An embedded AI executive who owns governance proof and workforce adoption, not just platform decisions.
An embedded retainer for mid-market healthcare and insurance: 3 to 4 days per month at the leadership table, owning strategy, governance, vendor diligence, and adoption end to end. 12-month minimum at $15K to $20K monthly. Engagements begin with the AI Readiness Sprint or NAIC AI Audit, which earns the retainer in real work rather than a flat onboarding fee.
Tiago Ferreira, Founder. AI governance frameworks aligned to NAIC Model Bulletin and HIPAA, grounded in cyberpsychology and digital transformation leadership. Federal government and startup background. Currently embedded with a U.S. life insurance carrier on Phase 1 governance.
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"The technology question was always the secondary one. The real question is whether the people charged with using it were ever asked if they were ready."
Tiago Ferreira, FounderMost fractional AI executives come out of engineering, product, or CTO backgrounds. Tool selection sits at the top of the scope. Change management lands somewhere around item four or five. The order is upside down.
"The technology rarely fails. What stalls is the people-readiness gap that nobody is leading."
I run the same engagement in the opposite order. The human infrastructure is the strategy. Technology decisions still get made well, but they serve the people side rather than the other way around.
The work translates to insurance, financial services, and other regulated industries where adoption is the actual bottleneck. Most of the practice runs in healthcare because that is where the people-side gap is widest right now.
Most leaders find their way here at one of these moments.
Some teams are using what was rolled out, others are not, and the gap is widening rather than closing.
Different departments are doing their own thing, vendors are talking past each other, and there is no single place where the picture comes together.
The board is asking. Investors are asking. Internally, no one has clear ownership of the answer.
The same handful of people are doing all the experimentation, demos, and explaining, while everyone else is waiting for permission or clarity.
Policies, vendor risk, ethics, accountability. There is no clear owner and no clear cadence for reporting upward.
Human infrastructure as the strategy.
Most CAIOs build a tool stack and try to retrofit the people around it. I build a people-readiness foundation first and let the tool decisions follow. The four areas below are the load-bearing parts of that foundation.
Psychological safety
Whether people feel safe to experiment, ask questions, and admit when something is not working.
Workforce readiness
Confidence and identity, not just skills training. Whether people see themselves as the kind of professionals who use AI well.
Adoption design
How AI gets built into daily workflows in ways people sustain past the initial rollout.
Governance with a human lens
Policies that protect people first and data second. Clinical safety, dignity, equity, and accountability built into the framework.
A 12-month engagement. Five workstreams.
Three to four days a month embedded with your leadership team, anchored in five workstreams that compound over the year.
AI readiness assessment
The diagnostic that anchors everything else. The AI Readiness Sprint is the standalone version, board-ready in 14 days. Embedded in the retainer, it deepens into team-level signal and ongoing operational governance you can defend.
Strategy and roadmap
An AI vision aligned to the business goals you actually have, with a phased plan that respects how fast your organization can move rather than how fast a vendor wants you to.
Governance framework
AI policies, ethical guidelines, vendor risk framework, and the compliance scaffolding (HIPAA-aware for healthcare) the board will look for. Built once, maintained on a cadence.
Adoption and enablement
Workforce readiness programming, psychological safety infrastructure, and the change-management work that keeps adoption from flat-lining at a fraction of the user base.
Executive and board communication
Reporting cadence, KPI development, and the stakeholder education layer so leadership and the board are aligned on what AI is actually doing for the organization, in language they trust.
Engagements begin with a paid prerequisite diagnostic, either the AI Readiness Sprint ($9,500) or the NAIC AI Readiness Audit ($15,000). The diagnostic delivers standalone artifacts you keep regardless, then earns the retainer in real work rather than a separate onboarding charge.
A clean ladder. Start where you actually are.
AI Readiness Sprint
$9,500
Six board-ready deliverables: Shadow AI Inventory, Governance Charter, Acceptable Use Policy, Vendor Risk Framework, ROI Roadmap, Regulatory Checklist.
Best for: leaders who want a board-ready package in two weeks before committing to a longer engagement.
Learn About the SprintFractional CAIO
$15K–$20K/mo
Embedded part-time AI executive leadership across strategy, governance, adoption, and board reporting.
Best for: leaders who need ongoing executive partnership on the people side of AI.
Book a Discovery CallA full-time Chief AI Officer in the U.S. averages $352,000 base salary, often $500,000 loaded with benefits and equity (Glassdoor 2026). The fractional model delivers embedded executive leadership at roughly 40-50% of that loaded cost.
Tiago Ferreira
Founder & Fractional Chief AI Officer
Two Master's degrees: Cyberpsychology (the science of how people interact with technology) and Digital Transformation Leadership (how organizations actually change). The combination is rare in the fractional CAIO market, where most executives come up through engineering or product.
Background spans U.S. Government, healthcare startups, and enterprise change work. Comfortable in regulated environments, in cultures where change has been hard to land before, and inside the operational constraints that make AI adoption harder than the demos suggest.
The practice runs primarily out of Tampa Bay, Florida, with clients across the United States. Capacity is intentionally limited to a small number of active retainers at any given time so each engagement gets the depth it needs.
Practical answers before the call.
Why a 12-month minimum?
Adoption work is not a sprint. The assessment, governance setup, and rollout cadence each take a quarter to land properly. A shorter engagement risks declaring a win before the people side has actually shifted. The minimum protects you from that.
We already have a CTO. Where does this fit?
The CTO owns the technical architecture. The Fractional CAIO owns the human infrastructure, the governance posture, and the adoption design. The roles run in parallel and make each other more effective, not redundant.
What does three to four days a month actually look like?
Roughly: two days embedded with your leadership team in working sessions, governance committee, and board prep; one day on workforce readiness work with managers; and a half to full day on adoption diagnostics and reporting. The cadence flexes to where the engagement is in its lifecycle.
Do you require we use specific AI tools?
No. Tool selection is part of the work, but it is downstream of the people-readiness foundation. There are no resale relationships, no kickbacks, and no preferred vendor list to push.
Do you only work with healthcare?
Most of the practice is healthcare because that is where the people-readiness gap is widest right now. The work translates to insurance, financial services, and other regulated industries where adoption is the actual bottleneck. If you are in one of those, the discovery call is the right place to talk through fit.
What happens at the end of the engagement?
Your governance, reporting cadence, and adoption infrastructure stay with your team. The goal is for you to not need a Fractional CAIO at the end of twelve months, because you have built the internal muscle to run the work yourselves.
Is there an onboarding fee?
No. Engagements begin with a paid prerequisite diagnostic, either the AI Readiness Sprint ($9,500) or the NAIC AI Readiness Audit ($15,000). The diagnostic delivers standalone artifacts you keep regardless, and earns the retainer through real work rather than a flat onboarding charge. The retainer then begins clean at $15K to $20K monthly.
A 30-minute call. No pitch. No pressure.
A clear conversation about where your team is, where you want to take it, and whether a Fractional CAIO is the right fit for the next year of work.