Vexarra
Fractional CTO & CIO · Board advisor · Mentor

Are you building the right features? Is your tech team effective and efficient?

I'm Matt Drake. I've spent 20+ years leading technology in regulated businesses, from delivery teams to the board room as IT Director, CDIO and technology advisor to the board. Now I sit alongside CEOs, CTOs and founders as a fractional CTO & CIO, mentor and advisor.

Who I work with

UK scale-ups at Series A and B.

UK businesses from pre-seed to established in mobility, vehicle leasing and the third sector.

20+ yrs
leading IT & Digital
2x faster
delivery cycle times
Days → hours
credit decisions delivered
Board-level
IT Director, CDIO & board advisor
01 · Three questions

Sound familiar?

01

Are you building the right product features?

  • –Feature requests pile up from customers, sales and operations
  • –Tech debt and the core product get pushed aside for new features
  • –Decisions run on gut feel, not data
  • –Plenty of data, but no consistent view to decide from
  • –Scale brings greater compliance obligations
02

Is your dev team running effectively?

  • –Hiring ramps up, but velocity drops
  • –Ownership blurs and teams duplicate effort
  • –The CTO, pulled into investor and leadership work, becomes the bottleneck
  • –Processes, automation and architecture haven’t kept pace
  • –People need career paths, structure and clear ownership
03

Is your tech team capital efficient?

  • –Costs rise, but cost discipline doesn’t
  • –Investors ask what each feature earns versus what it costs
  • –Burn is high, but revenue growth is modest
  • –Product can’t demonstrate the commercial impact of features
  • –Pressure grows to cut underperforming features
02 · How I help

Start with the problem, not the technology.

A focused plan for the one or two levers that matter most and the hands-on support to make them stick.

Sharper product decisions

  • –Review your roadmap outside-in and inside-out, against strategy
  • –A data-driven prioritisation framework, clear ownership and structured customer feedback channels
  • –Capacity and estimation aligned between Product and Engineering
  • –Compliance integrated and aligned
Done before

Shaped the digital strategy and prioritised roadmap; built forums aligning product owners, delivery teams and lines of business.

A team built to deliver

  • –Fix structure and ownership, and make sure architecture is embedded
  • –Improve delivery practices, automation and metrics
  • –Establish career paths
  • –Mentor tech leads into strategic leaders
Done before

Scaled engineering and automation, moved to an offshore partner, replaced a legacy onboarding platform and built a BCS-aligned career framework.

Making every pound work

  • –Forensic review of licences, cloud, supplier contracts and delivery model to reduce waste
  • –Review buy / build and sourcing to protect IP and cut risk, time-to-market and cost
  • –Clear build-cost data to inform product decisions
  • –Quick wins for immediate impact
Done before

Consistently reduced IT run spend to enable re-investment; optimised licensing; renegotiated supplier contracts.

03 · Ways to work together

Four ways to work together.

Start small, prove the value, then decide what comes next.

01

Diagnostic

A focused diagnostic to understand the problem — and a practical 90-day plan to get you on the road to recovery.

4–6 weeks · full-time
Week 1
Listen & gather data
Everything starts with listening. Different viewpoints — and perhaps a few uncomfortable questions.
Week 2
Form hypotheses
Form a view of what’s going on and what needs addressing — then test it.
Weeks 3–4
Refine & plan
A plan that includes immediate quick wins, so impact is felt.
Weeks 5–6
Present back
Present the plan to stakeholders, refine it and agree the way forward.
02

Fractional CTO / CIO

Senior technology leadership, 1–3 days a week.

3-month pilot · checkpoint review · then rolling monthly · weekly or monthly retainer
Month 1
Functional review
Review the situation. Some decisions won’t wait — keep BAU running while getting to grips with the real issues. Establish a cadence and identify quick wins.
Month 2
Execute
Prioritise and execute. Clear goals, roles and targets for the team, and “right-sized” structure.
Month 3
Embed the impact
Make sure the impact is being felt. Agree and align the team on what’s next.
03

CTO / CIO Mentoring

For technology leaders, with each session guided by your agenda. Practical experience from a career spent navigating the same challenges.

  • –Flexible — shaped to your needs and cadence
  • –Live sessions, with mentor access between sessions
  • –Development objectives set in month 1; progress reviewed every 3 months
  • –Fixed monthly retainer
04

Founder Sounding Board

For non-technical CEOs and founders — an independent view from someone with no stake in the decision. You set the agenda.

  • –Flexible — shaped to your needs and cadence
  • –Your preferred channel: live sessions, email, face-to-face or chat
  • –Check-in every 3 months
  • –Fixed monthly retainer
Client view
“Matt (Vexarra Fractional CTO and Founder) recently helped CIRIA with the tendering procedure for developing a new CRM and website. We were very impressed with his vast array of knowledge and business acumen…. His astute feedback on critical success factors in this tender were vitally important to us and helped us make the right choice.

Matt provided a free maturity assessment of AI strategy and development which has been immensely useful and is highly recommended.”
Dirk Vennix · CEO, CIRIA
Next step

Book a free 30-minute call.

If this resonates with you, let’s talk. No pitch, no obligation — just an honest view on where I’d start.

Matt Drake

Vexarra Ltd · Registered in England and Wales · Company no. 17533555
Registered office: Surbiton, Surrey
Privacy notice
← Back to vexarra.com
Privacy

Customer privacy notice

Vexarra Ltd · Company no. 17533555 · Last updated 30 October 2026

We are the controller of your personal data. For more information on controllers and their responsibilities, see the ICO’s guidance on data protection principles, definitions and key terms.

This privacy notice tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information.

  • Contact details
  • What information we collect, use, and why
  • Lawful bases and data protection rights
  • Where we get personal information from
  • How long we keep information
  • Who we share information with
  • Sharing information outside the UK
  • How to complain

Contact details

Email: [email protected]

What information we collect, use, and why

We collect or use the following information to provide and improve products and services for clients:

  • Names and contact details
  • Addresses
  • Occupation
  • Payment details (including card or bank information for transfers and direct debits)
  • Transaction data (including details about payments to and from you and details of products and services you have purchased)
  • Usage data (including information about how you interact with and use our website, products and services)
  • Information relating to compliments or complaints
  • Records of meetings and decisions

We collect or use the following personal information for information updates or marketing purposes:

  • Names and contact details
  • Marketing preferences
  • Purchase or account history
  • Website and app user journey information

We collect or use the following personal information for dealing with queries, complaints or claims:

  • Names and contact details
  • Account information
  • Purchase or service history
  • Customer or client accounts and records
  • Correspondence

Lawful bases and data protection rights

Under UK data protection law, we must have a “lawful basis” for collecting and using your personal information. There is a list of possible lawful bases in the UK GDPR. You can find out more about lawful bases on the ICO’s website.

Which lawful basis we rely on may affect your data protection rights, which are set out in brief below. You can find out more about your data protection rights and the exemptions which may apply on the ICO’s website.

  • Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. You can request other information such as details about where we get personal information from and who we share personal information with. There are some exemptions which means you may not receive all the information you ask for.
  • Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to correct or delete personal information you think is inaccurate or incomplete.
  • Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to delete your personal information.
  • Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to limit how we can use your personal information.
  • Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data.
  • Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you.
  • Your right to withdraw consent – When we use consent as our lawful basis you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

If you make a request, we must respond to you without undue delay and in any event within one month.

To make a data protection rights request, please contact us using the contact details at the top of this privacy notice.

Our lawful bases for the collection and use of your data

Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information to provide and improve products and services for clients are:

  • Contract – we have to collect or use the information so we can enter into or carry out a contract with you. All of your data protection rights may apply except the right to object.
  • Legitimate interests – we’re collecting or using your information because it benefits you, our organisation or someone else, without causing an undue risk of harm to anyone. All of your data protection rights may apply, except the right to portability. Our legitimate interests are:
    • We will collect personal data (name, email, telephone number) to be able to secure and protect personal data.

For more information on our use of legitimate interests as a lawful basis you can contact us using the contact details set out above.

Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information for information updates or marketing purposes are:

  • Consent – we have permission from you after we gave you all the relevant information. All of your data protection rights may apply, except the right to object. To be clear, you do have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.
  • Legitimate interests – we’re collecting or using your information because it benefits you, our organisation or someone else, without causing an undue risk of harm to anyone. All of your data protection rights may apply, except the right to portability. Our legitimate interests are:
    • We will collect personal data (name, email, telephone number) to be able to directly market relevant services to a current or prospective customer (individual).

For more information on our use of legitimate interests as a lawful basis you can contact us using the contact details set out above.

Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information for dealing with queries, complaints or claims are:

  • Contract – we have to collect or use the information so we can enter into or carry out a contract with you. All of your data protection rights may apply except the right to object.

Where we get personal information from

  • Directly from you
  • Publicly available sources
  • Providers of marketing lists and other personal information

How long we keep information

We will retain and store your personal information that we have collected during our engagement with you for:

  1. (a)One calendar year following the end of provision of services and/or products (“customer engagement”) pro-bono or paid.
  2. (b)One calendar year following the submission of a proposal to deliver our services and/or products if the proposal was not accepted.
  3. (c)Six months following an online booked appointment if it did not lead to a proposal or delivery of services and/or products.

For more information on how long we store your personal information or the criteria we use to determine this please contact us using the details provided above.

Who we share information with

Data processors

Microsoft

This data processor does the following activities for us: cloud hosted email and office productivity products.

Calendly

This data processor does the following activities for us: provides online cloud hosted appointment booking system.

Others we share personal information with

  • Professional or legal advisors
  • Organisations we’re legally obliged to share personal information with

Sharing information outside the UK

Where necessary, we may transfer personal information outside of the UK. When doing so, we comply with the UK GDPR, making sure appropriate safeguards are in place.

For further information or to obtain a copy of the appropriate safeguard for any of the transfers below, please contact us using the contact information provided above.

Where necessary, our data processors will share personal information outside of the UK. When doing so, they comply with the UK GDPR, making sure appropriate safeguards are in place.

Microsoft

Category of recipient: Cloud hosting and software application provider

Country the personal information is sent to: United States

How the transfer complies with UK data protection law: UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework

Calendly

Category of recipient: Software application provider

Country the personal information is sent to: United States

How the transfer complies with UK data protection law: UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a data protection complaint to us:

Email: [email protected]

If you remain unhappy with how we’ve used your data after raising a complaint with us, you can also complain to the ICO.

The ICO’s address:
ICO Head Office, 4th Floor, No.3 Circle Square, 5 Hawkshaw Street, Manchester, M1 7BL

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
Website: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint