CxO™fractionalC-Suite Leadership
FRACTIONAL CTO · vCISO · VIRTUAL COMPLIANCE OFFICER · FRACTIONAL CHIEF AI OFFICER
CxO™ is DAG Tech's fractional C-suite: senior technology, security, compliance and AI executives who work with your leadership on a defined scope. Pick the deliverables you need, and each one is scoped, priced and scheduled in a single proposal.
Custom proposal
The Short Answer
What Is CxO™?
A fractional C-suite gives you senior technology leadership without full-time executive salaries. DAG Tech CxO™ provides a fractional CTO, a virtual CISO, a virtual compliance officer and a fractional chief AI officer, scoped to the work you need. Every engagement produces documents your executives and board can act on: assessments, roadmaps, policies and plans.
Recommendations are vendor-neutral. Your plan can be delivered by your own team, by other providers, or by DAG Tech services like A+ Animal™ and X-SOC™.
CxO™ at a glance
SPEC SHEET- PRODUCT TYPE
- Fractional C-suite / virtual executive services
- ALSO KNOWN AS
- Fractional CTO, vCIO, virtual CISO, outsourced CCO, fractional chief AI officer
- BEST FOR
- Mid-market and enterprise organizations that need senior technology leadership without a full-time hire
- PRICING MODEL
- Scoped hours per deliverable at the CxO rate, totaled in your proposal
- ENGAGEMENT
- One-time initiation; ongoing CxO on Clarity IT™ reserved hours
- FRAMEWORKS
- NIST CSF, HIPAA, SOC 2, CMMC, PCI DSS, NYDFS 500, SEC / FINRA
Where CxO™ Fits
The Leadership Behind Your IT
CxO starts with your business, not a product list. Your fractional executives assess where you stand, then recommend what you need and who should deliver it: DAG Tech, another provider, or your own team.
Initiation
Your fractional executives assess the four areas.
Recommendation
A vendor-neutral plan: what you need next, why, and in what order.
The right team delivers it
Need leadership to keep going? Ongoing CxO runs on Clarity IT™ reserved hours.
Recommendations are vendor-neutral. You're never asked to commit to a service before the assessment shows you need it.
Build Your CxO™
Four Practice Areas, 30 Deliverables
Each practice area is led by its own expert. Add the deliverables you need and they travel with your proposal request, where we scope the hours for each one. Open any deliverable for the full details.
Technology / Virtual CTO
A fractional CTO or vCIO who sets your technology direction, architecture and budget, and keeps them tied to business goals.
IT Strategy & Objectives Review
Documents your business goals, stakeholders, constraints and current technology: the baseline every other deliverable builds on.
- Leadership and stakeholder interviews
- Business goals mapped to technology
- Priorities, risks and constraints
Best for: The first step of any CxO engagement
IT Requirements Analysis
Defines what the business needs its systems to do before anyone picks a product or a vendor.
- Functional and user requirements
- Integration and data needs
- Prioritized requirements list
Best for: Before a new platform or vendor selection
IT Assessment
An independent, scored review of your infrastructure, cloud, devices, security and support model.
- Current-state inventory
- Findings ranked by risk
- Prioritized remediation roadmap
Best for: New leadership, acquisitions or a stalled IT program
IT Roadmap & Foundation Plan
A sequenced roadmap that fixes the platforms and standards everything else depends on.
- Identity, device and cloud baseline
- Configuration standards
- Quarter-by-quarter project plan
Best for: Organizations outgrowing ad-hoc IT
Digital Transformation Roadmap
A phased plan to modernize processes, platforms and ways of working, with budgets and KPIs.
- Future-state vision
- Phased initiatives with budgets
- KPIs to track progress
Best for: Growth, modernization and cloud moves
Enterprise IT Architecture
A blueprint of how your applications, data, identity and infrastructure should fit together.
- Current and target architecture diagrams
- Integration and data flows
- Architecture standards
Best for: Complex and multi-site environments
IT Department Structure & Org Design
Defines who owns what across internal IT, outside vendors and partners, and what to hire next.
- Roles and responsibilities (RACI)
- Staffing and sourcing model
- Escalation paths
Best for: Growing teams and blended IT
IT Cost Optimization & TCO Analysis
The true cost of every tool, license and service you run, and where to cut or reinvest.
- Spend inventory across tools and labor
- Cost per user and per service
- Ranked savings opportunities
Best for: Budget planning and renewals
IT Vendor Selection & Evaluation
A vendor-neutral comparison against weighted criteria that ends in a clear recommendation.
- Weighted evaluation criteria
- Side-by-side vendor scoring
- Recommendation and negotiation points
Best for: Major purchases and contract renewals
BCDR Planning & Tabletop Exercises
A business continuity and disaster recovery plan, a recovery runbook, and a live exercise to prove it works.
- BCDR policy with RTO and RPO targets
- Step-by-step recovery runbook
- Facilitated tabletop exercise
Best for: Insurance, audit and board requirements
Acceptable Use Policy Development
Clear, enforceable rules for how employees use devices, apps, data and AI tools.
- Acceptable use and device policy
- Data handling and AI tool rules
- Employee acknowledgment tracking
Best for: Every organization with employees
Employee Technology Training
A managed training program with guides and videos built for your systems and rollouts.
- Program administration
- Custom guides and videos
- Completion reporting
Best for: System rollouts and new-hire onboarding
Cybersecurity / Virtual CISO
A virtual CISO who owns your security program: risk, policy, priorities and the reporting your board and insurers expect.
Cybersecurity Requirements Analysis
Maps the security obligations set by regulators, contracts, insurers and customers.
- Obligation inventory
- Required controls
- Priority gaps
Best for: Before building a security program
Cybersecurity Risk Assessment
A scored review of your security posture across identity, endpoints, email, cloud and people.
- Control-by-control scoring
- Risk-ranked findings
- Remediation roadmap
Best for: Annual reviews, insurance renewals and new leadership
Cybersecurity Program Development
The baseline controls to put in place first, sequenced by how much risk each one removes.
- MFA, EDR, backup and email baseline
- Sequenced projects
- Owners and timelines
Best for: Organizations without a formal security program
Cybersecurity Strategy & Roadmap
A multi-year roadmap to a mature, measurable security program, aligned to NIST CSF.
- Target maturity by framework
- Phased initiatives and budget
- Board-level metrics
Best for: Mid-market and enterprise security programs
Access Control Policy & SSO Consolidation
Defines who gets access to what, then consolidates logins onto single sign-on and MFA.
- Application and identity inventory
- Role-based access policy
- SSO and MFA consolidation plan
Best for: Login sprawl, audits and offboarding gaps
Cybersecurity Policy Development
A complete security policy suite your team, auditors and insurers can rely on.
- Policy suite aligned to NIST CSF
- Incident response policy
- Annual review cycle
Best for: Audits, cyber insurance and customer contracts
Security Awareness Training
Ongoing training that keeps every employee alert to current threats, delivered through X-Phish™.
- Training curriculum
- Phishing simulations
- Results reporting
Best for: Every organization
Phishing Simulation & Assessment
Realistic phishing tests that measure how your people respond, then target the gaps.
- Simulated campaigns
- Click and report rates by team
- Targeted follow-up training
Best for: A baseline before training
IT Compliance / Virtual CCO
A virtual compliance officer for your IT: maps the frameworks you answer to, tests your technical controls, gathers audit evidence and keeps you audit-ready as requirements change.
Compliance Requirements Analysis
Identifies which regulations and standards apply to you, and to which systems and data.
- Applicable laws and frameworks
- Scope by system and data
- Obligation register
Best for: New markets, clients or regulators
IT Compliance Gap Assessment
A broad review of your compliance posture across policies, controls and evidence.
- Control testing
- Evidence review
- Gaps ranked by risk
Best for: Annual compliance reviews
Framework Readiness Assessments
An in-depth, control-by-control gap assessment against the framework you answer to.
- Control-by-control gap analysis
- Evidence requirements
- Readiness score
Best for: Upcoming audits and certifications
Compliance Readiness Planning
What to fix, in what order, and what evidence to collect before the auditor arrives.
- Remediation tasks and owners
- Evidence collection plan
- Audit timeline
Best for: Teams facing an audit deadline
Compliance Program Development
A sustainable compliance program with governance, monitoring and a multi-year roadmap.
- Program governance
- Monitoring and audit cadence
- Multi-year roadmap
Best for: Regulated, growing organizations
Artificial Intelligence / Fractional Chief AI Officer
A fractional chief AI officer who finds where AI makes your organization faster and smarter, and puts it to work.
AI Readiness Assessment
Scores your data, systems, people and policies to show where AI will pay off first.
- Readiness score across six areas
- Ranked AI use cases
- Gaps to close first
Best for: Before investing in AI tools
AI Strategy & Roadmap
Where AI makes you faster and smarter first, ranked by value and effort, with a phased plan.
- Use-case inventory
- Value vs. effort ranking
- Phased roadmap with budgets
Best for: Leadership teams setting AI direction
AI Implementation Planning
A step-by-step plan to put chosen AI tools into your workflows and data.
- Tool selection and architecture
- Integration and data plan
- Rollout schedule
Best for: Approved AI initiatives
AI ROI & Impact Assessment
Measures what your AI investments are returning in time, cost and quality.
- Usage and adoption metrics
- Productivity and cost impact
- Keep, scale or stop recommendations
Best for: Organizations already using AI
AI Governance & Acceptable Use Policy
The rules, roles and training that get people using AI well, every day.
- AI acceptable use policy
- Approved tools and data rules
- Adoption and champions program
Best for: Organization-wide AI rollouts
What You Walk Away With
An Executive Readout, Not a Pile of Notes
Every engagement ends with a briefing your leadership team and board can act on: where you stand, what to fix first, and what it costs.
- Scorecards by area, in plain English
- Risks ranked by impact and likelihood
- A quarter-by-quarter roadmap with budgets
- Decisions for the board, stated up front
- Approve the security foundation budget
- Consolidate to one identity platform
- Set an AI use policy before rollout
How It Works
From First Call to Board-Ready Plan
- STEP 01
Initiation
We learn your objectives, systems and obligations, and assign the right expert to each area.
- STEP 02
Scope
Your proposal lists every task, the CxO service, the deliverable, its hours and its cost.
- STEP 03
Deliver
Assessments, plans and policies written for executives and boards, with clear next steps.
- STEP 04
Recommend
An executive readout and a vendor-neutral plan for who delivers what comes next.
Inside a CxO™ Proposal
Every Hour Tied to a Deliverable
No open-ended retainers. Every CxO proposal follows the same structure, so you see exactly what you're buying before work starts.
| # | Task | CxO area → service | Deliverable | Hours | Rate | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | What we'll accomplish | Who leads it | What you receive | Scoped | CxO rate | Fixed |
- PHASE 1
Kickoff
Objectives, access and documentation.
- PHASE 2
Assess
The assessments in your scope.
- PHASE 3
Plan
Plans, policies and roadmaps written.
- PHASE 4
Readout
Executive briefing and recommendations.
- PHASE 5 · OPTIONAL
Steer
Ongoing CxO on Clarity IT™ reserved hours.
Engagement Options
One Project or a Standing Seat at the Table
CxO Initiation
A fixed set of deliverables with fixed hours and cost. Ideal for a first assessment, an audit deadline or a board request.
- Scope, hours and cost agreed up front
- Executive readout at the end
- A vendor-neutral roadmap you own
Ongoing CxO on Clarity IT™
When your first engagement shows you need continuing leadership, we recommend reserved monthly hours on Clarity IT™, focused on your roadmap.
- Reserved monthly executive hours
- Leadership and board meetings
- Roadmap reviewed every quarter
In Your Proposal
SCOPE- + Discovery and stakeholder interviews
- + Every listed deliverable
- + Executive readout and roadmap
Separate
BOUNDARY- − Implementation, by your team, another provider or IT Project Services
- − Hours beyond scope, at the CxO rate
- − Legal advice and audit attestation
Your Side
CUSTOMER- → An executive sponsor
- → Access to systems and documents
- → Existing policies and contracts
Compare Your Options
Fractional CxO vs. a Full-Time Hire
| CxO™ | Full-time executive | Consulting firm | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technology, security, compliance and AI expertise | All four | Usually one | Separate teams |
| Cost model | Scoped hours | Salary + benefits | Project fees |
| Price known before work starts | Yes | n/a | Sometimes |
| Board-ready deliverables | Every task | Depends on hire | Yes |
| Vendor-neutral recommendations | Yes | Depends on hire | Often tied to their services |
| Commitment | Initiation, then optional ongoing | Full-time | Per engagement |
Get Started
Request a CxO™ Proposal
Tell us what you need to accomplish. We scope the hours for each deliverable and send a CxO proposal. Deliverables you picked are attached automatically.
Sent with your request: CxO: (nothing selected yet)
- 01A scoping call with a fractional executive
- 02Every task, deliverable, hour and cost in one proposal
- 03A vendor-neutral roadmap with start date
Why DAG Tech
The Team Behind CxO™
Advice backed by engineers
Recommendations come from the same team that runs managed IT and a 24/7 SOC, so every plan is one we know can be delivered.
Vendor-neutral
We evaluate the tools and providers you have before recommending anything new, and you keep every document we write.
Written for the boardroom
Deliverables are built to be read by executives and boards, not just IT.
FAQ
Fractional C-Suite Questions, Answered
What is a fractional C-suite?
A fractional C-suite is a team of senior executives, such as a CTO, CISO, compliance officer and AI lead, who work for your organization part-time on a defined scope instead of as full-time hires. DAG Tech CxO provides all four through one program and one proposal.
What does a virtual CISO (vCISO) do?
A vCISO leads your security program: assessing risk, writing policy, setting priorities, preparing for audits and insurance renewals, and reporting to your board. The vCISO works with whoever runs your security operations, whether that is your own team, another provider or DAG Tech X-SOC™.
What's the difference between fractional, outsourced and virtual?
Fractional describes the time and cost: a portion of a full-time role. Outsourced means the expert is hired externally. Virtual means the work happens over video, email and phone. CxO is all three, with on-site meetings available.
How much does a fractional C-suite cost?
CxO is priced per deliverable: each task is scoped in hours at the CxO rate, and your proposal shows the total before work starts. You pay for the outcomes you choose, not a full-time executive salary. Every proposal is custom-scoped.
What does a fractional chief AI officer do?
A fractional chief AI officer finds where AI will make your organization faster and smarter, ranks the use cases by value, sets governance and usage rules, and plans the rollout so people actually use the tools.
Does CxO only recommend DAG Tech services?
No. Recommendations are vendor-neutral. Your plan can be delivered by your in-house team, by other providers you choose, or by DAG Tech when we are the best fit.
Is CxO a one-time project or an ongoing plan?
Every engagement starts with a one-time CxO initiation. If it shows you need continuing leadership, we recommend ongoing CxO on Clarity IT™ reserved monthly hours, focused on your roadmap.
Which compliance frameworks does CxO cover?
Common requirements include HIPAA, SOC 2, CMMC, PCI DSS, NYDFS 500, SEC and FINRA, and NIST CSF. Framework readiness assessments cover one framework in depth.
The DAG Tech Product Family
Explore Every Product
About DAG Tech CxO™
CxO™ is DAG Tech’s fractional C-suite program, providing a fractional CTO, virtual CISO, virtual compliance officer and fractional chief AI officer to mid-market and enterprise organizations. Engagements produce executive-ready deliverables, from IT roadmaps and BCDR plans to cybersecurity policies, HIPAA and SOC 2 readiness assessments and AI strategy roadmaps, each scoped in hours with a fixed cost in the proposal. Recommendations are vendor-neutral.
CxO is delivered to organizations in New York, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Austin, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and across the United States.
Related: fractional CTO services, IT assessments, IT compliance services, AI consulting. Last updated October 2026.