Case study · A national advice and private wealth group
Fractional technology leadership, and a strategy the board could endorse
A group that grew by acquisition, running on evidence it could not trust.
Took the fractional chief technology and transformation officer seat at an advice and private wealth group, wrote two group strategies, and put 254 evidenced decisions on one live register behind the board recommendations.
- 254 decisionsevidenced technology decisions, on one live register
- 2 strategieswritten by nexwave, reviewed by the group's executives
- 6 directionsstrategic technology directions, endorsed by the board
- 70+ spreadsheetsthe finance team's reporting basis before the work started
- 4 engagementsnow scoped to build and deploy the data and AI platform
About the client
The client runs advice, private wealth and investment solutions businesses, built up through years of acquisition, with tens of billions of dollars under advice.
Its technology is a mix of shared group platforms and business specific systems, run day to day by an external provider. The group had no standing technology leadership of its own.
The challenge
The group grew by acquisition and ran on evidence it could not trust. It holds hundreds of thousands of client records with no common client ID and tens of thousands of duplicates, so group finance could not produce an accurate client count. More than 70 spreadsheets were the basis of the finance team's reporting. One booking takes 15 clicks across 4 systems.
Underneath was the harder problem. Client personal information sits in places nobody has mapped, so the exposure cannot be assessed. The operating model could not say who owned a capability or who held a decision. Funding asks arrived disconnected, with no way to trace a dollar to a decision.
Three clocks were already running: privacy reform, an acquisition to be transitioned onto group systems, and a closing licensing window on the group's advice platform.
What we delivered
The group asked for one sequenced, governed plan in place of scattered funding requests. We took the fractional chief technology and transformation officer seat and built it. Two strategies now sit with the executives ahead of a board decision, and every claim in the pack resolves to a live register. Succession was in scope from day one.
Set the direction
- A group IT strategy and a data platform strategy, written by nexwave and reviewed by the group's executive leadership.
- The ratified principle is Microsoft first: one ecosystem, where identity, data, security and AI complement each other.
- Capabilities defined against a target architecture, with Microsoft Fabric as the governing data layer and Microsoft Entra and Microsoft Purview as the control plane on the tenant.
Put decisions on the record
- One live register of 254 evidenced decisions, behind every page of the board recommendations.
- The structural platform and vendor calls sorted into endorse, continue and gated, each gate naming its evidence, its decision point and its fallback.
The data and AI platform
- Years of acquisition had left the group with no single source of truth for customer insight.
- With board endorsement, the new data and AI platform gives each business insight across the group rather than across its own systems only, and opens the AI use cases that depend on knowing who a customer already is.
Outcomes
Decisions out of people's heads
- 254 evidenced technology decisions on one live register, with every board recommendation resolving to it.
A plan instead of funding asks
- One sequenced, governed plan in place of disconnected funding requests, so a dollar traces back to a decision.
Endorsed
- Six strategic technology directions, created with the executives and endorsed by the board.
One ecosystem, ratified
- Microsoft first as a decided principle rather than a preference, with identity, data, security and AI under one control plane.
Succession, not dependency
- Succession was in scope from day one, so the seat can be handed to a permanent owner rather than defended.
Change management and enablement
A fractional seat only works if it leaves something behind. The register is that artefact: it is live, every claim in the board pack resolves to it, and it belongs to the group rather than to us.
What is next
The fractional engagement is running to its next review, taking both strategies through board endorsement and governing the delivery streams underneath them. A multi year data platform programme sits with the group for decision, and four further engagements are scoped to build and deploy the platform behind its single customer view.
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