IT consulting from people who built the systems they're advising you on.
Mid-market and PE-backed leadership teams hire us when the slide-deck era of consulting wears thin. We deliver fixed-fee assessments, M&A IT diligence in 10-14 business days, cloud roadmaps that survive budget review, and fractional CIO engagements that translate technology into board-ready language. Our consultants ran IT for a living before they advised on it — most carry 17+ years of operating experience.
Six ways we engage. Pick the one that matches the trigger.
Every engagement is fixed-fee with a written scope. We don't bill hourly because hourly billing rewards the wrong behavior. If we underestimated, that's our problem — not yours.
Discovery sprint
Two-week assessment — interviews, system inventory, risk heatmap, prioritized 12-month roadmap with budget. The fastest way to find out where you actually stand.
M&A IT diligence
Buy-side IT diligence in 10-14 business days: tech debt, integration cost, licensing exposure, cyber posture, key-person risk, 90-day integration playbook with budget.
Cloud migration roadmap
Workload-by-workload migration plan: Azure / AWS / M365 target architecture, network and identity design, cost model, cutover sequencing, and FinOps guardrails.
Security program review
NIST CSF 2.0 maturity assessment, control mapping to your regulatory regime (SOC 2 / HIPAA / PCI / CMMC), gap heatmap, and remediation roadmap with cost & effort.
Vendor selection / RFP
End-to-end RFP: requirements gathering, scoring matrix, reference calls, master agreement redlines, SLA negotiation, contract execution. Typical savings 18-34% vs renewal.
Fractional CIO
Monthly retainer: 20-40 hours, quarterly board reporting, vendor management, security governance, IT budget planning, strategic project leadership. Six-month minimum.
Three engagement models. All fixed fee.
If we underestimate scope, that's our problem — not yours. Every engagement starts with a written scope, deliverables list, and date-stamped acceptance criteria. No retainer to scope.
Discovery Sprint
For leadership teams who need an honest second opinion before committing budget.
- Stakeholder interviews (CEO, CFO, IT lead, ops)
- System inventory and dependency map
- Risk heatmap with red / yellow / green by domain
- Prioritized 12-month roadmap with cost ranges
- Read-out deck and exec summary
- One follow-up working session
Strategic Engagement
A full strategy build for organizations going through transition — growth, M&A, or leadership change.
- Everything in Discovery Sprint
- 36-month capacity model (base / upside / distressed)
- Cloud target architecture and cost model
- Security program design mapped to your framework
- Vendor consolidation analysis with savings model
- Board-ready deliverable + working sessions through quarter-end
- Implementation handoff (internal team, MSP, or our delivery org)
Fractional CIO
Ongoing IT leadership for organizations that aren't ready to hire a full-time CIO.
- 20-40 hours per month, named CIO with bench backup
- Quarterly board / sponsor reporting
- IT budget planning and OpEx / CapEx optimization
- Vendor management and contract oversight
- Security program governance
- Hiring help for internal IT leadership when ready
- Direct mobile line for after-hours decisions
How a Strategic Engagement actually runs.
Eight weeks. Four phases. Weekly working sessions. Board-ready deliverable at the end. No deck-only deliverables — every recommendation comes with a budget, an owner, and a date.
Listen & map
Stakeholder interviews across exec, IT, finance, ops. System inventory, contract inventory, license posture. Document the world as it is — not as it was meant to be.
Output: dependency map, contract register, interview summaryDiagnose
Risk heatmap by domain (security, infrastructure, identity, data, vendors, talent). Maturity scoring against NIST CSF 2.0 plus your regulatory regime. Cost benchmarks vs market.
Output: risk heatmap, maturity scorecard, benchmark reportDesign
Target architecture (cloud, network, identity, security stack). 36-month capacity model with three scenarios. Vendor consolidation plan with quantified savings. Org design recommendations.
Output: target arch diagrams, capacity model, org recsDeliver & handoff
Board-ready read-out, prioritized roadmap with budget by quarter, RACI for ownership, and warm handoff to whoever executes — your team, your incumbent MSP, or our delivery org.
Output: roadmap, RACI, board deck, handoff planIf this is happening → start here.
The most common reason engagements stall is mismatch between the trigger and the scope. Use this as a quick guide. If your situation isn't here, the scoping call sorts it out in 30 minutes.
| Trigger / situation | Recommended engagement | Typical timeline | Fee range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acquiring a target — IT diligence needed | M&A IT diligence | 10-14 business days | $18k – $42k |
| Outgoing IT leader — no successor named | Discovery → Fractional CIO | 2 wk + ongoing retainer | $4.8k + $9.8k/mo |
| Failed audit (SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI, CMMC) | Security program review | 3-5 weeks | $12k – $28k |
| Cloud bill out of control / migration stalled | Cloud migration roadmap | 4-6 weeks | $14k – $32k |
| MSP renewal coming up — want a real RFP | Vendor selection / RFP | 4-8 weeks | $9k – $22k |
| New CFO / CEO wants honest IT read-out | Discovery sprint | 2 weeks | $4,800 fixed |
| Board asking for 3-yr IT strategy + budget | Strategic engagement | 8 weeks | $24,000 fixed |
The stacks our consultants ran in operating roles.
We are intentionally vendor-neutral. That said, we know these stacks deeply enough to assess them, design with them, or hand a roadmap to your incumbent MSP and have it actually executable.
How we ran IT diligence on four acquisitions in 18 months.
PE-backed manufacturing rollup. Sponsor wanted standardized diligence and a 90-day integration playbook for every close. Names changed for NDA reasons.
Cascade Industrial Holdings — 4 platform adds, 14 months, zero IT surprises
Cascade Industrial Holdings (PE-backed manufacturing aggregator, EBITDA $26M growing through bolt-ons) hired us in late 2024 after a near-miss on their second acquisition: target's primary ERP was running on Server 2008, custom code with no source repo, single contractor as the only person who understood it. The deal closed, but integration cost ran 4.2x the diligence estimate. Sponsor wanted that to never happen again.
We built a standardized 12-day buy-side diligence process — same template, same controls map, same deliverable format every time — plus a 90-day integration playbook that runs from close through cutover. Engineers who do diligence stay involved through integration, so context doesn't get lost between phases.
We map every recommendation to the framework that matters to you.
Every consulting deliverable cross-references controls. No "trust us, this is best practice" — every recommendation ties to a specific control in the regime that applies to your business.
NIST CSF 2.0
Default maturity framework for every engagement. Six functions, 23 categories scored.
SOC 2 Type I & II
Readiness assessments and controls design for SaaS, services, and FinTech.
HIPAA Security Rule
Healthcare entities and business associates. Risk analysis + remediation roadmap.
PCI DSS 4.0
Merchants and service providers. Scope reduction strategy and QSA-ready evidence.
CMMC Level 2
DIB contractors and primes. NIST 800-171 control mapping and gap remediation.
23 NYCRR 500
NY financial services. Cybersecurity program design and CISO certification support.
NAIC Insurance Data Security
Insurance carriers and producers. State-by-state mapping for multi-state operators.
California privacy
Consumer-facing organizations. Data inventory, DSAR workflow, and vendor agreements.
Three of the partners who lead engagements.
Every engagement is led by a senior consultant with 15+ years of operating experience before they ever wrote a recommendation. Bench is staffed similarly. No junior associates running primary discovery.
Evelyn Hartwell
21 years operating IT before joining the firm in 2018. Former CIO at a $480M industrial distributor through three platform acquisitions. Leads M&A IT diligence for sponsor and corp dev clients, including 47 buy-side engagements since 2021. Holds CISSP, CISM, and a finance background that translates IT risk into deal language.
Roman Mihailescu
19 years in operating roles — VMware, then AWS, then Azure landing zones for two healthcare systems and a SaaS unicorn. Owns cloud migration roadmaps and FinOps engagements. Cleaned up $4.2M in idle Azure spend on his last fractional CIO retainer alone. Speaks both engineer and CFO.
Soraya Okonkwo
17 years building security programs from zero — twice as a startup CISO, once at a regional bank under NY DFS. Leads security program reviews mapped to NIST CSF 2.0, SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI, and CMMC. Has sat across the table from QSAs and external auditors more times than she'd like.
What clients ask before signing.
If your question isn't here, the 30-minute scoping call covers it. We don't ask for a retainer before scoping.
What is your experience with IT consulting? +
Our consultants average 17 years in operating IT roles before joining advisory work — CIOs, infrastructure architects, and security leads from manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, and SaaS. We've delivered 480+ engagements since 2008, including 92 M&A IT diligence projects across PE-backed rollups.
How do M&A IT diligence engagements work? +
We deliver buy-side IT diligence in 10-14 business days. The deliverable covers technology debt, integration cost (CapEx + OpEx), licensing exposure (M365, Adobe, Oracle, SAP), cyber risk posture, key-person risk in the IT team, and a 90-day integration playbook with budget. We have NDAs and conflict-check processes ready for sponsor and target review.
Do you do fractional CIO work? +
Yes. Our fractional CIO engagements are typically 20-40 hours per month and include quarterly board reporting, vendor management oversight, security program governance, IT budget planning, and strategic project leadership. Most clients keep us on retainer for 18-36 months while they build out internal leadership.
Will you implement what you recommend, or only advise? +
Either. We are intentionally vendor-neutral and will hand a roadmap to your incumbent provider if you prefer. If you want us to execute, our Managed IT and Cybersecurity teams pick up the work with the same engineers who scoped it — which keeps continuity and shortens kickoff by 30-60 days.
Can you provide references from similar engagements? +
Yes — under mutual NDA we share reference clients matched to your size, industry, and engagement type. For PE sponsors, we maintain a deal references list spanning manufacturing, professional services, healthcare services, and software with deal sizes from $30M to $410M EV.
What is your approach to security and compliance? +
We map every recommendation to a control framework — typically NIST CSF 2.0 plus the regulatory regime that applies (SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS 4.0, CMMC L2, NY DFS 23 NYCRR 500, or NAIC Insurance Data Security). We deliver a controls matrix, gap heatmap, and remediation roadmap with cost and effort estimates by control.
How do you handle scalability and growth planning? +
Strategic engagements include a 36-month capacity model: seat growth, M&A scenarios, cloud spend projection, network capacity, and identity/security tooling. We pressure-test the model against three scenarios (base, upside, distressed) so the board sees what breaks first as the company scales.
Can you help with vendor selection (RFPs)? +
Yes. We run formal RFPs for ERP, MSP, cybersecurity tooling, telecom/UCaaS, and copier/print fleets. Deliverable includes scoring matrix, reference calls, redline of master agreements, SLA negotiation, and contract execution. Our clients typically save 18-34% versus the incumbent renewal price after the RFP.
What are your response times during an active engagement? +
Engagement leads respond to client emails within 4 business hours and are reachable by phone same-day for time-sensitive issues. For active deals or incidents, we move to a daily standup and Slack/Teams shared channel. Fractional CIO clients have a private mobile number for after-hours.
How do you price consulting work? +
Three models. Discovery Sprint is fixed-fee at $4,800 for a 2-week assessment. Strategic Engagement is fixed-fee at $24,000 for an 8-week scope (most common). Fractional CIO is monthly retainer starting at $9,800/month with a 6-month minimum. We do not bill hourly because it incents the wrong behavior.
Do you sign NDAs and conflict-check? +
Yes — we'll execute mutual NDAs before any scoping conversation involves your data, financials, or vendor relationships. We run a conflict-check across our active client list and flag anything that could be perceived as adverse before we accept the engagement.
What if we already have an internal IT team? +
Most of our consulting clients have internal IT — that's the point. We work alongside your team, not over them. Our role is to bring outside pattern recognition, give your IT director air cover for hard decisions, and accelerate work the internal team doesn't have bandwidth for. We are explicit that we are not auditioning to replace your team.
Have a deal closing, an audit looming, or a CIO leaving?
Bring it to a 30-minute scoping call. NDA executed in 4 business hours. Fixed-fee proposal within 48 hours. No retainer to scope. We'll tell you straight if we're not the right fit — including who is.