Executive Product Leadership · Fractional mode
Fractional CPO for Physical AI
A Fractional CPO for Physical AI is a part-time executive product leader who owns recurring product and portfolio decisions across customer value, economics, AI, hardware, software, safety and field operations when a permanent full-time CPO is not yet the right shape.
The role is not a monthly advice call and not staff augmentation. It is a written Executive Product Leadership mandate: a named sponsor delegates specific decisions, the operating cadence is explicit, and the organisation can renew, transfer or stop at a stated checkpoint.
Optional — but the more precisely you describe the decision, the more useful the reply.
- Contract
- One offer
- Mode
- Recurring
- Starting signal
- From €8,000/month
Parent-offer signal; interim intensity and every mandate are scoped in writing.
The situations this mode is built to relieve.
Start with the operating gap. A role title is useful only when it carries a decision that otherwise remains unowned.
The founder or CTO is still the default product function.
Roadmap, commercial and architecture decisions rise to one overloaded technical leader because no other role owns the complete product boundary.
Several products or initiatives compete without one portfolio decision.
Teams can explain their own work, but no accountable owner is sequencing investment, evidence and stop decisions across the portfolio.
A full-time CPO would be premature or unnecessarily broad.
Senior ownership is needed now, but the product organisation, financing stage or decision load does not justify a permanent executive seat.
Product, engineering and commercial cadences do not meet.
The company has ceremonies, roadmaps and reviews, yet cross-functional decisions still reopen because authority and evidence are not shared.
Authority must be useful—and bounded.
Inside the mandate
What Hyperion owns
- Product and portfolio direction inside the written mandate
- Priority, sequencing and stop decisions across the six Product System lenses
- Executive product cadence and an inspectable decision record
- Product economics, opportunity framing and roadmap coherence
- Product-organisation design, coaching and the internal ownership plan
- Escalation of architecture, safety and field risks to their accountable specialists
Boundary
What the mandate does not absorb
- Unbounded day-to-day delivery management for every team
- Legal advice, certification or conformity assessment
- Safety engineering or technical sign-off delegated away from accountable specialists
- A disguised full-time vacancy at a part-time price
- Guaranteed launch, revenue, certification or scale outcomes
Operating contract
What makes the role inspectable.
- Authority
- Named decisions, sponsor, escalation path and matters that remain with the client are written before work starts.
- Cadence
- Days per month, executive reviews, team interfaces, response boundaries and asynchronous access are scoped together.
- Evidence
- Material calls name the evidence used, the uncertainty retained, the accountable owner and the condition that reopens them.
- Checkpoint
- A written review decides whether to renew, revise, transfer or stop; continuity is never assumed by default.
Transition management
The exit starts on day one.
Establish the product and portfolio decision inventory, sponsor and authority boundary.
Install one decision cadence across customer, economics, system, safety and field evidence.
Develop the internal product owner or define the permanent leadership role the organisation actually needs.
Transfer context and authority against readiness criteria, or renew deliberately while the fractional need remains real.
Direct answers before a conversation.
Is a Fractional CPO the same as a product advisor?
No. An advisor recommends. A Fractional CPO accepts defined decision authority and operates a recurring product cadence inside the company. If the sponsor cannot delegate real authority, advisory or a bounded Decision Review is usually the more honest shape.
How much time does the role require?
The cadence is scoped in days per month against the decisions and interfaces the role owns. Hyperion publishes an approximately €8,000/month starting signal for the parent Executive Product Leadership offer; actual scope depends on portfolio breadth, operating intensity and access requirements.
Can the role cover both product and architecture?
It can own the product–architecture decision boundary and coordinate the relevant evidence. It does not erase accountable engineering, safety, cybersecurity or conformity roles, and it does not accept technical sign-offs outside the written mandate.
How does the engagement end?
The exit is written at the start: transfer to a developed internal owner, hand over to a permanent CPO or Head of Product, renew at a deliberate checkpoint, or stop when the recurring need no longer justifies the mandate.
Bring the product leadership gap—not a polished brief.
Describe the product, the blocked decision, its deadline, the executive sponsor and the evidence currently available. Mohammed will tell you whether Hyperion is the right mandate—and when it is not.