BUSHEY
Artificial Intelligence Practice

Fractional Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer

Executive AI leadership for the days you need it.

One accountable owner for AI strategy, governance and delivery, without the cost or the wait of a full-time appointment.

Your side of the fence

Six signs your organisation needs a fractional CAIO

AI rarely arrives as one planned programme. It arrives in pieces, across departments, faster than anyone can govern it. These are the points at which organisations usually call us.

01

The Board is asking questions nobody can answer

Where are we using AI? What is the risk? What is the return? The answers sit in five different places, or nowhere.

02

Staff are already using AI you have not approved

Shadow AI is in daily use, and company and client data is going into tools you have never assessed.

03

Pilots are not progressing to Production state

Proofs of concept have run for months. None has a business owner, a benefits case or a route to go-live.

04

Someone has asked how you govern AI

A regulator, an auditor, an insurer or a major client wants to see your policy, your controls and who is accountable.

05

AI spend is growing with no single view of it

Every department is buying licences and every vendor now has an AI story. Nobody is testing those claims against your needs.

06

You need the leadership, not yet the full-time role

The work is real and urgent, but it does not yet fill a permanent executive seat, and experienced AI leaders are hard to find.

Both sides of the fence

What you need, and what we bring

Each requirement an organisation typically identifies, set against what a Bushey fractional CAIO delivers in the role.

What you need

One accountable owner for AI

AI decisions are spread across IT, risk, legal and the business. Nobody answers to the Board for the whole picture.

What we bring

A named executive at your leadership table

Your fractional CAIO owns AI strategy, risk and reporting, and is accountable to your CEO and Board for the days you engage them.

What you need

An AI strategy tied to business benefit

Investment that follows the organisation's priorities, with a clear case for what each initiative returns.

What we bring

A roadmap that delivers, not just a plan

Use cases prioritised by benefit, then steered through delivery using your own project and change processes, with clear governance and benefits tracked at every stage.

What you need

Governance the Board can rely on

Policies, decision rights and evidence that stand up when a regulator, auditor or client asks to see them.

What we bring

Governance you can evidence

Roles, controls and assurance designed around how your organisation already works, so you can show a regulator, auditor or client exactly how AI is governed.

What you need

Control of shadow AI and data exposure

A clear picture of which AI tools are in use, what data they touch, and rules staff can follow.

What we bring

Shadow AI brought into the light

Your Fractional CAIO leads the discovery of AI tools in use, sets clear acceptable-use rules and works with your security team to protect sensitive data.

What you need

A clear view of vendors and platforms

Someone who can separate what a product does from what the sales deck says, before the contract is signed.

What we bring

Structured evaluation against your requirements

Vendors and tools scored on fit, risk, cost and supportability, so selection decisions are evidence-based and defensible.

What you need

Delivery, not just advice

A leader who has run teams and landed change in large organisations, and who stays to see it through.

What we bring

Leaders who have done it before

Senior practitioners who have led technology teams and delivered major transformation programmes for corporate and government departments.

What you need

Senior capability at a sensible cost

Executive-level judgement now, without a long recruitment search or a permanent salary the workload does not yet justify.

What we bring

An engagement sized to the work

An agreed number of days a month, scaled up or down as the programme demands, with a planned handover if you later appoint a permanent CAIO.

The role

What your fractional CAIO is responsible for

Eight areas of accountability, carried by one named executive. Select any one to see what it covers.

Responsibility 01

AI strategy and roadmap

A plan the executive team has agreed, linked to business outcomes and budget.

How it works

From first conversation to embedded leadership

Step 1

Assess

We baseline where AI is in use today, the risks it carries and how mature your governance is.

Step 2

Establish

Ownership, governance and an agreed roadmap are put in place, with the Board and executive aligned.

Step 3

Deliver

Priority initiatives move into delivery through your own project processes, with benefits tracked from day one.

Step 4

Sustain or hand over

We stay on as your CAIO, or build the internal capability and hand over to a permanent appointment.

Our side of the fence

The kind of leader you get

A fractional CAIO is only as good as the experience behind the title. This is the calibre of person Bushey places in the role.

Barry Lewington, Co-Founder and MD of Bushey

Barry Lewington

Co-Founder and MD, Bushey

Barry has led senior technology teams and delivered high-profile programmes across a long career in IT and technology. He has worked on both sides of the table, running technology functions from the inside and guiding corporate and government departments through major transformation from the outside.

Senior technology leadership

Has held the roles of CTO, Technology Director and Principal Consultant.

High-profile programmes

Has delivered major transformation programmes across more than 40 countries.

A career in technology

More than 25 years across corporate, service provider and public sector environments.

Sector experience
Finance Manufacturing Retail Government Public Sector

That breadth matters. AI raises different questions in a regulated financial institution, on a factory floor, in a retail chain and in a government department. A fractional CAIO who has worked in all of them recognises the pattern quickly and knows what has to be different in yours.

Get started

Find out what a fractional CAIO would look like in your organisation

Start with a conversation. We will talk through where AI sits in your organisation today, what is worrying your Board, and whether a fractional appointment is the right answer.