The hub for AI-enabledleaders, operators, builders
Australia is short roughly 60,000 AI specialists against 2027 demand. We're building the hub boards will call to find vetted operators.
The problem
AI leadership is in demand
Businesses need AI leadership and cannot hire it. A full-time Chief AI Officer costs around A$668,000 in year one and takes six months to find. For a mid-sized business on a $20M to $200M of revenue, that hire never clears the board.
So the work goes fractional. One or two days a week, at 20 to 40 percent of the cost. The demand is real, immediate and unmet.
Almost everyone is an "AI expert".
There's a glut of AI consumers and every second profile mentions AI. But there's no way to tell who is shipping real work beyond the hype. That's why we're building the hub for vetted leaders and practitioners.
Job domains
Most wanted roles
- 01
Head of AI, or Chief AI Officer
The highest-demand seat and the one nobody in the mid-market holds. Today AI is owned by nobody, or by the CTO if they have one.
- 02
AI transformation and implementation leadership
We know AI is new for everyone. Companies are past experimenting and need someone who has landed an ambitious project before that required fluency across key dimensions like people, culture and tech.
- 03
Head of Data and ML
The enabling layer under every AI initiative, and the shortage is sharpest here. Contract heads of data already clear four figures a day.
- 04
AI governance, risk and compliance
Half of Australian organisations name governance, not technology, as the thing blocking adoption. Mandatory guardrails for high-risk AI are coming.
- 05
AI-enabled CX and operations automation
Where most spend money actually goes in Australian mid-market. Efficiency drives roughly half of all AI investment at this size of business.
- 06
AI-enabled CFO, CMO and COO
The established fractional functions, now split by whether the operator can run AI. Demand for fractional C-suite grew about 68% in a single year.
The rates
What this work pays in Australia.
Market benchmarks for senior fractional AI leadership.
A$1,200–3,000
Day rate for senior fractional AI leadership in Australia.
A$7k–18k
Monthly retainer at one to two days a week.
20–40%
Of full-time-equivalent cost. That maths is why the work goes fractional.
Why now
Businesses are moving from pilots to production
43%
The board asked who owns this.
AI now sits top of the strategic priority list for 43% of Australian governance leaders. Seven in ten staff are already using AI tools with no oversight. Directors want a name against the risk.
95%
The pilot went nowhere.
Nineteen in twenty enterprise AI pilots return nothing. The ones that work embed AI into how the business actually runs. That is a leadership problem, not a tooling problem.
A$668k
They priced the full-time hire.
A Chief AI Officer runs around A$668k in year one, after a six-month search. On A$10M to $200M of revenue that hire cannot be justified. One to two days a week can.
51%
Regulation is arriving.
Half of Australian organisations name governance and compliance as the top barrier to adoption. A voluntary safety standard is live and mandatory guardrails for high-risk AI are proposed. Nobody internally is ready.
The vetting process
Human first
We care more about domain expertise and a builder mindset. Practitioners who know the work and leverage AI to reshape it.
- Experience & Expertise
- Ten years or more with executive or functional-lead scope. You have owned an outcome and knows what it takes to deliver results.
- AI-enabled delivery
- You are an AI builder or have shipped outcomes in the last 18 months. Either way, you can show what you've done, no matter how messy it might look.
- Domain fit
- You fit at least one of job domains. Adjacent counts if the AI ownership was yours or you personally shipped an AI project (design, implementation, training).
- Location
- Australia-based, or working Australian hours with Australian clients.
- Availability
- Actively fractional now, or free one to two days a week.
Founding cohort
The perks of being early
- Access to the latest in our AI learning labs
- Free for 3 months, then founding member price is forever
- Inbound queries direct from hiring companies
- A peer group at your level
- No commission on what you earn. Ever.
- Founding status, and a say in the build
The founding cohort is capped deliberately small, and founding members are vetted and published before the bench opens to clients.
Applications
Apply to the founding bench.
Two things: your LinkedIn, and one piece of work you are proud of. One engagement described properly beats a list of twenty.
Every application is read by a person. Nothing you send us is published anywhere without your approval.
If you are a business
The directory opens to Australian mid-market businesses in September 2026.
Browsing will be free. There is no matchmaking and no commission — you will see the bench, test your brief against it, and talk to people directly. Until then there is nothing to sign up to. Email us and we will tell you when it is live.
FAQ