Fractional CCO / CMO for Series B–C tech
I build the PR, marketing, and growth engine.
Then I hand you the keys.
Senior PR and marketing leadership without the full-time hire. The strategic counsel that sits behind layers of account managers at larger firms. Campaigns that close deals. Teams that stay sharp after I leave.
Fifteen minutes. No deck. No pitch.
Previous experience includes
What you get
Direct access to senior counsel. Not a team of juniors learning on your account.
Strategic marketing leadership
Your positioning sharpens. Your go-to-market strategy fits your stage — not a playbook borrowed from someone else's company. Developed with the experience of scaling companies from pre-revenue to £35M ARR, and the understanding that your situation is specific.
Hands-on execution
Campaigns that run. Deals that close. At IndiVillage, that meant marquee accounts won while the team was being built to sustain it.
Team building and knowledge transfer
Your team gets stronger, not dependent. The people who replace me get hired, trained, and handed scalable frameworks that outlast any engagement.
Board and investor communications
Your fundraising narrative lands. £100M+ in raises supported — the story that gets you from Series B to C, or to exit.
Selected results
Outcomes from recent engagements. Names you can verify.
IndiVillage
IndiVillage repositioned from BPO to AI-as-a-Service, built a scalable sales engine, and won enterprise accounts while building the team to sustain it.
XTCC
XTCC launched a carbon credit system in 90 days, won "Best Innovation" at COP28, and convened sovereign wealth funds allocating ~$1tn.
Dell & Atos
Two 30-year rivals unified into an award-winning partnership. Atos became Dell's number one global partner.
Shell
A 36-country engagement programme linked transition strategy to stakeholder priorities.
Common questions
Agencies give you a team — often juniors — executing a playbook. This is direct access to senior strategic counsel, embedded in your leadership team rather than delivering reports as a vendor. The goal is building your capability, not creating dependency.
Typically 2–4 days per week, depending on your needs. Enough to drive real strategic change without the cost of a full-time CCO or CMO. Most engagements run 6–12 months — long enough to build something lasting, short enough to stay focused.
Series B–C is precisely when senior PR and marketing leadership becomes critical. You have proven product-market fit; now you need to scale systematically. The alternative is hiring someone too junior and losing 12 months learning what does not work.
Primarily technology — AI, SaaS, fintech, cybersecurity. Also professional services and companies going through transformation. The common thread is growth-stage businesses that need senior counsel, not another agency relationship.
A note from Mark
Most technical founders believe that if you build something good enough, the market will find you. Sometimes it does. More often, brilliant products stall — not because they lack capability, but because nobody outside the company can articulate why they matter.
I have spent the last two years inside an AI-as-a-Service business, working across the full go-to-market: positioning, sales, marketing, partnerships, growth, and the tech stack that connects them. Before that, twenty years helping companies from pre-revenue to multi-billion-dollar companies figure out the same thing — how to turn what they have built into a story that buyers, investors, and partners remember and act on.
That is what Fifty Six Partners does. The strategic layer that connects your product to your market — and the growth engine that sustains it. I work with founders who have done the hard part and need someone who understands both the technology and the commercial reality.
I do not believe in long sales processes or elaborate proposals. If there is a fit, we will both know it quickly. And if there is not, I will tell you that too — along with what I think you should do instead.
— Mark Pinnes, Founder
Let's talk about what you're building
If you are a Series B–C company that has outgrown your current approach, let's have a conversation. No pressure — just an honest assessment of whether we are a good fit.
Book a diagnostic callFifteen minutes. No deck. No pitch.