TOPCOMPS/01 — SYSTEM: ACTIVE
Technology people
for business problems.
Fractional CTO / Consultancy / NED / Product / AI
What is Top Comps?
A small, highly experienced senior team. Operators, not advisers.
Top Comps brings together commercial, technical and operational experience to help businesses build products, solve problems and make better technology decisions.
From boardroom strategy through to technical architecture and delivery, we provide senior capability exactly where it is needed.
We help businesses work out what to do, how to build it, and how to get it delivered.
What do you need?
Start with the situation, not the job title.
- “We need technical leadership”→ Fractional CTO
- “We have an idea we want to build”→ Product & Platforms
- “We need an independent senior view”→ Consultancy
- “We need technology represented at board level”→ NED & Board Advisory
- “We need to understand what AI could do for us”→ AI & Automation
- “We have a difficult project that needs sorting out”→ Transformation & Delivery
Think > Build > Run
Three levels of an organisation. One team.
01
THINK
Strategy, advisory, board and commercial direction.
- Strategy
- Consultancy
- Board advisory
- Technology roadmap
02
BUILD
Technology, platforms, products, AI and integrations.
- Platforms
- AI
- Software
- Integrations
- Data
03
RUN
Fractional leadership, delivery, transformation and ongoing support.
- Fractional leadership
- Programme delivery
- Technical teams
- Continuous improvement
Selected work
Things we’ve helped build.
Luxury retail
Luxury Technology Platform
A growing luxury watch business needed one operational platform covering stock, sales, purchasing, repairs, payments and online channels. The business was running on spreadsheets and disconnected tools, and no one could see the whole picture.
SaaS / Product / E-commerce / Data / Integrations
Business crime intelligence
National Intelligence Platform
Multiple organisations held valuable intelligence in separate systems with no single operational view. Patterns that were obvious in aggregate were invisible to any individual member.
Data / AI / Platform / Public Sector
Membership organisation
Membership Platform Replatform
A national membership body was running on an ageing platform that no supplier wanted to touch. Renewals, events and communications each lived somewhere different, and member data disagreed with itself.
Fractional CTO / Transformation / Data / Integrations
Professional services
Operational AI & Automation
A services business was spending significant senior time on document review, triage and repetitive correspondence. AI was an obvious answer in principle and nobody could say where to start.
AI / Automation / Process / Data
Meet the team
Three people. Complementary, not interchangeable.
Duncan Clapman
Strategy / Commercial / Product / Board
- What I do
- I work out what a business should build, whether it is worth building, and what it is really worth commercially.
- Talk to me about
- Commercial strategy / Product direction / New ventures / Board advisory / Digital business models
David Barlow
Operations / Delivery / Business
- What I do
- I turn strategy into something that actually happens — plans, people, suppliers and the operational detail underneath.
- Talk to me about
- Project and programme delivery / Business operations / Implementation / Systems and process / Client and supplier engagement
Juanma Sanchez
Technology / Architecture / Engineering
- What I do
- I design and build the technology — architecture, engineering, integrations and the AI that has to work in production.
- Talk to me about
- Technical architecture / Software engineering / Integrations and infrastructure / AI in production / Fractional CTO engagements
Ways we work
Four engagement models.
01
Project
A defined problem or delivery requirement.
02
Fractional
Part of your leadership team for an agreed number of days each month.
03
Advisory
Ongoing strategic or board-level support.
04
Embedded
Working directly alongside your existing team.