Fractional CTO
Senior technical leadership on a part-time basis: architecture, hiring, roadmap, vendor decisions, and board-level communication. For startups that need a CTO’s judgment before they need a CTO’s salary.
Fractional CTO · AI Consulting · Technology Consulting
Technical leadership that ships.
WalkeForward provides fractional CTO and AI consulting for startups — hands-on leadership from a technologist who has taken products from first line of code through acquisition.
What I do
Three ways to work together.
AI Consulting
Strategy and hands-on delivery for applying AI to real products: LLM-powered features, agentic systems, ML pipelines, and AI-assisted engineering practices. Grounded in shipping production AI, not demos.
Technology Consulting
Architecture reviews, technical due diligence, platform modernization, and build-vs-buy decisions. Practical guidance for scaling engineering teams and infrastructure.
How I work
Why founders keep me around.
Hands-on, not advisory-only
I write code, review architecture, and sit in the room for the hard decisions.
Startup-calibrated
Decisions sized for runway and stage — not enterprise process transplanted onto a ten-person team.
Outcomes over hours
Engagements framed around what ships and what it does for the business.
AI-native
I use AI-assisted development daily and bring those practices to your team.
About
Thirty years in, still shipping.
I’m Vann Walke. I started my career as a nuclear submarine officer in the US Navy, and I’ve spent nearly three decades building technology — as an engineer, architect, and CTO. Most recently I led technology at a connected-vehicle data company for over a decade, taking it through multiple product generations, partnerships with major global automakers, the launch of an agentic AI platform, and ultimately a successful acquisition. Today I work with startups as a fractional CTO and AI consultant — currently guiding architecture and AI strategy for early-stage companies in sports technology and mobility. I’ve seen what breaks at every stage of a company’s life, and I help founders avoid learning it the expensive way.
- US Navy nuclear submarine officer
- CTO through acquisition
- Agentic AI platform, zero to launch
- Global automaker data partnerships
- 30 years shipping software
Let’s talk about what you’re building.
If you’re a founder who needs senior technical leadership — for a quarter, a launch, or a hard decision — get in touch.