An in-depth interview with Horațiu Negrea on transitioning from traditional executive roles to fractional leadership, strategic impact, and the future of this career model in Romania.
Horațiu Negrea is a manager who has climbed the entire organizational ladder, from Sales Manager and Financial Manager to the big-picture perspective of a CEO. With over 15 years of experience across diverse industries such as Water Treatment, Logistics, IT, and Medical, he has specialized in transforming operational chaos into scalable structures. Today, he also operates as a fractional leader, helping organizations find the fine balance between procedural discipline and the agility every modern business needs to survive.
Fractional Insider: How was your transition from a traditional career to fractional leadership/consulting?
Horațiu Negrea: It wasn’t a sudden leap, but rather a conclusion I reached after years spent “in the trenches.” After more than a decade in the same organization and going through every stage, from finance to general management, I realized that what truly motivates me is solving specific but critical problems. When I started working as a CEO in a startup, I understood that my experience could be far more valuable if applied surgically in multiple places, rather than being stuck in a single “9-to-5” structure.
Fractional Insider: What attracted you most to this model, and what challenges did it bring?
Horațiu Negrea: The freedom to choose where I can truly make a difference. It’s a great feeling to know that your experience from the water industry, for example, can save a process in a completely different field. The challenge? It’s a continuous “mental workout.” You have to be able to close a laptop after a discussion about multi-million-euro budgets and, ten minutes later, jump into a call where you need to solve an organizational culture issue in a five-person team. You have to be instantly all-in.
Fractional Insider: How do you choose the projects and clients you work with?
Horațiu Negrea: I look at the feeling, the chemistry between us, and the business’s potential. If I don’t believe the product will take off or if I see shareholders who just want someone to rubber-stamp their ideas, I’m not interested. I prefer projects where there’s a real problem with growth or organization. I like companies that have a good product but have gotten tangled up in procedures or sales. If I feel I can bring clear solutions and I’m not dealing with someone who thinks they know everything and blocks any improvement, then we’re a good match.
Fractional Insider: Tell us about a moment when you had a major impact as a fractional leader.
Horațiu Negrea: It’s a situation that comes up quite often in fast-growing companies: the sales department is thrilled because contracts are being signed nonstop, while the implementation team and finance are desperate because those projects aren’t actually profitable.
My impact didn’t come from a complicated strategy, but from a very direct intervention. I sat both sides at the same table and put the “cards on the table.” I realized there was no bridge between commercial promises and the reality of operational costs. I created a simple validation system—a kind of “reality filter”—so that no offer could go to a client without passing a profit margin test.
It wasn’t easy, because we had to change mindsets, not just Excel spreadsheets. But the result was that, in just three months, we stopped the financial “bleeding” caused by projects taken on just for volume. We transformed a team that was simply “chasing numbers” into one that finally understood where money is actually made and where it’s lost. That was the moment when the business owner could finally sleep peacefully at night, knowing that every new contract truly brought value, not just more work.
Fractional Insider: What are the main differences between being a full-time executive and a fractional one?
Horațiu Negrea: As a full-time executive, you’re “part of the house”—for better or worse—often caught up in internal politics and situations that are of little importance to the business, but consume your time and energy. As a fractional, you’re a kind of professional “sniper.” You’re there to deliver results, not to attend endless meetings about the color of the logo or rewriting the Christmas message for employees. You have an objectivity that a full-time employee can’t afford, because you’re paid to tell the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it is, to get things moving.
Fractional Insider: How do you explain the value of a fractional to a skeptical CEO?
Horațiu Negrea: I ask them directly: “How much does a €100,000 mistake cost you because you didn’t have someone who’s already been through this?” A fractional isn’t a cost, it’s a shortcut. I explain that they’re not buying eight hours of my day, they’re buying the years in which I’ve already made or seen the mistakes they want to avoid. They get the brain of a top executive, without the massive salary and benefits a full-time contract would require.
Fractional Insider: What are the most common mistakes companies make when working with fractionals?
Horațiu Negrea: The biggest one is confusing us with traditional consultants who only write nice reports that nobody reads. If you bring me into the team, let me implement. Another mistake is “sweeping the dirt under the rug.” If I don’t have access to real numbers or to the tensions within the team, we’re just wasting time. A fractional only works if there is trust and total transparency from the very first meeting.
Fractional Insider: How do you see the evolution of this career model in the coming years?
Horațiu Negrea: In Romania, we’re only just beginning, very timidly. Some businesses are starting to understand that they don’t have to “own” a talent to benefit from it, and startups play the biggest role here. It’s a democratization of expertise. In the future, small and medium-sized companies will have access to leaders they couldn’t previously afford, and leaders will have the freedom not to stagnate in one place. It’s a win-win and, in my opinion, the direction the global labor market is heading toward—that “gig economy” where everyone leverages their strengths by working on projects rather than as a full-time employee.
Fractional Insider: What advice would you give to a senior professional thinking about becoming fractional?
Horațiu Negrea: Learn to listen before offering solutions. When you have a lot of experience, you tend to jump in and tell people, “this is how it’s done.” That’s a mistake. As a fractional, your success depends on how quickly the team accepts you. And another piece of advice: define very clearly the problem you solve. Don’t sell yourself as a “jack of all trades,” but as the person who solves that one problem that keeps CEOs awake at night.
Horațiu Negrea’s journey shows that modern leadership is no longer about constant presence, but about real impact.
