Papa Bravo
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Consulting

Engineering manager consultant, based in Stockholm.

Papa Bravo is the company. The person you work with is Pontus, an engineering manager and program lead. The shape is interim, a fraction of the week, or a defined advisory piece — whichever fits the problem.

Based in Stockholm. The work happens with teams in Sweden and internationally, on site or at a distance. There is no fixed package. The shape depends on the problem.

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Roles

Typical assignments

  • Interim CTO

    Technology leadership for a defined period: change, growth, a gap between leaders, or a delivery phase that needs a senior owner.

  • Interim CIO

    When the brief is wider than product engineering: operations, vendors, the technology organisation, and the agenda with the rest of the company.

  • Fractional CTO

    Senior technology leadership for part of the week, when a full-time executive is not the right shape for the company.

  • Technology advisor

    A second view on strategy, architecture, organisation, sourcing, AI, and choices that are expensive to reverse.

  • Transformation lead

    When the direction exists on paper, and technology, organisation and execution are not yet the same piece of work.

  • Product and technology leadership

    A shared direction for product, engineering and the business: what to build, what to stop, and how delivery should work.

  • Programme and delivery leadership

    Holding a critical programme together across business, product and technology until it is actually moving.

Situations

Where an outside person is useful

Often the organisation already has capable people. What is missing is someone who can sit in the business conversation and the delivery conversation, and say what is not working.

  1. You need an interim CTO or CIO.

    Someone has to hold the technology agenda through a change of people, ownership or direction, while a permanent search takes the time it takes.

  2. Technology and the business have drifted.

    The roadmap, the budget and what the organisation needs are no longer the same conversation.

  3. Delivery is busy, and still late.

    People are working. Releases, dependencies and decisions do not land when the business needs them.

  4. Product and engineering are building past each other.

    Work is happening. It is less clear who decides what good looks like, or which outcome the teams share.

  5. A transformation needs an owner.

    The intent is agreed. The work across technology, organisation and execution is not holding together.

  6. The company outgrew how technology is run.

    The old way of deciding, the team shape, the vendors, the architecture — some of it no longer fits.

  7. A large technology decision needs a second view.

    Architecture, a platform, sourcing or a vendor. From someone who is not defending the current plan.

  8. An AI ambition needs a practical plan.

    The organisation wants to use AI. It is less clear what to build, what to leave, and who would operate it.

  9. One programme has to cross the business, product and technology.

    Business, product and technology are still separate conversations, not one plan.

  10. The board story and the delivery plan disagree.

    What is presented to the board and what the delivery plan can do are not the same.

Approach

How I work

  1. The first weeks are for finding out

    How decisions get made, where delivery actually sticks, and what people are tired of explaining. A target operating model is not the opening move.

  2. A technology choice has to answer a business question

    Platforms, teams and spend should be readable against what the company is trying to do this year, not only against an architecture principle.

  3. Say what will not be done

    A full roadmap is a common reason delivery feels random. Priorities include the work that stops.

  4. Use the people who are already there

    The aim is a stronger organisation, not a second one running beside it. Existing teams stay in the work.

  5. Make the decision that is holding the work up

    Assignments stall when the important call keeps moving to the next meeting. Part of the role is to make it.

  6. Leave something that runs without you

    A direction, a way of deciding, and people who can carry both.

Describe the situation

What is going on, when it needs to move, and what kind of leadership you are looking for. A short note is enough to see if it fits.

Talk to Pontus pontus.burman@papabravo.se