the other 95% can use to build AI maturity and achieve value at scale.  

It allows you as an organization to be a fast follower and to focus on those areas where there's real value

There’s this misconception that AI is this magic wand and integrating it will be easy and that you just have to plug this tool and voila, it all works. 

That is not, and never will be, the case with AI or any other technology.

The opportunity is real but your playbook must be deliberate and bold.  AI only works if you do the real transformative work that goes with it.

So, what steps is your organisation taking to bridge the AI value gap?

------------------------------------------

If you don't know how to answer that question, then message. My team will setup a meeting were we can discuss how we can help your organisation get ROI from AI.

#ROIfromAI #TheCookbook #DoWhatTheWinnersDo #AI

Board and Executive Advisor on AI, technology, leadership and growth | CEO & Founder | Fractional CTO & CAIO | 4x Author | International Keynote Speaker

The next 20 years will bring more change than the last 200. That sentence sounds as dramatic as it is deeply uncomfortable.

For most of human history, change arrived slowly.

Education and skills lasted a lifetime. A degree meant a 30 year career in a profession.  

Institutions evolved over generations.

Experience aged well as years of knowledge compounded. Anything we learned was additive and the more we learned, the more we rose through the ranks and the more we got paid. 

That assumption is now breaking.

The pace of change we are entering is not linear. Technological capability now grows faster than our ability to adapt our thinking, our organisations, and ourselves.

This is where many people reach for comfort.

- Automation.
- Templates.
- Shortcuts.
- Answers on demand.

AI makes all that easy. It removes friction and it compresses effort. It gives us false confidence before we have earned deep understanding - cognitive offloading. 

Used well, AI is extraordinary but used poorly, it will quietly hollow us out. 

Speed without depth feels productive, until it is not. If AI does the hard thinking for us, we move faster but risk understanding less. 

However, if we use AI to test assumptions, stress our logic, and expose weaknesses in our reasoning, we can grow without losing substance or intellect. 

The same technology but very different outcomes.

The risk of the next 20 years is not that machines become more capable but it is that we humans risk becoming less so. 

The organisations that struggle will not be those without access to AI.  

They will be the ones whose people stop thinking clearly because answers became too easy to get.

Before AI delivers real value, leaders must decide:

- when to use it and when to resist it

- what to trust and what to challenge

- where human judgement still matters

- how learning actually happens

This is not a technology problem, it is a human behavioural one. AI dose not have agency, we do. 

The future will not reward those who generate answers the fastest. 

It will reward the curious and it will reward those who still think and question deeply when answers are everywhere. 

The next 20 years will be demanding. 

They will likely be georgeously uncomfortable but they will reward those who practice learning and depth over convenience and fast answers.

That discomfort is not a flaw or thing to fear. It is the work we need to do and have always done.  

People have always had a choice between comfort and growth. 

Both are painful, but only one is less painful in the long term.

Choose wisely.

--------------------------- 

If you or your business are struggling to make sense of AI driven change and found 2025 hard, then you will very likely find 2026 even harder.

My team and I can are here to help you get ROI from AI.

DM today and let’s chat.

---------------------------

🔔 Follow me for the last AI updates!

#KieranGilmurray #AILeadership

I’ve released a preview of Chapter 2 of my exciting new business book 'How to Build an Agent - The leaders Playbook for coding and deploying AI that delivers real business results'.

This is the fourth book in my Masterclass Series on AI and business leadership.

It is written for executives and senior leaders who know AI agents matter, but do not want to wade through technical detail to make robust business decisions.

The book focuses on making AI agents easy to understand at a strategic level, long before you ever worry about tools, models, or code.

This Chapter 2 preview introduces an executive framework for agent strategy, what agents can actually do, and the strategic risks of delaying adoption.

Coming soon globally on Amazon and Audible.  

-----------------------------------

♻️ Repost to help someone in your network.
🔔 Follow me for the last AI, analytics and leadership updates!

#AgenticAI #AILeadership #NewBook

The most successful technology transformations in business history have been led by executives who focused on core business principles. Steve Jobs did

Open article: Chapter 2: The Executive's Framework for Agent Strategy by Kieran Gilmurray • 3 min read

Chapter 2: The Executive's Framework for Agent Strategy

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