Flexible People Leadership
Senior People expertise, exactly when you need it, without the overhead of a full-time hire.
Growth is exciting until People issues start slowing you down. Hiring mistakes, unclear roles, frustrated managers, cultural drift, and investor questions you’re not ready to answer.
Before
After
The strategic hire you make before you hire full-time
It’s a flexible model where an experienced Chief People Officer / Head of People-level leader partners with your business on a part-time basis to own, fix, and scale your People function. Unlike traditional HR outsourcing, Fractional HR is strategic and embedded, not transactional.
As your Fractional HR partner, we operate primarily remotely, combining asynchronous execution with dedicated live touchpoints, supported by clear SLAs and predictable availability.
The problem Fractional HR resolves
Most growing companies hit the same wall: they need senior People leadership before they can justify (or afford) a full-time executive.
Hiring too early wastes budget. Hiring too late means fixing avoidable damage, compliance risk, disengaged teams, leadership blind spots, and a People function nobody trusts.
Fractional HR closes that gap.
Why not just hire full-time?
A full-time Chief People Officer or VP of People typically costs €150K – €250K+ per year once you include salary, bonus, and benefits: before they’ve solved a single problem.
Full-Time Hire
€150K–250K+
Per year, salary + bonus + benefits
- 3-month+ notice period in most EU markets
- Risk of a bad hire locked in for years, longer where works councils or trade unions are involved.
VS
Fractional HR
Scoped to need
Senior leadership, part-time
- Scale up or down as needs change
- Embedded from week one
- De-risks your eventual full-time hire
Who this is for
Distributed teams across multiple countries, or teams that want to be: Leadership can’t see what’s actually happening locally, or you’re managing employees across jurisdictions with no local People expertise on the ground.
Rapid headcount change (up or down): You’re scaling fast, restructuring, or right-sizing, and your current HR capacity can’t absorb the volume without breaking.
An HR function that exists but isn’t trusted: Backlogs, payroll errors, slow response times, and leadership has no visibility into what HR is actually doing or why. Fractional HR provides the missing leadership layer, without replacing your team.
Investor or board-level scrutiny: You need People policies, org design, and performance frameworks that hold up under diligence, not built on the fly.
A leadership gap during transition: Parental leave coverage, a departure, an acquisition, or a restructuring, and you need senior continuity without a rushed permanent hire.
If one or more of these are true, it’s worth a conversation.
Not the right fit yet? If you’re an early-stage team looking for one-off compliance paperwork (an employee handbook, a single policy, or a specific document), our À La Carte Services are a faster, more cost-effective fit than an ongoing Fractional HR engagement.
What you get
As your Fractional Chief People Officer, we integrate directly into your leadership team, not as an outsourced vendor, but as embedded senior leadership.
DIAGNOSIS FIRST
A structured review
of your People function: team, systems, tools, and stakeholder feedback.
PRIORITIZED
An action plan
tied to real business outcomes, not generic HR best practice.
EMBEDED
Like an in-house CPO
who knows the company, takes ownership, and aligns seamlessly with your culture and goals.
HANDS-ON + COACHING
That builds capability
where it’s needed, and coaching of internal leaders where it isn’t.
DIRECT ACCESS
Partnership with your leadership
CEO, CFO, COO, or CHRO. People strategy connected to the business, not siloed from it.
GLOBAL
Multi-country fluency
compliance, culture, and operations across distributed teams, not a single-jurisdiction playbook.
“I build on what already works, and strengthen it with the right people, systems, and technology, so it holds up against your P&L, your board, and your growth plan.”
— Maria Maslarova, Founder & Fractional CPO
Nearly two decades building, scaling, and turning around People functions, from enterprises like PwC and Alorica to global remote-first SMBs like SpotMe, through rapid growth and an acquisition. Despite being based in Bulgaria, Maria has always worked at a regional or global scale, closely involved in the finance and business side of every organization she’s supported.
SUCCESS STORY · BPO · 6 Months · 15 hrs/week · fully remote
One HR function, turned from mess to success
A global BPO’s Bulgarian office was drowning. The VP of HR & Legal reached out to figure out what was actually going on. The HR team was overwhelmed and falling behind. Employees said HR was unresponsive and unreliable. Payroll had errors every month. All of this was happening in the middle of a restructuring cutting headcount from 1,000+ to 400 within six months.
What we did:
Audited the full People function: policies, processes, and team structure,
Interviewed 20+ stakeholders, from the Site Director to frontline employees, for 360° feedback,
Joined the HR inbox and shadowed the payroll cycle to find the real root causes, not the assumed ones,
Immediately stepped in as Head of HR, coaching the team and stepping in to resolve the escalation. ,
Delivered a stabilization and improvement plan across People, Systems, and Tools,
Fixed the backlog of past payroll mistakes, cleaned up employee data, mapped every process, and transitioned payroll to an external vendor,
Results:
HR went from a source of daily complaints to a trusted, respected function,
Hired and onboarded a permanent HR Manager to carry the function forward,
WE DON’T DO IT FOR THE KUDOS, BUT WE’LL GLADLY TAKE THEM
Assessment→Fractional HR
“Their ability to bring order and adapt to our evolving needs made a real difference to how our site operates.”
Assessment→Fractional HR
“She walked into a complex, high-pressure situation and brought structure, clarity, and a plan we could actually execute.”
Steps
How we work together
Discovery call
Understand your business, your People function’s current state, and whether this is the right fit.
Proposal
A clear proposal covering scope, time commitment, async vs. sync collaboration, and expected outcomes.
Work
- Diagnostic: a structured assessment of team, process, and systems, benchmarked against your growth stage.
- Action plan: a prioritized roadmap tied to business outcomes, typically phased across 3, 6, and 12 months.
- Embedded execution: join leadership meetings, drive the People agenda, guide your HR team and managers, execute, decide, and course-correct.
Handoff or scale
As you grow, we either build your internal team’s capability to take over or help you hire the right full-time leader.
How much does it cost?
Fractional HR is delivered via a monthly retainer, based on:
Scope
Approximate time commitment
Async vs. sync collaboration needs
Engagements typically run month-to-month after an initial three-month commitment, never locked into full-time-equivalent cost for a part-time-equivalent need.
Common questions
How is this different from hiring an HR consultant?
A consultant typically delivers a project and leaves. As Fractional CPO, we sit inside your leadership team on an ongoing basis, accountable for outcomes, not just deliverables.
Is this fully remote?
Yes. It’s built for distributed teams, and for teams used to or want to work remotely.
Will you join leadership meetings?
Yes, this is core to Fractional HR.
Isn’t the time zone difference an obstacle for attending meetings?
Most clients are based in Europe and the US East Coast, all of which overlap with a Central European working day for at least part of it. Live touchpoints are scheduled around your leadership cadence; everything else runs asynchronously, backed by clear SLAs, so a few non-overlapping hours never block progress.
Do you work with teams distributed across multiple countries?
Yes, this is where we add the most value. We’ve led People functions spanning Europe and the US, including full remote transitions and post-acquisition integration.
We already have an HR team, can Fractional HR still help?
Yes. Most engagements start exactly here: a team that’s overloaded, under-resourced, or missing senior strategic direction.
A common example: a startup hires a Talent Acquisition Manager because recruitment is the most urgent fire, then quietly starts asking that person to handle everything else HR-related – a role and skill set they were never hired or trained for. We take the senior People leadership off their plate, so your TA hire can stay focused on what they were actually brought in to do.
How many hours or days a month should we expect?
It depends on your company’s needs and the state of your current People function. We define this together after the diagnostic phase, so you’re not paying for more (or less) than you need.
What if we’re not ready for a full retainer?
If you need a single deliverable (a policy, an audit, a specific document), start with People Impact Assessment or À La Carte Services. Many clients move into Fractional HR once the need becomes ongoing.
How quickly can we start?
After the discovery call , most engagements begin within 2–3 weeks.