Fractional marketplaces
Self-serve profiles and role boards. The fastest way to get discovered for fractional CPO / CTO / COO work.
Go FractionalOpen▼ Vetted fractional-exec marketplace, 3-day candidate turnaround. Strongest for product & growth leaders.
How to get inRegister and complete the full profile: bio, tagline, five projects. Then search the board directly; matching also runs inbound off your profile.
Good to know15,000+ vetted leaders and around 176 live roles when I checked: CTO, Head of Product, CPO, COO, CRO.
CatalantDigest▼ Enterprise & PE-portfolio projects. Briefs arrive by daily digest and you pitch per brief; there's no open board to browse.
How to get inRegister and set up your profile. Briefs then come to you in a daily digest and you pitch the ones that fit. Advisory briefs pay $250–325/hr, delivery $150–200/hr.
Watch outCategory labels are noisy, so read the brief itself before judging fit. Expect roughly 1 in 10 digest briefs to be worth a pitch. US-anchored but remote-friendly if you can cover EST hours.
A.TeamInvite▼ Mission-based teams, top-1% vetting, but the inventory skews developer roles. Your profile does the selling here.
How to get inApply, wait for approval, then build the profile out like a portfolio: missions, expertise tags, past work.
Watch outDeveloper-heavy. Product and strategy missions are the minority, and real rates run lower than the marketing suggests.
Fractional.questOpen▼ UK fractional boards, day-rate transparent and outside IR35. Register as an operator for role alerts.
How to get inUse the "I'm an operator" flow: leave email, LinkedIn and a short note, then register for job alerts.
Good to knowRole pages per function (CPO, CFO, CMO and so on). Mostly UK, remote-friendly, 1–3 days a week.
Arc / WellfoundInbound▼ Startup & remote talent boards. Good reach, but Arc skews low on rate and Wellfound skews equity. Filter hard.
How to get inSet each profile once, then leave both in inbound mode.
Watch outArc's product-manager roles cluster at $20–50/hr, and Arc itself warns that rates above $90/hr get fewer interviews. Wellfound pay skews equity and commission. Don't spend evenings browsing either.
GigXOpen▼ Fractional-CxO directory. A simple listing that puts you in front of founders searching by function.
How to get inDirector level and above only. Create a directory listing; founders search by function and reach out directly.
Interim executive search
Retained desks for senior interim mandates. Referral-heavy: register your CV and turn on the digest. Premium day rates, longer engagements.
Korn Ferry InterimInbound▼ Top global search. Upload a CV to the interim pool. The best warm entry is a referral.
How to get inSubmit your CV to the interim pool via the candidate form. A referral beats the form every time.
Watch outThe public board's country filter has no Germany and no remote option, and the board is mostly US contract staffing. The rare European roles sometimes price at €400–450/day. The pool matters more than the board.
Odgers InterimOpen▼ UK-rooted, but keeps a public "active assignments" board you can search directly.
How to get inRegister; the online application parses your CV automatically.
Watch outThe assignments board loads empty until you run a search, and the filters are UK-anchored.
Atreus (Heidrick)Invite▼ The DACH interim leader. Structured DE/EN profile + a short vetting call to enter the pool.
How to get inRegister, then a short vetting call ("Aufnahmegespräch") puts you in the pool. Maintain a structured DE/EN profile inside their portal, not a PDF upload.
PracticusInbound▼ Strong on transformation programmes. Register once; recruiters match you to briefs.
How to get inCandidate "Get in touch" form: function, interim or permanent, short message.
Watch outThe public jobs page is empty by design. Matching is recruiter-led, so the form is the entry, not the board.
Pender & HoweInbound▼ Fractional & interim exec search. Quick "executive talent" application; they reach out on a match.
How to get inSelf-serve "Executive Talent" application: function, industry, location.
Watch outThe pick-lists are US/Canada-centric. Pick the nearest fit and move on.
Michael Page InterimOpen▼ Open German board with a mix of fractional, contract and full-time roles. Mixed seniority, so filter hard.
How to get inSearch the DE board directly, and submit your CV to the contracting desk so a recruiter can also match you.
Watch outNot senior-focused. Expect to filter out most roles before you find your altitude.
Russell ReynoldsInvite▼ Very senior retained interim search. Referral only.
How to get inSkip self-registration, it goes nowhere. Enter through a warm intro, or be visible enough that they find you.
Expert networks: get paid for what you know
You take paid 1-hour calls with PE, hedge-fund & consulting clients about your domain. A different, hourly game, and a fast cash line between mandates.
GLGInbound▼ The largest network. You build a profile and the calls come to you; there's nothing to browse.
How to get inCreate an account, pass the short compliance tutorial, sign the terms, then set your topics, availability and rate. After that you wait: you present yourself, and they find you.
Watch outCompliance is real: consultations only through GLG, no confidential information, and no projects about a former employer for a year.
AlphaSightsInbound▼ Project-by-project recruitment. Register your interest; they call when a client brief fits.
How to get in"Register your interest" form: name, LinkedIn, contacts. They recruit per project, so there's no profile to polish.
GuidepointInbound▼ PE/hedge-fund heavy. Leave your details and respond fast: briefs move in 72 hours.
How to get in"Let us know you're interested" form, then wait. When a brief lands, answer the same day if you can: they move within 72 hours.
Third BridgeInvite▼ Invite-only right now, no open registration. They source you when a topic matches.
Watch outAn account works only if your email is already in their network. Keep your LinkedIn sharp and wait to be sourced, or find a warm intro.
DACH & Europe specialists
If you're in Germany or DACH, these convert better than the global boards. Local language, local trust, local rates.
MaltInbound▼ The big EU freelance marketplace. Clients search profiles, so a strong profile plus recommendations brings the work to you.
How to get inFull profile: headline, rate, top-5 skills, three portfolio items. Then collect recommendations, they drive the inbound. Refresh quarterly so you stay in search.
DYGITIZEDInvite▼ DE digital-expert network. A short "Aufnahmegespräch" gets you into the pool; matches by email.
How to get inA short intake call gets you into the pool. Matches arrive by email, sometimes weeks or months apart, so register and forget.
freelancermap · GULPOpen▼ DACH IT/consulting freelance boards. High volume; use tight senior filters.
Watch outHigh volume, mixed seniority. Set tight senior filters and saved searches or you drown in mid-level listings.
Management AngelsInbound▼ Established DACH interim-management provider. Profile + mandate matching.
How to get inRegister a profile; they match you to mandates. One of the longest-standing DACH interim providers.
Boards & aggregators
For scanning the open market. High volume, lower hit rate. The value is one good saved search, not endless browsing.
HiringCafeOpen▼ Senior remote aggregator with real salary visibility on most roles.
How to get inRegister and save searches. Mine: VP Product, Head of Product, Director Product Strategy, AI Strategy Lead. Real salary data on most roles.
WeWorkRemotelyOpen▼ Remote roles by category. The "worldwide" tag lies. Read the actual location line before you apply.
Watch outThe "Region: Anywhere" tag is unreliable: I found verified US-only and India-only roles mis-tagged. Read the location, timezone and work-authorisation lines before you invest in an application.
LinkedIn JobsOpen▼ Filter to contract or temporary plus your keywords, then save the searches so new roles come to you.
How to get inFilter contract/temporary plus keywords like Fractional CPO, Interim Head of Product, AI Strategy Director, Transformation Program Director. Save the searches across your target regions and let the alerts do the scanning.
Warm signals: the channel that wins
Most fractional roles never touch a board. They move through warm intros and LinkedIn posts. This is the channel that converts.
LinkedIn content monitoringOpen▼ Weekly search: "hiring fractional [your role]". First mover wins. DM within 24 hours of the post going up.
How to work itSearch "hiring fractional [your role]" and "interim [your role] Germany" weekly. DM within 24 hours of the post going up; the first relevant reply usually gets the call.
Watch outWhen I swept a full week of posts I found about 72 results and zero real mandates: genuine fractional roles rarely surface as searchable post text. Treat this as a supplement to the two channels below, not a replacement.
Your network & past clientsInbound▼ Old colleagues and past clients. Warm intros beat every platform on this map.
How to work itWrite to people you already worked with and say exactly what you're looking for: role, days per week, rate band. My rule is to tell about 20 people, one by one, not in a broadcast.
Operator communitiesInvite▼ Fractional & exec Slacks and Circles. Roles get posted here before they're public. Be useful before you pitch.
How to work itJoin fractional and exec Slacks and Circles in your function. Roles appear there before they go public. Be useful first, pitch second.
Five things I wish I knew before I started
Learned the hard way while building this map for my own search.
Build your master CV. I use Claude Code to adjust it for every registration and every role I apply to. This increased my response rate a lot.
LinkedIn sharp, rate ready. Inbound from recruiters and companies starts with your profile. Platforms will ask your rate: some recommend one, some don't. If you're starting, go to the lower end and get the first client on a respectable platform instead of waiting for a more expensive one.
Positioning matters on marketplaces. You are not just a CV, you are a profile with specific outcomes. Land it in one clear short line: "I build X for Y."
Match the channel to the work. Advisory: expert networks. Delivery and turnaround: interim desks. Product build: fractional marketplaces.
People work. Check your network first. And if you like earlier-stage startups, write to them directly: they might not have a well-described job position, but they definitely have work where you can be helpful.
If this helped
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I'm Ekaterina. I run AI strategy and ship product for B2B SaaS and PE-backed scale-ups, and I'm building my own fractional practice at 12LANE.AI. This map comes from that search. If you're on the same road, come say hi.
Rates are indicative 2026 market ranges · No affiliate links · Just the map.