I embed with your team to build the roadmap — then stay to run it.
I bring executive leadership to high-tech and medtech startups moving from R&D to a commercial product — 30+ years as a founder, C-suite executive, and hands-on engineer taking complex, regulated technologies from concept through funded, manufacturable products.
Meet Todd
Sound familiar?
Development has slowed without a clear, credible roadmap the whole team can commit to.
Engineering, quality, and business priorities are pulling in different directions instead of toward the same milestones.
You need someone who understands the technology deeply enough to know exactly which roles to fill, and when — not just headcount, but the right expertise at the right stage.
Manufacturing, supply chain, and regulatory decisions need to be made now, with the right experience at the table.
You're growing fast enough to need senior technical leadership, but not fast enough to justify a full-time executive hire.
Investors, partners, and early customers want to see technical depth and credibility behind the plan.
Embedded leadership, not advice from the sidelines.
Fractional CEO, COO, or CTO
Embedded with your team to set technology and product strategy, then personally drive execution of the roadmap and milestones.
Plan-to-execution ownership
Building the milestone plan alongside your engineers and managers, then staying on the ground to run it — unblocking the team, making the calls, hitting the dates.
Capital & board readiness
Technical due diligence, milestone credibility, and pitch preparation for dilutive and non-dilutive fundraising.
Team & partner leadership
Building, mentoring, and aligning the technical organization day to day, and selecting the manufacturing and CDMO partners needed to get from prototype to market.
30+ years in the room where these decisions get made.
Scoped to where you are, not a fixed retainer.
Embedded Leadership
Hands-on, in-the-organization executive leadership through critical launch or fundraising milestones — building the plan and executing it with your team.
Project-Based Advisory
A fixed-scope engagement to assess your roadmap, fundraising readiness, or path to manufacturing.
Hourly Advising
On-demand sessions for strategic decisions, fundraising prep, or technical execution.
A trusted bench, brought in when the work calls for it.
Engagements are backed by a small network of engineering and design specialists I've worked alongside for years — brought onto a project exactly when it needs their specific expertise.
Rob Culhane
Electrical & Mechanical Engineering
Rob is an electrical and mechanical engineer with 25+ years taking hardware concepts to production — PCB and flex-circuit design, embedded firmware, robotics, and manufacturing-ready mechanical design. He's led engineering programs at New Scale Technologies and New Scale Robotics, developed thermal-imaging hardware at Owl Autonomous Imaging, and built control electronics for Squiggle® piezo motors and precision micro-actuators. Rob is co-inventor on six U.S. patents covering resonant actuator and electromechanical drive systems, and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering Technology from RIT.
Steve Rapp
Product Design & Manufacturing — Principal, Rapp Design
Steve founded Rapp Design in 2001 to help teams bring products to market, with a specialty in products for older adults and people with disabilities. He covers the full path from CAD and IP documentation through manufacturing, assembly, and quality and repeatability at every stage of production. His industry experience spans medical devices, packaging, consumer and commercial products, electro-mechanical assemblies, and sports and toy design, and he holds equity in five companies built on his product innovations.
Engineer first. Executive by necessity.
I bring executive leadership to high-tech and medtech startups moving from R&D to a commercial product — 30+ years as a founder, C-suite executive, and hands-on engineer taking complex, regulated technologies from concept through funded, manufacturable products.
I'm known for hands-on leadership in early-stage environments — establishing teams, processes, and partnerships — while keeping a board-level focus on enterprise value creation, risk management, and long-term growth. Equally effective with engineers, clinicians, investors, and strategic partners.
- MBA, Technology Commercialization & Computer Integrated Manufacturing — Rochester Institute of Technology
- BS, Mechanical Engineering Technology — Rochester Institute of Technology
- Based in Rochester, NY — works with teams nationwide