By Tom Kenaley, Senior Partner and President, KORE1 A Chief Revenue Officer costs $313,000 to $374,000 in base salary across the middle of the U.S. market, on-target earnings usually land near double the base, and most searches run 8 to 14 weeks. None of that is the decision that determines whether the hire works. That … Read more
By Kris Drouet, Engineering Executive, in partnership with KORE1 Four delivery metrics predict engineering velocity: change lead time, deployment frequency, change fail rate, and failed deployment recovery time. Story-point velocity and sprint completion rate predict almost nothing, because both are calculated from the estimate rather than from the delivery. I sat in a quarterly business … Read more
By Kris Drouet, Engineering Executive, in partnership with KORE1 An engineering budget gets approved when every line names an owner, a unit of measure, and a date. Finance rarely rejects the work itself. It rejects requests it cannot audit, rank against a sales hire, or defend to a board. Twenty-five years in and I have … Read more
By Mike Carter, Director of Partnership Success, KORE1 Choose an executive search firm by testing four things before you sign: who personally runs your search, how the firm proves its market map, what its off-limits list blocks, and what the guarantee actually replaces. Everything else in the pitch meeting is decoration. Logos on a slide. … Read more
By Mike Carter, Director of Partnership Success, KORE1 A retained executive search runs in installments over roughly 90 to 120 days, with the firm mapping a market, approaching passive leaders directly, and delivering three to five assessed finalists instead of a stack of applicants. That timeline is two to three times longer than the published … Read more
By Kris Drouet, Engineering Executive, in partnership with KORE1 Selling tech debt to executives fails because the phrase names four unrelated problems at once. Split it into security exposure, delivery cost, key-person risk, and a growth ceiling, then bring the one your CFO already funds. I have watched the same request get denied and then … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, Senior Partner and President, KORE1 Hiring a C-suite executive in 2026 starts by naming which seat you need and what it owns, budgeting $250,000 to $900,000 in total pay depending on the role, then giving the search 90 to 150 days. Most companies get the last part right and the first part … Read more
KORE1 ranks first among fractional VP of Engineering firms in 2026, scoring 8.68 out of 10 on the Placement Authority Score. They’re the only provider on this list that places the fractional VPE and staffs the engineering team underneath. Toptal (6.10) leads for heavily vetted global talent, and TechCXO (5.80) is the strongest option for … Read more
By Kris Drouet, Engineering Executive, in partnership with KORE1 AI code review works for engineering teams when a VP assigns a named human owner to every risk tier, sets a review SLA the team tracks weekly, and reserves final judgment for changes touching trust boundaries, money, or production access. That’s the entire operating model in … Read more
KORE1 ranks first among fractional CTO firms in 2026, earning an 8.66 on the Placement Authority Score through documented AI-augmented executive sourcing, a 4.7 Glassdoor rating 24% above the staffing industry average, and the only model on this list that places the fractional CTO and staffs the engineering team underneath them in a single engagement. … Read more
