# Dan Steele Fractional CTO, board member and former CEO focused on AI. Loughton, London, and remote worldwide. Dan Steele is a fractional CTO, board member and former CEO who helps boards and founders put AI to work. He built and ran a company to a million customers, still writes code, and runs technical due diligence for private equity. ## By the numbers - **£50m** in bookings, at the company I founded - **1m+** customers, including the UK government - **0→35** team, built from the first hire - **+60%** revenue the year I became CEO, costs down 75% ## 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. ## Ways to work together ### AI transformation Turning “we should do something with AI” into things that actually ship and earn their keep. I build these systems myself, so the advice comes from doing rather than watching. For: Boards and founders working out what AI means for them ### Fractional CTO Senior technical leadership without the full-time hire: teams, architecture, delivery, and the hard calls. I’ve built engineering teams from the first hire and restructured them when they stall. For: Scaling startups between CTOs, or yet to hire their first ### Board member & NED An operator’s view in the boardroom: strategy, technology risk, and honest answers. I sit on the board of the company I founded, and I’ve sat in the chief executive’s chair, so I know how the decisions land. For: Companies and investors who value a straight talker on the board ### Technical due diligence Pre-deal technical and security reviews for private equity and acquirers, written in the commercial language the deal team needs. For: Private equity groups and acquirers ### GTM, through a tech lens Go-to-market shaped by someone who has owned both the codebase and the revenue line, so product, funnel and engineering pull in the same direction. For: Founders whose growth has quietly stalled ## Track record ### Non-executive director · [eola](https://eola.co) 2026 → present On the board of the company I founded, after handing over the chief executive’s role. Governance, strategy, and oversight of technology and risk. ### Fractional CTO & PE technical adviser · Various 2025 → present 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. ### CTO · [Sonus Health](https://www.sonus.health) 2025 → present Building an AI platform that screens dogs’ hearts for murmurs from a phone recording. I own the technical direction and still build alongside the team. ### Founder & CEO · [breezy.chat](https://breezy.chat) 2025 → present A B2B AI product that automates customer chat for activity businesses, embedded across five booking platforms. Built and shipped solo, from architecture to first revenue; it now runs largely autonomously. ### Founder & CEO · [eola](https://eola.co) 2024–2026 The board moved me from CTO to CEO. In the year that followed I grew revenue 60% while cutting costs 75%, then appointed a general manager and handed over the day-to-day running. ### Founder & CTO · [eola](https://eola.co) 2017–2024 Founded the UK’s largest activity-booking platform and built the engineering team from the first hire. £50m in bookings, 1m+ customers, used by the UK government. ### Engineering manager · [Moteefe (now Mayzing)](https://www.mayzing.com) 2016–2017 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. ### Founder & CEO · Omnidev 2015–2017 Built a Soho dev agency from scratch. Its niche was getting into the commercials and the business proposition, not just shipping code. ### Tech lead · Earlymarket 2015–2016 Prototyped a run of SaaS products for a venture firm, including some genuinely odd ones (safety equipment for helicopters among them). ### Systems developer · Chiltern IT 2013–2015 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. > > 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. > > 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. > > 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. > > Graham Nye, Managing Director, Anamax Group > Dan understands people, and knows how to get the best from those around him. Even in the tougher moments of startup life he made the challenges feel achievable, and that ability to carry people with him is a large part of why the company succeeded. He’s the kind of leader any team or board would want. > > Rita Costa, Head of Marketing, eola ## Get in touch Boards, founders and investors: if AI, technical leadership, a deal or stalled growth is on your mind, send a note. I’m also open to the right full-time CTO role. - Email: [dan@dan-steele.com](mailto:dan@dan-steele.com) - [Contact form](https://dan-steele.com/#contact) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/developerdansteele/) - [GitHub](https://github.com/dansteele)