Fractional is the future of work

IF YOU are a Gen X-er, you were probably raised on a particular script. Work hard. Climb. Put in the hours – 10, 12 a day if that is what it takes. Provide for your family. Show up at the office and, whenever possible, at home.

Do not complain about the tension between these demands, because that tension is simply the price of a serious career. And then, somewhere around age 55 or 60, you get to stop. You will have earned the stop. That is retirement. That is the plan.

In 2026, that script has a problem. Humans are living longer. Singapore is a designated “Blue Zone 2.0”. Medical advances mean many of us will live well into our 80s and beyond. The idea of ceasing active intellectual contribution at 55 – with 30 or 40 good years still ahead – is not just personally deflating. It is a colossal waste.

Because here is what the script never accounted for: I actually like work.

Not the bureaucracy. Not the politics. Not the performance of being busy. The actual substance of it – the problem that needs solving, the moment a strategy clicks into place, the satisfaction of sitting inside a business that is trying to do something difficult and helping it succeed. That is not something I want to step away from. It is something I want more of, on different terms.

When I made the decision to work fractionally in 2020, it was never about the work itself. It was the structure that had started to constrain how I could show up for the work I still very much enjoyed.

Full-time employment, for all its clarity, is a single bet. One organisation. One mandate. One version of yourself.

What I wanted was to bring everything I had built across nearly three decades – in agency leadership, financial accountability, operations and transformation, commercial growth and governance – to the companies and founders that needed it most. The fractional model made that possible.

But I want to be honest about what that actually requires, because the conversation around fractional work tends to gloss over the hard parts.

Fractional is not charity work, and it is not a scaled-back career. Compensation is commensurate with contribution and value. The clients who understand that distinction are the right ones – and finding partners with genuine alignment on intent is as important as any technical skill you bring.

Equally, every client deserves your complete focus. A portfolio career does not distribute your attention across many things. It concentrates it, deliberately, on each one in turn. That is not a paradox of working this way. It is its central discipline.

The other area the conversation glosses over is that none of this is possible without what came before. My corporate years gave me the springboard.

The long days and longer nights, the hard decisions made under pressure with incomplete information, the times I got it wrong and had to find a way through. That was the real work. It built the instincts, the credibility and the resilience.

You cannot shortcut that formation. A fractional executive performing at the highest levels is not someone who avoided the corporate grind. They are someone who went all the way through it, and came out the other side with something worth deploying differently.

Since making that choice, I have sat with leadership teams at the most consequential moments of their companies’ journeys – exits, fundraises, rebrands, regional expansion.

I have helped executives find sharper versions of themselves, and helped businesses articulate, realise and unlock value. Each engagement is chosen deliberately. Each one singular in focus.

Singapore is beginning to catch up

Demand from local firms seeking fractional leaders grew six times in 2025 compared with the previous year. A government-backed pilot running through 2026 is measuring how fractional leadership raises productivity and unlocks specialised capability – the first time any national government has formally endorsed the model.

These are clear signals. It is a shift and recognition that the traditional full-time hire is not the only architecture for deploying senior talent.

The generation being missed in this conversation is the one with the most to offer: Generation X and mature millennial executives who spent 20 to 30 years building real capability across multinational corporations, banks and growth companies, who are now approaching a crossroads.

The traditional path narrows precisely when their value is at its highest. Allowing that expertise to quietly retire into the sunset, rather than be redeployed into the businesses and boards that need it most, is a loss the economy cannot afford.

The writer is a seasoned board director and fractional executive

Switching Lanes is a new column exploring the diverse realities of life after a full-time career. From money strategies to finding fresh purpose, we’re redefining retirement.

Have a perspective to share? Write to btletter@sph.com.sg with the subject, Switching Lanes.