Fractional CTO · Israel & Europe
Fractional CTO for companies that have outgrown "figure it out as we go."
Strategy, architecture, hiring, AI and security — at the altitude where those decisions actually get made, without adding a full-time executive. When the work needs building, a senior delivery team is scoped and priced separately.
The pattern
The business is moving faster than the technology function.
It shows up the same way most times. Engineering is growing and nobody owns the technical strategy. A raise, an acquisition process, or a new region is coming, and the technology will be examined. AI and security have landed on your desk and you need a senior, opinionated answer rather than a survey of options.
You don't need an agency, and you probably aren't ready for your first full-time CTO. You need someone senior enough to make the call and around often enough for it to stick.
Engagement models
One practice, three shapes.
Fractional CTO
The core engagement.
Embedded senior technology leadership: strategy, architecture, org design and hiring, AI and security posture, and the operating cadence that turns intent into shipped work. Typically four to eight days a month, blocked weekly.
Advisory
Defined scope, defined endpoint.
Technical due diligence, architecture review, board preparation, and coaching for engineering leaders. The right call when the question is "before I commit to this, what does someone senior actually think?"
Delivery
Execution, scoped separately.
Architecture, software, DevOps, integrations, and AI implementation — staffed from a standing network of senior engineers I've worked with directly, distributed across Europe and Israel. Never billed inside the fractional retainer.
How this actually works
What the retainer covers — and what it deliberately doesn't.
Most fractional arrangements fail the same way. The retainer starts as strategy and slowly absorbs execution, because there's always something urgent and the person is already there. Six months in, the senior judgement you paid for is being spent writing tickets.
BLW draws the line in the contract.
In the retainer
- Strategy, architecture, and the decisions that carry consequences
- Hiring, levelling, and engineering org design
- Board and investor technical narrative
- Vendor selection and build-vs-buy
- Operating cadence and engineering process
- AI adoption strategy and security posture
Not in the retainer
- Hands-on implementation
- Day-to-day delivery work
- Long-form individual contributor work
When an engagement surfaces work that needs building, the delivery team scopes and prices it as its own thing. You see what you're paying for, separately, in both directions.
AI, in practice
Most AI programmes fail on judgement, not technology.
Every consultancy sells AI now. Very few will tell you where it doesn't pay back, which is the more useful half of the conversation and the one that saves the year.
The work is figuring out where AI returns something inside ninety days and where it's a science project with a business case attached. Internal leverage before customer-facing features, usually — the data and the operating muscle tend not to be ready, and that's a fixable problem worth fixing first.
I run an agentic stack across my own operations daily. The opinions here come from building and living with these systems, not from a vendor briefing.
For companies with EU operations, the AI Act is now an architecture and process question, not a legal one. That's the same conversation as the security posture, and it belongs in the same room.
Fit
Where this works — and where it doesn't.
Good fit
- Growth-stage companies past product–market fit, scaling engineering
- Mid-market companies with real technology dependence and no executive tech seat
- Regulated or multi-stakeholder environments where judgement is the scarce input
- Established businesses moving seriously online
Not a fit
- Pre-PMF startups looking for a technical co-founder
- Filling a seat on an org chart for appearances
- Buyers shopping purely on price
- Engineering orgs above ~50 people — at that scale, hire a full-time CTO
Who you're working with
Pasha Eliav
Nearly two decades in technology, eight-plus of them in engineering leadership. Mamram alumnus. I've built engineering functions from zero more often than I've inherited working ones — the platform team at Resident before it existed, through Director to VP R&D; the DevOps function at Meerkat; the release process at Hola; founding CTO at Fync.io.
I was an engineering manager at Wiser through its acquisition by Quad Analytix, and at Resident I led due diligence preparation as VP R&D ahead of the Ashley acquisition. That perspective shapes how I think about technical debt, integrations, and what survives a diligence review.
I currently lead an active fractional CTO engagement at an Israeli retail-fashion company with EU operations. Cross-industry: networking, security, health tech, social platforms, SaaS and platform engineering, retail and eCommerce.
One anchor fractional engagement at a time, plus room for one more. Advisory and discovery sprints alongside.
Engagements
Simple shapes, priced up front.
Discovery sprint — two weeks, fixed fee
An assessment: what's working, what isn't, and the highest-leverage moves. Ends in a written recommendation. Most engagements start here — it's harder to oversell scope when the engagement is two weeks long.
Monthly retainer — 3 / 6 / 12 months
Fixed monthly fee, fixed cadence, scope adjusted as the business changes. Most run six months and renew. Thirty days' notice, either side.
Delivery — scoped per project
Priced separately from the retainer, always.
Distributed by default — the network is remote across Europe and Israel, which is how the seniority is affordable at this size. On-site when it matters: typically a week per quarter for EU clients, and more during a diligence process or a turnaround.
Next step
Thirty minutes, no deck.
We'll talk about the business and the technology, and I'll tell you whether a fractional CTO is the right next move. If it isn't, I'll say what is.