You need a Chief Learning Officer. You don’t need a full-time one.

A full-time Chief Learning Officer at a Fortune 500 company costs between $300K and $600K annually — salary, benefits, equity, support staff. For mid-size companies, the hire is even harder: the role requires someone who has operated at scale, but the organization cannot justify the full-time cost.

The result: the learning function gets led by someone operational but without strategic altitude. Or it reports to an HR VP who treats it as a compliance checkbox. Or it gets outsourced to a training vendor who delivers programs but has no stake in outcomes.

None of these produce what the organization actually needs: someone who has built and run learning systems at Fortune 500 scale, sitting inside the organization, making architectural decisions that connect capability investment to business performance.

What a fractional CLO does.

A fractional CLO is not a consultant who advises from outside. It is an operator who works from inside — part-time, but with full strategic authority over the learning function.

• Sits in leadership team meetings. L&D gets a seat at the strategy table. The learning function is no longer disconnected from business priorities — it is directly informed by them.
• Sets learning strategy. Not a vendor delivering a pre-built program. An operator designing the strategy from inside, aligned to the organization’s specific performance gaps.
• Manages the L&D team. Provides the leadership and direction that the existing team lacks. Coaches internal talent to operate at a higher level. Manages vendor relationships with the leverage of having been on the client side.
• Designs capability architecture. Builds the system — not just programs — that connects learning investment to performance output.
• Builds the measurement infrastructure. Creates the dashboards and metrics that prove ROI to the board. Not satisfaction surveys — business outcome linkage.
• Transfers capability and exits. The engagement has a defined end state. When it ends, the internal team is stronger than when it began. No dependency.

Fractional CLO vs. consultant vs. full-time hire

Full-time CLO: Highest commitment. Highest cost. Justified when the organization has a 1,000+ person learning function and the learning strategy is a board-level priority. Recruiting takes 4–6 months. Onboarding takes another 3.

L&D consultant: Lowest commitment. Advises from outside. Delivers a report or a program. Has no operational authority. Cannot make decisions. Cannot manage people. Cannot sit in leadership meetings. The organization gets recommendations, not execution.

Fractional CLO: The middle path. Strategic altitude of a full-time hire. Operational authority inside the organization. Part-time cost structure. Defined engagement with exit criteria. The organization gets execution, not just advice.

When you need a fractional CLO.

• CLO just departed and the search will take 6+ months. The function needs strategic leadership during the gap.
• Scaling fast and the L&D function hasn’t kept pace. You need someone who has built learning systems at 10x your current scale to design what comes next.
• Post-merger integration. Multiple learning cultures, no unified architecture. You need someone who has done this before to design the integrated system.
• Existing L&D head is operational, not strategic. The team executes well but lacks the altitude to connect learning to business outcomes. A fractional CLO provides the strategic layer.
• Board is questioning L&D ROI. You need someone who can build the measurement infrastructure to prove value — and has the credibility to present it at board level.

The SSUNDAR fractional CLO model.

Shyam Sundar MV operates as SSUNDAR’s fractional CLO. The credentialing is not theoretical:

• Amazon — Senior Global Training Leader. Building capability systems across global operations.
• Google — Director of Training & Development. Built and ran the function.
• Accenture — Senior Global Trainer. Fortune 500 technology accounts.
• Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award winner.

Shyam has done this job. Not advised on it. Done it. Inside the organizations where the pressure is real and the consequences compound.

Engagement model: 2–3 days per week, embedded. 6–18 months depending on scope. Defined deliverables, defined exit criteria, defined capability transfer plan. The internal team is stronger when the engagement ends. That is the commitment.