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The role, defined

What a fractional COO actually does, day to day

Strip away the job title and the role is simple: someone senior, in the business every week, owning how the company runs. This page walks through a working day — and the credentials behind the person doing it.

A working day

Decisions, reviews and targeted intervention

A fractional COO day is not eight hours of meetings. It is a deliberate structure: keep the rhythm honest in the morning, run the business of operations through the middle of the day, and build the system — and the people — in the afternoon.

Morning — the operating rhythm

  • Daily or weekly operations standup: exceptions only, decisions minuted, owners named
  • Scan of the operating metrics — output, yield, OTIF, backlog, cash-relevant signals
  • Unblocking: the one or two issues where senior weight actually moves the needle

Midday — the business of operations

  • Supply chain and manufacturing: contract manufacturer reviews, supplier escalations, make-buy calls
  • Quality and compliance: audit findings, concession decisions, regulatory milestones kept on plan
  • Sales and operations planning: demand against capacity, inventory against cash

Afternoon — building the system

  • Working sessions with functional leads — coaching, not doing their jobs
  • Process and systems work: ERP discipline, SOPs, the management cadence itself
  • Board and investor readiness: the operating evidence funders and due diligence ask for

The person doing it

Why the credentials matter to the role

A fractional COO has to be credible in two very different rooms — the engineering review and the board meeting — often on the same day. Dr Gareth Mills' qualifications were earned in both.

MSc

Master of Science (Electronic/Electrical Engineering)

A masters-level engineering qualification. It underpins the technical fluency the role demands — enough depth in electronic and electrical engineering to engage with design trade-offs and hold an engineering team to account.

CEng

Chartered Engineer

Registered with the Engineering Council. In practice this means the fractional COO role is performed by someone who has run engineering organisations, sat in design reviews, and can challenge a technical team on equal terms — not an administrator relaying messages between functions.

DBA

Doctorate in Business Administration

A doctoral-level, research-based business qualification. It shows up in the work as rigour: operating hypotheses tested against data, decisions documented, and management systems designed from evidence of what actually works in scaling technology and manufacturing businesses.

MBA · CQP MCQI

The wider toolkit

An MBA for the commercial frame, and Chartered Quality Professional status (CQP MCQI) for the quality-management depth that regulatory approvals, audits and customer qualification demand. The role spans boardroom to shop floor because the qualifications do.

The full career history — operations leadership at Indra, Equivital, IONATE and Nujira, advisory work for Apple, BMW, Nike, ABB and others — is on the profile page, with case studies on the case studies page.

Common questions

The role, answered directly

What does a fractional COO actually do day to day?
A fractional COO spends working days on the decisions and rhythms that keep the business moving: chairing the operations review, unblocking supply chain and quality issues, sitting in engineering and product trade-offs, keeping the metrics honest, and coaching the functional leads who will eventually own the system. The day is a mix of scheduled reviews and targeted intervention where the operating plan is drifting.
Is a fractional COO just a senior consultant?
No. A consultant analyses and recommends, then leaves. A fractional COO is a named executive in your organisation chart — chairing your reviews, owning your operating plan, and accountable for outcomes week after week. The difference is ownership, not seniority.
What happens on the days the fractional COO is not on site?
The system keeps running because it is built to run without constant supervision — clear agendas, decision rights and metrics. Between working days the team has direct access for decisions that cannot wait, and exceptions surface at the next review rather than festering.
How does an engineer with a business doctorate approach the role?
As a Chartered Engineer (CEng), Dr Gareth Mills works comfortably inside the technical detail — design trade-offs, yield problems, DFM reviews — rather than managing it from a distance. The Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) brings the research-grade rigour: operating decisions grounded in evidence, measured, and written up so the organisation learns. Engineering credibility on the shop floor; scholarly discipline in the boardroom.

See how the role is structured week to week on the cadence page, or start with the fractional COO guide.