fractional CTO · board member · ex-CEO

Helping boards and founders put AI to work.

I’m a fractional CTO and board member. Over the past decade I’ve built and run technology companies, including one I grew to a million customers, and I still write the code. If AI, technical leadership or growth is on your plate, I’m happy to help.

Dan Steele, fractional CTO, board member and AI transformation advisor
Loughton, London, and remote worldwide
£50m
in bookings, at the company I founded
1m+
customers, including the UK government
0→35
people, built from the first hire
+60% / −75%
revenue up, costs down, the year I became CEO
from experience

I’ve had to live with the decisions I recommend.

I’ve spent more time building and running companies than talking about them. With AI especially, that tends to be the difference between advice that sounds good in the room and advice that still works once it’s in production.

Track record
    2025 →

    Contract CTO & PE technical advisor · Various

    Building teams, restructuring technical operations, and running technical and security due diligence for private equity. I also get asked to speak on the practical uses of AI.

    2025 →

    CTO · Sonus Health (Decorte Future Industries)

    Building an AI platform that screens dogs’ hearts for murmurs from a phone recording.

    2024 →

    Founder & developer · breezy.chat

    A B2B AI product that automates customer chat for activity businesses. In acquisition talks.

    2017 →

    CEO, formerly CTO · eola

    Founded the UK’s largest activity-booking platform. £50m in bookings, 1m+ customers, used by the UK government. Promoted CTO→CEO by the board; grew revenue 60% while cutting costs 75% the following year.

    2016–2017

    Engineering manager · Moteefe

    First internal hire, so I built the team. Drove development of a new platform, fixed some serious performance problems, and put proper engineering processes in place.

    2015–2017

    Founder & developer · Omnidev

    Built a Soho dev agency from scratch. Its niche was getting into the commercials and the business proposition, not just shipping code.

    2015–2016

    Tech lead · Earlymarket

    Prototyped a run of SaaS products for a venture firm, including some genuinely odd ones (safety equipment for helicopters among them).

    2013–2015

    Systems developer · Chiltern IT

    Taught myself on the fly and ended up responsible for the relaunch: rebuilding the site, adding Elasticsearch, an ETL pipeline and the ERP internals.

References

Dan formally joined me as an advisor, helping with tech, product and our go-to-market strategy. He has a fantastic ability to “tell you how it is”, in the nicest way possible. We’ve since raised millions to help change the future of healthcare.

Photo of Dr Roeland Decorte Dr Roeland Decorte CEO, Sonus Health

Dan has led eola to success. He has a great eye for strategy, whilst being able to dig into and understand the detail. He has created a motivated team, and runs a tight ship.

Photo of David Mead David Mead Ex-CFO, HSBC UK & chairman of eola

Technically gifted, patiently encouraging, widely informed and uncommonly thoughtful. Simply put, he’s the best boss I’ve had, and I’d jump at the chance to work with him again.

Photo of Michael Gray Michael Gray Senior Software Engineer, Clientshare

Dan is full of energy, enthusiasm and ideas. He combines strong IT skills with creative flair and commercial thinking. Congratulations if you’re lucky enough to hire him.

Photo of Graham Nye Graham Nye Managing Director, Anamax Group
Get in touch

Tell me what you’re wrestling with.

Boards, founders and investors: if AI, technical leadership, a deal or stalled growth is on your mind, send a note. You’ll get a straight, honest answer.

let's talk