A fractional CMO for food and beverage brands.
You need senior marketing leadership. A full-time CMO is the wrong hire at this stage, too expensive, too soon.
A fractional CMO gives you that leadership now. Someone who owns the strategy, runs the function, and stays until it works.
We own the marketing. You get your focus back.
A fractional CMO embeds inside your business as the senior marketing leader.
Not a consultant who advises and leaves. Not an agency you have to brief.
We sit on the leadership team and own it:
Own the strategy and the priorities
We set the direction and decide what comes first, so the work is pointed before a dollar goes out.Hold the budget
We decide where the spend goes and stay accountable for the return on it.Lead the agencies and partners
We brief them, align them, and hold the standard, so they do their best work.Answer to the business, not the metrics
We are accountable to outcomes that matter to the P&L, not vanity numbers.
It is the seniority and judgment of a chief marketing officer, scaled to what a growth-stage brand actually needs. You get senior leadership in the room without the full-time salary, the equity, or the long commitment.
Most founders and high growth brands do not need a full-time CMO yet. They need a CMO's judgment now.
Big-CPG rigor, brought to emerging brands
We spent twenty years inside the companies that wrote the playbooks. PepsiCo. Frito-Lay. Consumer insights, innovation, brand management at scale. átomos takes that methodology and brings it to independent food and beverage brands that need it but could never hire it full time.
Proof, not credentials. We led the marketing for Chifles, the category-leading plantain chip brand. We are driving the national rollout for Local Weather, the functional sports drink, into Whole Foods. The work is the resume.
A bench, not a solo operator. You are not hiring one person. You are hiring a team with the range to lead strategy, design, and execution across the whole system, and a network deep enough to pull in the right specialists when a problem calls for them.
The judgment to use AI well. AI does not replace marketing strategy. It rewards the people who know which questions to ask it. We bring that judgment, and the professional network to execute on what it surfaces. In food and beverage fractional CMO work, nobody else is doing this yet.
How átomos works
Today átomos has three service levels to meet clients where they are:
Embedded leadership as a Fractional CMO, when a brand needs someone to own marketing.
One focused Strategy Sprint, when there is a single problem to solve.
An ongoing Advisor relationship, when the team runs it and just wants senior eyes.
átomos Leadership Across the Marketing System
Our responsibility is not to execute every function — it’s to ensure the entire system is aligned, resourced, and moving in the same direction.
We lead across brand, insights, marketing, and go-to-market —
connecting teams and partners so execution stays focused and coherent.
Execution is handled by teams and partners. We provide direction, oversight, and accountability.
Leadership Experience Across Leading CPG Organizations
Our team brings senior marketing and commercial leadership experience from some of the world’s most respected consumer companies.
FAQs
What does a Fractional CMO do?
1
A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader who works with your brand part time, owning the strategy, the budget, and the marketing function without being a full-time hire. They sit on the leadership team and stay accountable to business outcomes.
What is the difference between a fractional CMO and a full-time CMO?
2
The seniority is the same. The commitment is not. A fractional CMO gives a growth-stage brand top-level marketing leadership without the full-time salary, equity, and long-term cost, scaled to what the business actually needs right now.
How much does a fractional CMO cost?
3
It depends on the scope of the engagement. We scope it to what your brand needs rather than selling a fixed package, so the investment matches the work. The starting point is a conversation about what you are trying to do.
When should a brand hire a fractional CMO?
4
When marketing has become too important to leave unowned, but a full-time CMO is premature. Common moments: preparing to raise, scaling after a raise, a relaunch, or entering a new category. The throughline is that the stakes are high and no one senior owns the direction.
Should I hire a fractional CMO or an agency?
5
Hire the fractional CMO first. They set the strategy the agency executes against. We cover the full argument on a dedicated page: Fractional CMO vs. Agency
How do we start?
6
With a working conversation about the problem. If Fractional CMO is the right service level, we scope it together. If it is not, we will point you to what is.
Need senior marketing leadership now?
Tell us where your brand is and what you are trying to do. We will tell you straight whether a fractional CMO is the right fit, or whether a Strategy Sprint or Advisor relationship makes more sense.
