Not every organisation needs a full-time IT director.
But almost every one has the questions. I fill that role in whatever shape fits: a fixed day a week, on an interim basis during a change or a vacancy, or alongside the IT manager you already have, as extra capacity and a second pair of eyes.
Fixed prices. One month's notice, both ways. For roughly half the year I can work on site, the other half I work remotely, in blocks of several months. The calendar is fixed a year ahead and you get it, so you can hold it against your own plan before you sign.
Jacob PootTen years at OGD, an IT services provider of 1,300 people. Three of them running IT for their client companies, one day a week each. Then their own IT. Helped build it, left, and was asked back to run it.
Everyone involved in your IT has an interest of their own. Except you.
Your IT supplier is a company with commercial objectives, and rightly so. That's what a company is. But it does mean that when you ask "should we do this?", you're asking someone whose answer affects their own revenue.
And your internal administrator, if you have one, has a limited number of hours and a view shaped by the systems he keeps running every day. He knows your environment better than anyone. He is also the last person who can be expected to judge it from the outside.
Neither of those is a failing. It's structure. It's how the arrangement works, and it works that way at every company of your size.
What's missing isn't effort or competence. It's someone with no stake in the answer.
I sell no licences, no hardware, no managed services and no implementation hours. There is nothing I can steer you towards, because there is nothing I'd earn from it. That is not a virtue. It's a business model, chosen deliberately so that my advice can be worth something.
One exception, and I'd rather say it than have you spot it: a scan can end with you keeping me on. So I do have an interest in what it finds. That's why the scans are fixed-price and self-contained, and why the monthly role runs on one month's notice from either side. You should be able to say no to the second thing without regretting the first.
In a company of 1,300 people this is a full-time job with a name. In a company of 150 it isn't a full-time job, but the questions are identical, and they cost you just as much when nobody is answering them.
Six things I take off your desk
- How your IT is organisedRoles, responsibilities, who decides what. Where the gaps are and what to fix first.
- How your teams workWays of working, collaboration, agile where it genuinely helps, knowledge transfer, quality.
- How your processes runITIL where it fits — incident, change, problem, service. As agreements people follow, not bureaucracy.
- What it costsFull visibility, savings identified, cloud and licence spend under control.
- Who your suppliers areSelection, contracts, performance. I sit on your side of the table, not theirs.
- Where you're exposedSecurity, continuity and resilience across people, process and technology.
I've done this before, for several companies at once.
Currently: working with a farming business in England on data integration and a cybersecurity assessment.
I'm Jacob Poot. Twelve years in IT, ten of them at the same company: OGD, a Dutch IT services provider of 1,300 people. I started as a junior and worked through most of the organisation.
Three of those years were in Totaalbeheer, the department that provides IT management to OGD's client companies. Several clients at once, one day a week each, on site, responsible for their entire IT function. Different sectors, different sizes, different messes. It is exactly what I do now, and it is where I learned that the answer is almost never a product.
After that I moved to OGD's own IT and helped build it from the ground up, a team of four, serving 1,300 people across five sites, first hands-on, then as team lead over 35 people in four specialist teams. I left for two years of consultancy, including a cloud migration for one of the largest health insurers in the Netherlands. Then they asked me back to run, as IT Manager, the environment I had helped build.
The short version
- 10 years at OGD, an IT services provider of 1,300 people
- 3 of those years in Totaalbeheer — several client companies, one day a week each
- Then OGD's own IT: helped build it in a team of four, later asked back to run it
- 35 people across 4 specialist teams, 3 years as team lead
- 7+ years hands-on systems administration, 24/7 high-availability
- ISO 27001 + ISAE 3000 — designed the controls, then oversaw them for 5 years
- 4 years as an IT trainer, alongside the day job
- 12 Microsoft certifications, active on my transcript
Enterprise IT for companies that aren't one.
For ten years I saw what it takes to make IT work for 1,300 people across five sites: a 24/7, high-availability estate, an ISO 27001 and ISAE 3000 certified control framework, documentation, and a plan a board can actually read. None of that stops being true at 150 people. It just stops being offered to them.
Same thinking. Different scale. Without the enterprise price tag and without the enterprise bureaucracy.
Six ways in. Price fixed up front.
Every one of these is a complete piece of work with a defined outcome. The ranges below depend on scope; in the first conversation we pick what fits and the figure is then fixed. None of them commits you to anything afterwards.
IT Cost Scan
Where is the IT budget actually going, and what can go? Contracts, licences, subscriptions, cloud spend.
- Full contract and licence inventory
- Cost per employee and per process
- Duplicates and silent renewals
- Contract and notice dates in one list
- Costed savings recommendation, with figures
If I can't earn back my own fee, you'll hear it from me, not from your accountant.
IT & Security Scan
How IT is organised here, how mature it is, and where the risk sits. One assessment, because they are the same question asked twice.
- Roles and responsibilities: who decides what
- Processes measured against ITIL
- Supplier and knowledge dependency
- Security and maturity — Azure, Entra, Microsoft 365, physical
- Improvement plan with priorities and a board memo
AI Readiness & Training
Yes, everyone is talking about this. That doesn't make it less true: I use it every day and build my own software with Claude Code. I can tell you where it saves hours and where it's theatre, worth knowing before you buy licences.
- Readiness first: should Copilot see all your data? Permissions, oversharing, labels
- Licensing: Copilot Chat is often already included at no extra cost
- Policy and AI literacy — the EU AI Act requires it (Article 4)
- Use cases: where it pays for itself and where it doesn't
- Training on Copilot and Claude, on your own real work
Team Coaching
Making an existing IT team work better, in their own environment, on their own work. I built four specialist teams from scratch and led 35 people across them.
- Team scan and improvement plan
- Roles, ownership, who decides what
- Ways of working, agile where it helps
- Knowledge transfer and quality
- Support for the team lead, one-to-one
Vendor Selection
Choosing or replacing a system or supplier, objectively. I sell no licences and no hardware. That's the point.
- Requirements and longlist
- Market research: who genuinely delivers in your segment
- Shortlist, demos, comparison
- Implementation and exit terms reviewed
- Negotiation and contract review
Training & Teaching
Teaching how IT is actually managed: the organisation, the processes, the costs, the decisions. Four years as an IT trainer, and a degree in social care. I was trained to support people before I was trained to run systems behind the teaching itself.
- Boards and management teams — understanding and steering IT without being technical
- IT professionals — from doing the work to running it: process, ITIL, cost, suppliers
- Education — modules and lectures for universities of applied sciences and colleges
- Soft skills — communication, feedback, collaboration
Fractional IT Director
Most engagements start with a scan and end here, because once the list exists, the obvious question is who owns it between now and next year.
| Tier | Commitment | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | 1 day/week — the ongoing role | €3,750 |
| Intensive | 2 days/week — the maximum | €7,000 |
All prices excl. VAT, fixed. No ranges and nothing billed after the fact. Held until 1 January 2027. Travel at cost. One month's notice, both ways.
Two days a week is the ceiling, deliberately. I work with several organisations at once. It keeps my judgement sharp, it keeps the relationship what it is meant to be, and it keeps you clear of the rules on disguised employment. If you need someone five days a week, you need to hire, and I'll say so in the first conversation.
What that sits against: a permanent IT manager costs a Dutch employer €113,000 to €128,000 a year fully loaded. Two days a week with me is €84,000, on one month's notice, with no recruitment, no dismissal law and no statutory sick pay.
Not included: hands-on support, licences and tooling, and out-of-pocket travel, quoted separately, so the monthly figure stays the monthly figure.
Not the right size yet? At around fifty people an ongoing role is often too heavy, and I would rather say so now than after three months. Start with a scan or a defined piece of work instead. If it turns out you need someone permanently, we talk again. If it turns out you do not, you have a report that stands on its own and you owe me nothing further.
What you get every month
- A two-page board report: what happened, what's live, what needs deciding
- A current risk and action list with named owners and dates
- Cost control and spend visibility
- Your suppliers managed — quotes, contracts, performance
- A quarterly roadmap tied to your business plan, not a vendor catalogue
- One person who knows your business and picks up the phone
Reachable 07:00–15:00 UK time every working day, including in the remote months. Until 16:00 during a go-live or incident window. Same working day response.
Outside that window your own admin or supplier decides. What they may decide without me is written down in the first month: one page, an amount and a mandate. That makes it an agreement instead of improvising at the worst possible moment.
One month's notice, both ways. You stay because it works, not because a contract holds you.
When I can be on site
The calendar is fixed a year ahead and goes in the proposal. You can hold it against your own plan before you sign.
The Dutch budget season falls largely between September and November, and in those months I work remotely. If your budget cycle sits there, we plan my scheduled week around it or put those sessions in December. Say so in the first conversation and it is a scheduling question rather than a surprise.
What I do, and what I don't
Nobody is good at everything. Below is what I take on myself and where I bring someone else in, so you know what you're getting from me.
What I do
- Organise and improve IT functions
- Teams, ways of working, agile, knowledge transfer
- ITIL and service management in business processes
- IT costs, cloud costs, licences and contracts
- Vendor selection and research
- Security and maturity assessment across people, process and technology
- Judging whether your controls are actually being followed — I designed them myself and oversaw them for five years under ISO 27001 and ISAE 3000
- Microsoft 365, Azure, Entra and Intune — enough depth to judge what is there and to hold your supplier to it
- Training and teaching — for boards, IT professionals and education
- AI readiness and adoption — Copilot and Claude, from permissions to training
What I bring someone else in for
- Legal compliance opinions and regulatory scope determinations
- Formal audit reports and certification programmes
- Penetration testing
- Day-to-day IT management, helpdesk and infrastructure operations
- 24/7 support — I won't promise a rota I don't have
- Licence and hardware resale — I stay independent on purpose
- Build work — dashboards, integrations, custom development. I design it and steer it; I don't build it.
What you'll probably want to know
We already have an IT partner. What would you do?
Something different, and usually we complement each other well. Your IT partner manages workplaces, networks and incidents. That's their job and most of them do it well. I set the direction: what should happen, in what order, at what cost.
In practice I often sit opposite that supplier on your behalf. I'm not there to replace them. I'm there so the conversation has someone on both sides of it who knows the subject.
And because this is where these engagements usually go wrong, I commit to it up front: findings about your supplier go to that supplier first, for factual accuracy, before they reach your board. Their response goes in the report. And where the root cause was a decision made inside your own organisation, a proposal declined twice, say, that goes in too. I criticise the setup, not the people. An assessment that ambushes your supplier might feel satisfying, but it doesn't produce a working relationship, and you still have to work with them.
What about our own sysadmin?
This one is for the person who will probably read this page first, because pages like this get forwarded with "have a look at this?" And that rarely reads as a compliment.
I spent nine years as a systems administrator before I became an IT manager, so I know the seat from the inside. What I find in almost every company this size is not an engineer falling short, but an engineer who was never given the hours to document, standardise and step back. That is a budget decision, not a performance problem, and that is how it appears in my report.
So two commitments as standard. Your engineer sees the findings before the board does. And the hours he is missing appear in the improvement plan as a finding, not as capacity I quietly assume is free. I'm not taking his job. I don't do day-to-day management or helpdesk. And everything I recommend costs him time, so that time belongs in the plan.
You work with other clients. Isn't that a disadvantage?
It's the main advantage, and it's most of the reason the model works at all.
A permanent IT manager sees one environment for years and slowly stops noticing what's unusual about it. Someone working across several organisations sees which suppliers actually deliver, what a fair quote looks like, and which solutions hold up under real conditions, and brings that to your table without you paying to find out the hard way.
This isn't theory for me. For three years I worked in Totaalbeheer, OGD's department for client IT: several client companies at once, one day a week each, responsible for their complete IT. Different sectors, different sizes. That is where the pattern recognition comes from, and it is a large part of what you're buying.
The flip side is real and I'd rather name it than have you discover it. A fractional manager isn't available every hour of every day. That's what the fixed day, the monthly report and an agreed escalation route are for. If you genuinely need someone continuously available, you need to hire, and I'll tell you that in the first conversation rather than the sixth.
How much on-site time do I get?
The timeline under the rates above shows it at a glance: April to August and December I can be on site, September to November and January to March I work remotely, with one pre-scheduled week on site inside each remote block.
That week is inside the monthly fee, travel included. Your emergency does not pay for my travel. If you need me during a remote month beyond that week, I come. You hear the same working day whether I can and when, because I have other clients. For that extra trip I pass on the ticket at cost and nothing else; the travel days are my time. I will not attach a fixed deadline to it that I cannot always keep. The calendar is fixed a year ahead and goes in the proposal before you sign, not after.
For most of this work that balance holds: the thinking, the reporting and the supplier management happen perfectly well over a video call. The weeks on site are for what genuinely needs a room: workshops, board sessions, supplier negotiations, and walking the floor.
Where this doesn't fit: if you are mid-way through an ERP selection or a go-live that needs someone physically present over the coming months, I am not the right choice, and I'll say so straight away.
How do you reach our systems from abroad?
Through your own environment, in my name, on your terms, never through a shared admin account and never with your supplier's credentials. Your conditional access, your logging, your offboarding: when the contract ends you disable that one account and the access is gone.
The cleanest setup is a virtual desktop you manage yourself. Your data never leaves your environment, nothing lands on my laptop, and you don't have to enrol my device in your management. I don't need standing admin rights for it: I would rather hold rights I activate per occasion, with a reason and a time limit, visible in your own log.
If you block sign-ins from outside the EEA, and you should, you do not switch that block off for me. One policy is written for my account, with phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication and a device requirement. The net effect is that my account is more tightly controlled than the rest of your organisation. I am not asking you to relax anything; this is a tightening you want anyway.
If your environment doesn't work that way yet, that isn't an obstacle. It's a finding. It goes into the improvement plan, with your own admin in the room.
You're one person. What if you disappear?
Fair, and it's why I work without lock-in on principle. Everything lives in your environment, on your tenant, owned by you. All documentation, runbooks and reports are yours and sit with you.
If we stop working together, for any reason, you take everything with you and a successor can pick it up without starting over. That isn't a marketing promise; it's how the files are set up from day one.
Do you offer 24/7 support?
No. I work business hours, and out of hours there is best-effort escalation with no SLA. I'd rather say that plainly.
I have run 24/7 operations. That is exactly why I won't sell you a rota I don't have. I know what it takes to staff one properly, and one person is not it.
A 24/7 commitment without a real rota behind it is a promise that breaks at the worst possible moment. If you genuinely need it, I'll help you place it with the right party and manage them on your behalf.
What does it cost, and are there surprises?
The prices are on this page. Fixed price means fixed price: no time-and-materials creep, no additional work without your sign-off first.
Ongoing engagements run with one month's notice on both sides. I'd rather you stayed because it works than because a contract held you.
Guest lectures
Four years as an IT trainer, and I never stopped enjoying it. If you run a course at a university of applied sciences or a secondary school and you'd like someone from the field in the room, on IT management, cloud or AI at work, I'd like to hear from you.
Before IT I trained as a social care worker. That turns out to matter more in a classroom than any certification does: I'd rather a group left curious than impressed.
Practical
- Higher and secondary education, Dutch or English
- In person when I'm in the Netherlands, remote the rest of the year
- Unpaid or expenses-only — I do them because I like doing them. A module or a series falls under training and teaching, and that is paid work.
What I built with AI this summer, and what it taught me about my own trade
21 August 2026 — A cockpit, a learning portal, an assessment tool and an investment dashboard. What AI does and does not replace.
Thirty minutes. No slides, no pitch.
Tell me what's going on. I'll tell you honestly whether I can help, and if I can't, I'll say that too. Most people leave the first call with a clearer idea of their next step, whether or not they work with me.
- Fixed prices — you know what you'll pay
- No lock-in: your environment, your data, your documentation
- Independent: no licences, no hardware, no resale
- One month's notice, both ways
- I'll tell you when something is outside my expertise