If you are looking for a Fractional CIO in the North-East of England, this is not a remote-only arrangement with an overnight journey attached. Richard J. Keenlyside is based in the Tees Valley and has worked with North-East businesses across manufacturing, financial services back-office, energy and the wider industrial supply chain for the better part of three decades. Same-day on-site visits to Middlesbrough, Stockton, Sunderland, Durham and Newcastle are a practical reality, not a logistical compromise. The North-East's economic base - high-value manufacturing, process industries, financial services back-office functions, energy transition and a growing digital cluster - generates a consistent need for senior technology leadership at board level. Most organisations in the region cannot justify or recruit a permanent CIO, but they do need one: someone who can own the IT agenda, represent it to the board, govern the supplier base and ensure the technology estate is not quietly accumulating risk. That is exactly what a fractional engagement delivers.
Local home base means on-site availability across the region can be arranged at short notice - including half-day visits, board attendance and informal site walk-throughs.
Travel and on-site: Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Durham all reachable as same-day on-site visits with no overnight travel.
Long-standing presence in the North-East across food manufacturing (M.I. Dicksons), industrial supply chain (LoneStar Group / Tees Valley) and the wider regional executive community.
Scale-ups, PE-backed businesses and mid-market enterprises that need senior IT representation in the boardroom but aren't ready (or don't need) a permanent CIO.
Because availability, context and cost all change. A North-East-based fractional CIO can attend a board meeting in Middlesbrough or Sunderland without burning a day of travel, can walk a site in Stockton or Chester-le-Street on short notice, and does not carry the overhead of a London practice. More importantly, the North-East's industrial and commercial base has its own character - manufacturing supply chain pressures, offshore energy transition, financial services back-office regulatory demands, and a public-sector procurement environment that operates differently from the capital. Genuine local experience is not the same as parachuting in from a distance.
The whole of the North-East is practical for on-site days: Teesside (Middlesbrough, Stockton, Redcar and Thornaby), Wearside (Sunderland, Washington), County Durham (Durham City, Newton Aycliffe, Consett) and Tyneside (Newcastle, Gateshead, North Tyneside). In terms of sectors, the most frequent North-East CIO mandates sit in process and advanced manufacturing, financial services back-office and regulated financial technology, energy (offshore, renewables and the Teesside industrial cluster), public sector and local government technology, and the growing regional software and digital businesses.
Typically one or two on-site days per fortnight - at your office, on your site, or at a board meeting - combined with a weekly remote cadence and direct dial access for the CEO, CFO and the leadership team. The first thirty days are a structured assessment of the IT estate, the team, the spend and the open risks. By day sixty there is a board-ready technology strategy. From day ninety the work is execution: vendor governance, programme oversight and quarterly board reporting. For North-East clients the on-site component is almost always easier to arrange than they expect - same-day availability means ad hoc requests are absorbed without disruption to the engagement rhythm.
The fractional model is designed for organisations that need board-level IT leadership but cannot yet justify or cannot yet recruit a full-time CIO. In the North-East that typically means businesses from around £15m to £300m turnover - manufacturing and process companies, financial services back-office operations, logistics businesses, regional PE-backed groups and ambitious SMEs running on technology that needs a senior owner at executive level. The engagement is scoped and priced to match the size and complexity of the business, not a London rate card.
Yes, and in North-East SMEs the combination is common. Many regional businesses in manufacturing and financial services carry cyber and regulatory risk that needs a named senior owner, but cannot fund three separate fractional executives. A combined Fractional CIO and CISO mandate is a practical solution - one executive, one accountability structure, one board reporting line. Where a major transformation programme is running alongside the CIO brief, the Programme Director component is built into the engagement scope rather than treated as a separate hire.
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