The Future is Fractional Podcast

Matthew Belbeck
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The Future is Fractional Podcast explores the unbundling of the C-Suite and the rise of on-demand executive leadership. In a world where speed, precision, and adaptability matter more than permanence, the traditional model of one full-time executive per role is breaking down. This show is about what replaces it. Each episode dives into how fractional CEOs, CFOs, CROs, CMOs, COOs, and GCs are helping companies scale faster, operate smarter, and avoid the costly mistakes that come from hiring too much leadership too early—or too little experience too late. We talk to founders, operators, and fractional executives who are proving that leadership is no longer a payroll decision. It’s a strategic decision. This isn’t a podcast about cutting costs. It’s about upgrading intelligence, accessing world-class judgment exactly when you need it, and building executive teams that are modular, flexible, and outcome-driven. If you're interested in learning more about how companies and executives are embracing fractional leadership, this podcast is for you. Join us every other Friday for new episodes.

  1. 3d ago

    Episode 17 - Embedded Leaders: How Belmark Plus Leads From the Inside (Seira Shalton and Han Koren)

    Most growing companies hit the same wall. They need the kind of leadership that a much larger enterprise takes for granted: someone who has seen the problem before, has led through change, and can make hard calls. But their payroll can’t yet support a full-time executive at that level. So they wait, they stretch the team they have, or they hire for the role they can afford instead of the one they need. That gap is one of the biggest reasons interim and fractional leadership is growing, and it’s where today’s guests have built their work. BelMark Plus is a firm that brings tenured executive leaders into small and mid-market businesses, with no junior layers between the client and the experience they’re paying for. In this episode, we're joined by two of the people behind it. Seira Shalton is the Founding Executive Partner, with a background that spans financial services, biotech, tech, pharma, and insurance, and she’s the creator of the Shalton 3C Coaching Model: clarity, courage, and confidence. Han Koren is an Executive Partner who has led through M&A integration and organizational change, and who has spoken about culture being the hardest part of any transformation. We talk about why this gap exists, how interim and fractional leadership differ from a traditional hire, and what it takes to build a firm around this model. For more information on Belmark Plus you can visit their website at: https://belmarkplus.com/ To connect with Seira and Han, you can find them on LinkedIn (profiles below): https://www.linkedin.com/in/sshalton/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/hankoren/

  2. Oct 20

    Episode 16 - Beyond the Ladder: How Gen Z is Rewriting the Career Playbook (Claire Liu)

    Every generation walks into the workforce with a different idea of what a career is supposed to look like. For many of our parents and grandparents, it meant one employer, a steady climb up the ladder, and a pension at the end. Gen X pushed for more independence and balance. Millennials entered a workforce shaken by the financial crisis and started asking harder questions about purpose and flexibility. Now Gen Z is arriving with expectations shaped by remote work, a pandemic, and an economy where job security can feel more like a promise than a guarantee. The result is a real shift in how people think about work. Careers look less like a ladder and more like a portfolio. People want variety, autonomy, and the chance to build skills quickly, and they’re comfortable with arrangements that would have seemed unconventional not long ago. That shift is one reason fractional work is growing so fast, and it raises questions for employers too. How do you attract and keep talent that thinks this way? What do younger professionals actually want from the people they work with? To explore that, I’m joined by Claire Liu. Claire brings a Gen Z perspective and gained early, hands-on experience while still in school, in work that looked a lot like fractional (at CEO Law). We’ll talk about how her generation approaches work and careers, and where fractional ends and freelance begins.

  3. Sep 29

    Episode 15 - Building a Better Fractional Operating System (Mike Fedorov)

    Mike Fedorov is Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO at Applied AI Labs. In this episode of the Future is Fractional Podcast, he'll explain how the real constraint on senior expertise usually isn't the expertise itself, but rather coordination. Mike believes in what he calls a Fractional Operating System — an approach that keeps senior human judgment at the center, while AI handles the coordination and specialist work around it. We'll dig into why the traditional model breaks down, what this looks like in practice across different functional areas, and what it means for the economics of expertise when one expert can support far more capacity without rebuilding a traditional team around themselves. If you are interested in connecting with Mike, you can find him on LinkedIn at the link below: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikefedorov/ If you would like to learn more about Mike's business, Applied AI Labs, you can find a link to their website here: https://aalc.ai/

  4. Sep 15

    Episode 14 - Fractional Sales Leadership From a Legal Lens (David Bienstock)

    Today's guest brings a background you don't often see paired together — law and sales leadership. David Bienstock trained as a lawyer before building a career in sales and revenue leadership, including over a decade (from 2005 to 2015) in sales leadership roles at Thomson Reuters. Since then, David's continued that work as a sales leader, executive coach, and consultant, bringing a legal lens to deals, negotiation, and risk that most sales leaders never develop. In this episode we talk about how David's legal training shaped his approach to sales leadership, what that decade at Thomson Reuters taught him, and how he thinks about fractional and interim sales leadership today. You can connect with David on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbienstock/ You can learn more about David's company, Benchmark, here: https://www.benchmark.guru/

  5. Aug 26

    Episode 13 - From Marketplace to Community: Rebuilding Mavuus Around What CMOs Actually Wanted

    Dilya Abushayeva is founder and CEO of Mavuus, a company she started with her sister after more than fifteen years working in marketing. Today, Mavuus centers on two things: a community built specifically for CMOs, and a consulting practice helping tech companies sharpen their marketing strategy. Dilya has great perspective on where fractional work fits alongside consulting, why marketing leaders need a dedicated peer community, and what most companies still get wrong about how they think about marketing budgets and headcount. In this episode we get into how Mavuus evolved into what it is today, and where Dilya sees the future of marketing leadership headed. Learn more about Mavuus at https://www.mavuus.com/ Connect with Dilya on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dilyaabushayeva/

  6. Aug 5

    Episode 12 - Solving the Health Insurance Gap for Independent Contractors (Brian Znamirowski)

    Today's guest brings a perspective we haven't covered yet on this show — fractional HR leadership, paired with a founder story that started with a personal frustration most of us know all too well. Brian Znamirowski is a Fractional CHRO who's spent his career helping companies build stronger people functions without a full-time hire. But Brian is also the Founder of Fractional Healthcare, a company born out of his own experience with broken health coverage. As a fractional executive he's had first hand experience with expensive marketplace plans, limited options, and spouse coverage that just didn't make sense. He switched his own family's coverage and ended up saving about six thousand dollars a year, and now he's helping other independent professionals do the same. We'll talk about fractional HR leadership, what's really broken about healthcare for independent workers, and where he sees this all headed. You can find Brian and Fractional Healthcare on LinkedIn at the links below: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianznamirowski/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/fractional-healthcare/ A link to the study referenced in this episode can be found below: https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/new-study-business-owners-slimmer-more-active-healthier-than-employees.html

  7. Jul 22

    Episode 11 - From Agency to Apollo: Technology Leadership in a Fractional Model (Rich Rudzinski)

    Rich Rudzinski spent over a decade building Tragic Media into a full-fledged software consulting firm — and then made the call to shut it down and start something new: Apollo Fractional, where he now brings product and technology leadership to companies who need serious expertise without a full-time hire.  Rich has great perspective on what actually separates fractional work from agency work — and where freelance fits into that picture, if it fits at all. We'll get into how he decides what an engagement really needs, what changed in his approach after years of running an agency, and where he thinks fractional product and tech leadership is headed next.  Apollo Fractional: https://apollofractional.com/ Rich Rudzinski on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richrudz/

  8. Jun 10

    Episode 10 - Revenue Leadership Without the Full Time Price Tag (Robin Ayoub)

    Robin Ayoub is someone who has spent over three decades at the intersection of technology, business development, and executive leadership. He has led global sales organizations, served as VP Sales and General Manager at Lionbridge, is past President of the Canadian Language Industry Association, and is now the Founder and CEO of N49Networks — where he works as a Fractional CRO, helping entrepreneurs and growing businesses turn strategic potential into measurable results.  Robin is also the host of the Localization Fireside Chat, a podcast with over 200 episodes featuring some of the sharpest minds in business, AI, and global growth.  In this episode, we're getting into what fractional revenue leadership really looks like from the inside — what it takes, who it's right for, and why this model is becoming one of the most powerful tools available to founders and CEOs.

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The Future is Fractional Podcast explores the unbundling of the C-Suite and the rise of on-demand executive leadership. In a world where speed, precision, and adaptability matter more than permanence, the traditional model of one full-time executive per role is breaking down. This show is about what replaces it. Each episode dives into how fractional CEOs, CFOs, CROs, CMOs, COOs, and GCs are helping companies scale faster, operate smarter, and avoid the costly mistakes that come from hiring too much leadership too early—or too little experience too late. We talk to founders, operators, and fractional executives who are proving that leadership is no longer a payroll decision. It’s a strategic decision. This isn’t a podcast about cutting costs. It’s about upgrading intelligence, accessing world-class judgment exactly when you need it, and building executive teams that are modular, flexible, and outcome-driven. If you're interested in learning more about how companies and executives are embracing fractional leadership, this podcast is for you. Join us every other Friday for new episodes.

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