Before
Project management is broken
Tickets are vague. Engineers resent the documentation treadmill. PMs chase updates while leadership has zero visibility.
Fractional AI transformation leadership for regulated financial services
We unstick stalled AI initiatives in regulated financial firms.
Founder Marc Cheatham - former CTO and CISO who has had to solve these problems inside regulated financial environments. We bring that operating skill to deliver governed, production-ready AI that survives board and audit scrutiny.
Former CTO and CISO
Built multi-agent AI and DevOps frameworks before selling them
Designed enterprise security policies that passed external audits
25+
years as CTO and CISO in financial industry environments
$10B
asset manager technology organization built and led
Several-fold
increase in completed project-management work after governed workflow maturity
Audit-ready
security policies, controls, evaluations, and production release discipline
The before and after
You already know the pain. The work is turning it into governed momentum.
Before
AI initiatives are stalled
The board wants a roadmap. Pilots exist. Compliance keeps saying too risky. Everyone can see the market moving.
Before
DevOps is still decades old
You hear about agentic AI multiplying productivity, but one wrong move can damage your FINRA, SEC, or audit posture.
After
Governed agentic AI, modern DevOps, and compliance controls working together.
We combine battle-tested agentic AI with proper governance, TDD, CI/CD, and your existing compliance controls so the capability can survive production reality.
Developers stop wasting time on tickets and status updates and get back to real problem-solving.
Project managers get rich, accurate, real-time visibility instead of chasing ghosts.
Leadership gets a credible AI program they can take to the board with confidence.
Measurable outcomes
The target is not a better demo. It is throughput you can defend.
The right operating model makes AI useful without turning compliance into the enemy of velocity.
Business visibility
Before: Sprint tickets did not consistently show why the work mattered.
After: Project work links back to critical business needs with less documentation drag.
Advisor prep
Before: First-pass plan analysis took multiple hours of screen-by-screen review.
After: Advisor prep time drops from hours to minutes.
Release confidence
Before: Sparse handoffs and unfinished sprint work made release confidence harder to defend.
After: Predictable bi-weekly production releases.
Service scale
Before: More client work meant more manual analysis, status chasing, and coordination load.
After: Scale client service without scaling headcount or replacing your people.
Proof
Built in the field, not invented in a workshop.
Caravel Concepts
The operating model was proven internally before it became an offering.
Sprint work was moving through a traditional agile process, but ticket detail stayed sparse and management could not reliably connect day-to-day work back to critical business needs. Caravel connected its project-management system to the agentic developer workspace so context flowed in and implementation detail flowed back out.
Control: Research, statement-of-work, implementation, and merge-request phases all required sign-off, with branch approval before merge.
Result: Completed project-management work increased several-fold after workflow maturity while leadership gained clearer visibility and faster release confidence.
Independent RIA
Manual advisor prep became controlled plan analysis.
After running a client plan, the advisor spent multiple hours moving through screens, gathering cash-flow, tax, and planning details, and forming the first-pass analysis. The agentic workflow retrieved approved plan data, including persisted data behind the screens, and produced the initial quantitative readout.
Control: Plan-level access checks, read-only source data, sandboxed what-if analysis, and advisor review protected the original plan.
Result: Advisor prep time dropped from hours to minutes, helping the advisor reach higher-level planning judgment faster.
Engagement paths
Start with the level of intervention your initiative needs.
Each path is designed to create movement without pretending risk, controls, or stakeholder alignment are optional.
Unlock AI for your FirmAI readiness diagnostic
A focused operator-to-operator session that surfaces the blockers, governance gaps, delivery risks, and highest-leverage next move.
Unlock AI for your FirmRoadmap and governance sprint
Translate ambition into priorities, decision rights, evaluation discipline, controls, and a delivery path regulated teams can explain to the board.
Unlock AI for your FirmFractional transformation leadership
Ongoing executive and operating support across sponsors, product, engineering, data, security, compliance, and delivery teams when the work must move.
Unlock AI for your FirmWhy us
Why not hire internally or call a big consultancy?
C-suite strategy, project management, compliance, and deep engineering inside the same regulated environments.
A tightly integrated special-ops team, not an army of specialists or a single-role hire who needs six months to ramp.
Momentum in weeks, not quarters, because the operating patterns have already been built and proven.
Ready to stop managing the mess and start leading the transformation?
Book a 30-minute operator-to-operator diagnostic call. No pitch. No slides. Just a candid conversation with someone who has been exactly where you are.
Limited fractional capacity. Current engagements are prioritized by urgency and fit.