Fractional & Interim CIO · Board Advisory · Singapore-based, global remit

I ran global technology for 25 years. Now I sit on your side of the table.

Sixteen of those years were at Robert Walters, the last as Group CIO — 150 people, 23 offices, 14 countries, ISO 27001 in every jurisdiction, and £3M a year out of the cost base while service got better. Boards, founders and investors now bring me in for that judgement on technology, cyber risk and AI — a few days a month rather than five days a week.

Author of The Full Ledger. Still building — three products of my own in trial and beta.

Book a 30-minute call Connect on LinkedIn

Former Group CIO, Robert Walters · CISSP · MSc Cybersecurity with AI (in progress) · Singapore PR

Michael Kennedy, founder of Kennedy Advisory

Services

Three ways I work

Independent technology leadership for boards, executive teams, founders and PE-backed companies — Singapore-based, engaged globally.

I take no referral fees, no vendor commissions and no reseller margin. My only revenue is the fee you pay me, and I’ll send standard terms before anything starts.

01

Fractional & Interim CIO

Senior technology leadership at 1–3 days a week, or full interim cover through a gap or a transformation. Operating model, cyber and AI governance, service quality — held to a standard, not just kept running.

1–3 days a week, or full interim cover

02

The Technology Ledger

An independent read on technology, security and AI posture — for a board weighing a decision, or an investor weighing a target. Three weeks, five written deliverables, and a session to walk you through them. See how it works →

One fixed fee, agreed up front

03

Vendor & Enterprise Readiness

I spent sixteen years being the person vendors had to get past. That works in both directions — helping buyers select and control vendors, and helping vendors clear enterprise security and procurement before it costs them the deal.

Two to four weeks, scoped up front

Inside all three: ISO/IEC 27001 and board-level cyber accountability · AI governance and assurance · service excellence and ESM (SLA → XLA) · operating model, shared services and vendor consolidation · technology due diligence.

Entry engagement

The Technology Ledger

One honest picture of your technology — risk, cost, capability and AI posture — inside three weeks. Fixed scope, a fee agreed before we start, and a session at the end to walk you through what I found.

Built for boards and founders who

  • Have a CIO gap to hold — a departure, a transition, or a transformation that has quietly stalled.
  • Need to give the board assurance on cyber or AI before a regulator, an incident or an enterprise buyer forces the question.
  • Are watching technology cost and service quality drift, without knowing which lever actually moves it.
  • Are about to invest, acquire or be acquired, and want an independent read before the money moves.
  • Have been told it’s all fine for two years, and no longer quite believe it.
3weeks, start to finish
~9hours of your leadership team’s time, in total
5written deliverables, not a slide deck
Book a 30-minute call

One fixed fee, agreed before anything starts. No day rate, no change requests, no surprises at the end.

How it works

Week one

Listen

  • Structured interviews — CEO, CFO, the technology lead, and two or three of the people actually doing the work
  • The board papers, the risk register, the last audit, the contracts
  • What has been promised, to whom, and by when

About 4 hours of your team’s time

Week two

Examine

  • Architecture, cloud and data estate at the level a board needs — not a diagram nobody reads
  • Security posture against ISO 27001 and the questions an enterprise buyer or regulator will ask
  • AI inventory — what is in production, what is in a sandbox, and what nobody has mentioned
  • Vendors and spend — what you pay, what you get, what you are locked into

About 3 hours of your team’s time

What I need: read-only access to your documentation, one named coordinator, and the contracts. What this is not: a penetration test, a code audit or a full estate inventory. It is a board-level read on what is true and what it will cost you.

Week three

Report

  • Findings written up and tested with you for accuracy before anyone else sees them
  • Everything prioritised, costed and given an owner
  • A 60 to 90 minute session to walk through the findings and take the hard questions — with your board or leadership team if that helps, or just with you

About 2 hours of your time

What you walk away with

01

Current State Ledger

One honest picture of technology risk, cost, capability and AI posture — the version without the optimism.

02

Risk Heatmap

What could actually hurt you, ranked by impact against the effort to fix it. High impact and low effort is your Monday list.

03

Cost & Vendor Findings

Where money is leaking — named, quantified and ranked. If by the end of week two I haven’t found addressable cost worth at least the fee, I’ll tell you, and you can stop there and pay for two weeks only.

04

Prioritised Action List

Costed, sequenced, with owners and dependencies. Executable from the week after, not aspirational.

05

Board Summary

Two pages your board will actually read. Present it yourself, or bring me in — whichever suits how you work.

A written report, and a proper conversation about it. Not a slide deck, and not a proposal for more work.

Track record

What this has looked like in practice

More than 25 years of it, most recently as Group CIO at Robert Walters. Four examples, and the same disciplines I bring to every engagement.

25+
Years of global technology leadership
14
Countries, 23 offices, one operating model
£3M+
Annualised savings delivered
150+
Global technology organisation led
Operating model

A blueprint the whole group adopted

Designed and led a global shared-services operating model across 14 countries and 23 offices — subsequently adopted as the group’s Business Services blueprint, well beyond technology.

Outcome: adopted as the group’s Business Services blueprint, beyond technology.

Cost & vendors

Grip on spend, without degrading service

Consolidated the global vendor estate by ~40%, renegotiated key contracts and put technology spend under genuine executive control — while service performance improved, not slipped.

Outcome: recurring cost taken out permanently — not a one-year haircut that grows back.

Governance & AI

Security and AI made board-ready

Took ISO/IEC 27001 across every jurisdiction, established board-level cyber accountability, and brought AI into production with human-in-the-loop controls — not pilots that never ship.

Outcome: clean audits in 14 jurisdictions, and a board that could answer the cyber question.

Service excellence

Service quality the business could feel

Transformed a distributed global service organisation — experience-level agreements (XLAs) implemented alongside SLAs, so service was measured by the experience people actually had, not just process compliance.

Outcome: Service Desk Institute accreditation, with XLAs live in production.

In their words

From the people I worked with for sixteen years

Kennedy Advisory launched in 2026 and current engagements are under NDA, so these are from Robert Walters — the people who saw the work up close, including the executive I reported to. I’ll talk you through live engagements on a call, and two named referees will take one.

“

An outstanding technology executive with the rare combination of strategic vision, operational excellence, and inspirational leadership… he has consistently delivered results — from transforming our global IT operating model to strengthening security and driving innovation — all while building a strong team culture founded on trust, accountability and growth.

Dominic DowChief Technology & Product Officer, Robert Walters Group — Michael’s direct manager
“

A visionary CIO with a strong commercial mindset and a clear ability to align technology with business outcomes. He consistently blends strategic thinking with practical delivery and sound judgement.

Chris AllenServices Director, Robert Walters
“

He has a rare ability to cut through complexity, focus on what truly matters, and consistently deliver value for the business… Any organisation would be fortunate to have Michael leading their technology function.

Robert CrossTechnology Leader, CISSP

Writing & building

Still in the work, not just advising on it

Most of what I advise on, I’m also doing. A book published this year, and three products of my own in the wild.

The Full Ledger — book cover
Book · Published September 2026

The Full Ledger

Governing the True Footprint of Technology

Every cloud region selected, every AI model deployed, every dataset retained creates footprint — energy draw, water use, embodied carbon, inference cost. Yet it gets measured everywhere except where the decisions are actually made: in sustainability reports, far from the architecture forums and procurement reviews.

Not a sustainability manifesto. A governance book — a measurement framework, decision gates that fit the forums you already run, and board reporting that earns attention the way security once did.

View on Amazon

Inside

  • The Full Ledger Framework — eight dimensions of technology footprint, and how to measure each
  • The Invisible Footprint Audit, and the Accepted-Risk Script
  • Decision gates that fit existing architecture, AI, data and change forums
  • Board reporting structures, model curves and region profiles
  • The regulatory floor now arriving — the EU Energy Efficiency Directive and the disclosure wave
  • A 90-day starting plan, and a full implementation roadmap

Essays

The Duty of Care · Part 1

Are We Treating People Merely as Means?

Most AI governance starts — and too often ends — with an outcomes test: will it work, and do the benefits outweigh the harms? The harder question sits underneath. On turning Kant’s principle into working design disciplines, and one personal test: authorise only the architectures you’d be willing to live inside.

Read on LinkedIn
The Duty of Care · Part 2

Why Green IT Is an Accounting Problem, Not a Values One

The honest case for Green IT isn’t a values appeal, it’s an accounting one. Put technology’s energy, carbon and waste on the books — where IT sits in SGX climate reporting, the rising AI energy bill, the six levers that cut cost and carbon together — and it becomes a decision a board can actually make.

Read on LinkedIn

An evolving series on the duty of care in technology. Follow on LinkedIn to catch new essays first.

Products

Trust The Process
In live trial

Trust The Process

A platform for football academies — sessions, player development and progress tracking, built for coaches rather than administrators. In live trial with two academies. ttp.football

 Proving
Beta on iOS

Proving

Verified fitness performance — results with proof behind them, rather than a number somebody typed in. In limited beta.

 Family Day Hub
In testing

Family Day Hub

Planning a family day out without eighteen browser tabs and a spreadsheet. Currently in user acceptance testing.

Which is why, when I’m advising on AI-native product, data consent or platform risk, it comes from current practice rather than memory. I also package the governance frameworks I use into board-ready toolkits, for teams who would rather run them themselves.

About

A global CIO, now independent

Credentials

  • —Former Group CIO, Robert Walters
  • —25+ years, global technology leadership
  • —CISSP, (ISC)²
  • —MSc Cybersecurity with AI (in progress)
  • —CTO Programme, National University of Singapore
  • —ITIL Expert · PRINCE2 · MBCS
  • —Singapore Permanent Resident
Book a 30-minute call

I started on mission-critical systems in a high-security nuclear research environment, and spent the next three decades in places where technology failing was not an option — regulated financial services, 24/7 online platforms, then sixteen years at Robert Walters across the UK, Europe and Asia. Singapore-based since 2008, with a global remit throughout.

The arc

2024–26Group CIO, Robert Walters — Singapore, global remit
2017–24Director of Technology Operations, Robert Walters — built the global shared-services model
2010–17IT Director & APAC leadership roles, Robert Walters — built the region’s technology capability
2009IT Operations Manager, F&C Asset Management — regulated financial platforms, Edinburgh
2006–08Infrastructure & Systems Manager, Mansion Group — 24/7 online gaming platforms, Gibraltar / Singapore
2004–06Technical Services Manager, Savcor — infrastructure and end-user services, Scotland
1997–2004Server Manager, UK Atomic Energy Authority — mission-critical systems in a high-security nuclear research environment
1996–97Omnes (Schlumberger) — enterprise messaging across UK / US oil & gas operations

Get in touch

Discuss an engagement

Interim cover, a fractional CIO, board advisory, or an independent view on AI and cyber governance — tell me what’s on your desk and let’s find the right shape.

Book a 30-minute call [email protected]
Book a 30-minute call