Fractional Leadership That Builds, Not Just Advises

Icon Partner embeds experienced operating leadership inside your business. A fractional CPO or COO who rolls up their sleeves, drives execution, and builds the systems your company needs to scale.

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Why Icon Partner Exists

Most lower middle market businesses hit a ceiling they cannot break through with the team they have. You need experienced operating leadership, but a full-time C-suite hire is premature or too expensive. Icon Partner solves that gap by placing a fractional Chief Operating Officer or Chief Product Officer inside your business on a part-time basis, giving you enterprise-grade leadership at a fraction of the cost.

What a Fractional Leader Does Inside Your Business

Operational Systems

Build the processes, KPIs, and management rhythms that turn chaos into a scalable operating model. Weekly dashboards, accountability structures, and team alignment that actually stick.

Strategic Execution

Translate your vision into a quarterly roadmap with clear milestones, owners, and deadlines. Your fractional leader runs the plan so you can focus on what only you can do: relationships, deals, and growth.

Team Development

Assess your team’s strengths and gaps, coach managers into leaders, and create hiring plans that match your growth trajectory. Better people systems mean less turnover and faster scaling.

Product and Service Strategy

Refine your product lineup, pricing architecture, and go-to-market approach. Whether you are launching something new or optimizing what exists, a fractional CPO brings the product discipline most small businesses lack.

Pre-Exit Optimization

If a sale is on the horizon, your fractional leader builds the documentation, SOPs, and operational independence that buyers pay a premium for. The work that makes your business sellable is the same work that makes it scalable.

Technology and AI Integration

Evaluate your tech stack, identify automation opportunities, and implement AI tools that give your lean team the output of a company three times your size. Practical technology adoption, not science projects.

Who Icon Partner Is For

Icon Partner is designed for business owners generating $2M to $50M in revenue who need experienced operating leadership but are not ready for a full-time COO or CPO hire. You might be a great salesperson or technician who built something real, but the operational complexity has outpaced your bandwidth. Or you might be preparing for a transaction and need someone to build the infrastructure that maximizes your valuation.

How Engagements Work

1

Discovery

We start with a deep-dive assessment of your business operations, team structure, technology, and growth objectives. This typically takes one to two weeks and results in a clear operating roadmap.

2

Embed

Your fractional leader integrates with your team on a recurring weekly cadence. They attend leadership meetings, own key initiatives, and drive accountability across the organization.

3

Build

Over the engagement, we build systems that outlast our involvement: documented processes, trained managers, performance dashboards, and a team capable of running without you in the room.

Meet Your Fractional Leader

Rachel Askew, Operating Partner

FRACTIONAL CPO & COO | HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST | 25+ YEARS OPERATOR EXPERIENCE

Rachel brings 25 years of healthcare industry experience and a track record of delivering measurable enterprise value across PE-backed and high-growth organizations. Her engagements have produced $32M in margin improvement at a 67% IRR, $75M in new capital secured through a strategy-driven product pivot, $15M in year-one savings from function centralization, and a 40% revenue cycle improvement spanning six hospitals.

She specializes in fractional CPO and COO engagements for healthcare and health IT companies, PE-backed provider organizations, and growth-stage businesses navigating product-market inflection points. Rachel brings Fortune 1000 consulting discipline to companies that need senior execution leadership without the full-time overhead.

Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn · rachel@iconbusinessadvisors.com

HEALTHCARE SPECIALTY

Healthcare Demands a Different Kind of Operator

Regulatory constraints, clinical workflow complexity, payer and provider dynamics, and the weight of patient outcomes require a product leader who has operated inside the industry, not just adjacent to it.

Digital Health & Health IT
Commercializing AI-enabled platforms. Translating clinical value into market-ready product positioning and scalable go-to-market strategy.

PE-Backed Provider Organizations
Technology implementation across newly integrated systems. Driving adoption and measurable outcomes across the portfolio.

Change Management
Organizational transformation at scale, from EHR rollouts to technology-enabled care models requiring clinical and administrative alignment.

Read Rachel’s guide: When to Consider a Fractional CPO

Related Services

Icon Exit: Full-service M&A advisory for owners ready to sell
Exit Planning: Long-range planning to maximize business value before a transaction
Icon Command Center: Seven-day strategic sprint for business clarity and direction

“

Rachel came into our business during a period where we were growing fast and breaking everything. Within 60 days she had documented our core processes, built a dashboard our leadership team actually uses, and restructured our hiring pipeline so we stopped losing good candidates to slow decision-making. She operates like a true member of the team, not an outside consultant checking boxes. My only regret is not bringing her in a year earlier.

Amanda W.

Founder, Healthcare Staffing Company

Your Business Deserves a Real Operator, Not Another Consultant

Schedule a confidential conversation to discuss whether fractional leadership is the right fit for where you are and where you want to go.