The questions that come up before the call.

I take on CEO and MD mandates directly when a business needs someone with the authority to run it, or come in as interim CTO, CDO, or CIO when the problem is more specifically technical. Either way, that means operational responsibility — decisions on vendors, on people, on what gets built — and staying until it’s resolved rather than until a document is delivered.

The problems I’m called about cluster around the same few patterns. A business in crisis or transition that needs someone with full authority to run it — not advise it. A technology project that has moved in the wrong direction while the team running it has too much at stake to say so. A business under real pressure to move on AI or digital transformation. No clear owner, no one with a mandate to decide — the pressure is real but every initiative gets deferred. A team that isn’t producing. Everyone who could fix it reports to you — so the calls that need making don’t get made. A business that has outgrown its infrastructure and needs a function that doesn’t exist yet.

What they share: the problem doesn’t sit inside one department — or sometimes not inside one function at all. It crosses IT, operations, finance, legal, and people at the same time, or it requires someone to hold the whole seat rather than advise around its edges. A specialist solves one piece. I work across all of it.

Depending on where the problem sits, I take the seat directly, or come in as interim Chief Technology Officer, Chief Digital Officer, or Chief Information Officer. The seat follows the problem.

CEOs, MDs, boards, and owners of mid-market businesses — either because something isn’t landing (a technology programme, a team, a direction that should have been set internally), or because the business itself needs someone to take the seat through a crisis or transition.

The trigger is almost always a specific discomfort: budget committed and progress doesn’t match the promise; competitors moving while internally nothing gets decided — no owner, no one who wants to be first; a team that isn’t producing, and everyone who could fix it reports to you.

Early is better than late. The situation is recoverable more often than it looks.

Two shapes, depending on the mandate. A CEO or MD seat runs until the business is stable or a permanent successor is in place — not a fixed term set in advance. An interim CTO, CDO, or CIO engagement is typically three to eighteen months, the duration following the problem rather than a standard contract.

In shorter engagements — a troubled programme, a critical phase that has to land — the work is diagnostic first, then operational: take the phase over, run the reset, bring in the right people.

Longer interim engagements typically build a function from scratch, close the gap between a business sponsor and a delivery team, or own a transition through to the point where an internal team can take over.

Each phase has defined scope and outputs agreed before it starts. No open-ended involvement.

Two situations where it won’t work.

The first is when the real purpose is to produce a report that ratifies a decision already taken. I’ve been asked to do this — the conclusion is written before the work starts, and the engagement exists to give it cover. I won’t take those on.

The second is when the person commissioning the work has no authority to act on what comes back. Findings without a decision-maker are just a document. Same answer.

What I need on the other side: a real problem, someone with the authority to move on it, and a counterpart who’d rather hear what’s actually true than what they were hoping to hear.

That’s a legitimate outcome — and a useful one. You get a clear picture of where things stand, the risks worth watching, and the signals that would indicate deterioration. There’s no incentive to find problems that aren’t there: I’m not on a retainer that depends on the engagement continuing.

Each phase has an agreed fee or capped day rate before work starts. No open-ended retainers. If a phase produces nothing worth acting on, there’s no obligation to continue.

No sector restriction. Past work covers fintech, telecoms, energy, logistics, and public sector across Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia. The common thread is complexity — not the industry.

Both. Based in Prague, working on-site across the Czech Republic and across Europe in combination with remote. In the Philippines when engagements require it.

Yes. The Philippines work is run from Manila when engagements require it. The practice there is specifically for European companies entering the Philippines to sell, source, distribute, or manufacture. The challenge is usually the same: the business case is clear but the path through entity structure, local regulation, banking, and the right local partners is not obvious from the outside.

The work covers regulatory mapping, entity and structure decisions, identifying the right buyers or channels, and operational setup — banking, employment structure, payment infrastructure. I have direct contacts across the relevant service providers and can make introductions rather than leaving you to find them from scratch.

If you are considering a Philippines entry, the starting point is the same as anywhere else: a conversation about where you are and what the move actually requires. There is a dedicated page at kobera.digital/philippines.

AI runs through the practice at every level. I have built the infrastructure myself: a persistent memory layer that carries context across all work and clients, a custom CRM with AI-driven research and strategy tools, a virtual staffing system where named AI personas handle defined roles, and several shipped products — a dive log, a roster tool, a web presence. No back-office, no operations team. One person running at that capacity is the point.

Building it is the same exercise I help clients work through: where AI creates genuine leverage, where it creates risk, and where human judgement is non-negotiable. The difference is I have skin in the game. What I recommend to clients I have already tested on myself.

A consultancy sends a senior partner to win the work, then a junior team to deliver it. I am both the person you meet and the person who does the work.

Most advisory firms also stay inside a lane — IT consultants talk to IT, strategy firms talk to the board. Most client problems don’t sit in one department. I work across the whole business, whichever departments the problem actually involves.

No account management overhead, no internal politics, no version of the findings sanitised before they reach you. When the work needs additional people for a specific phase — a regulatory specialist, a developer, a financial modeller — I know who to call. What I won’t do is pad a team for margin.

Thirty minutes. I’ll ask what you’re dealing with — where you are in the decision, what’s already been committed, and where something feels off. No prep required. By the end, you’ll have a clear view of whether there’s a fit and what a next step looks like. If there isn’t a fit, I’ll say so.

Book a call at cal.com/martin-kobera-digital/intro or email martin@kobera.digital. No deck, no prep — tell me what you’re dealing with and I’ll confirm whether it makes sense.