CarterTodd

Fractional CMO / Columbia, South Carolina

Fractional CMO leadership in Columbia, SC.

Lorri-Ann Carter steps in as a fractional CMO when the business needs senior marketing judgment, a clearer story, and a practical rhythm before it is ready for a full-time chief marketing officer.

Led by Lorri-Ann CarterUpdated October 27, 2026

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The direct answer

A fractional CMO gives a growing organization experienced marketing leadership without requiring a full-time executive hire. The role connects business priorities to positioning, people, partners, budgets, and the decisions that need to happen next.

The work

The seat holds the whole thread.

Lorri-Ann does not arrive with a strategy deck and disappear. She gets close to the real problem, finds the throughline, and helps the team decide what matters now. That can mean rewriting the story before a launch, choosing the audiences worth earning, or making the tradeoffs visible when every request feels urgent.

Her fractional work is built for founder-led companies, professional services firms, B2B technology businesses, civic-minded organizations, and leadership teams navigating a change in growth, reputation, or direction.

Based in Columbia, South Carolina, CarterTodd brings a local understanding of civic, professional-services, and technology organizations while working with teams across the Southeast and the United States.

Some weeks call for a message decision. Others call for a team decision, a partner decision, or the discipline to stop doing work that is not moving the business. Fractional leadership keeps those decisions connected.

How the work takes shape

A fractional CMO seat has a shape.

The work can be a defined-term transition, a regular advisory rhythm, or ongoing part-time leadership. Scope follows the business problem—not a preset list of deliverables.

  1. 01

    Name the chapter

    Clarify what changed, what the business needs next, and which decisions are currently stuck.

  2. 02

    Set the seat

    Agree on the decisions Lorri-Ann owns, the people and partners around the work, and the rhythm the leadership team can use.

  3. 03

    Lead the thread

    Connect positioning, communications, priorities, budget, and execution so marketing serves the business instead of competing with it.

  4. 04

    Build the rhythm

    Leave the team with clearer priorities, useful measures, and a stronger operating cadence than it had at the start.

A good fit

Bring the messy version.

  • Your business has momentum, but the message has not caught up.
  • A founder or subject-matter expert has something important to say but no time to shape it.
  • A marketing team is busy without a clear order of operations or senior decision-maker.
  • A launch, leadership change, reputation moment, or new market makes the old story obsolete.
  • You need someone who can lead the work and the people around it without adding theater.

How the work takes shape

One senior thread.
Several useful ways in.

The right engagement follows the problem, not a prepackaged menu.

01

Positioning & narrative

Find the sentence your sales team, board, and customers can all carry.

Explore the work 02

Executive voice & visibility

Turn expertise in the room into authority in the market.

Explore the work 03

Fractional marketing leadership

Put a senior marketing seat at the table before you're ready for a full-time CMO.

Explore the work

Selected proof

Specific work beats a generic promise.

See all selected work
City Center Partnership → Main Street District

A downtown district became a destination.

~$1.3Bnew downtown investment reported by SCETVAvtec

Make the complicated thing impossible to ignore.

~$136Macquisition by Motorola SolutionsFisher Phillips LLP

Marketing has to work inside the business, too.

45+active attorney BD partnershipsColumbia Home & Garden

A magazine gave the city another way to see itself.

Quarterlypublication cadence

From Insights

The thinking behind the work.

Read all Insights
The human side of growth

Marketing starts in the room.

Listening is not the soft part of the work. It is how the real problem becomes visible.

Leadership

Marketing needs a calendar. The business needs a cadence.

A calendar records outputs. A cadence creates the recurring conversations that keep decisions from drifting.

Leadership

A 90-day plan should have a no list.

A plan that only adds work is a wish list. A useful plan makes the tradeoffs plain.

Common questions

Useful answers before the first conversation.

What does a fractional CMO do?

A fractional CMO provides senior marketing leadership on a part-time or defined-term basis. The work can include positioning, go-to-market planning, executive communications, team and agency leadership, budget decisions, measurement, and the operating cadence that turns strategy into action.

When is a fractional CMO useful?

A fractional CMO is useful when a business needs experienced marketing judgment before it is ready for a full-time CMO, or when the existing team needs a senior leader to set priorities, connect the work to the business, and make decisions move.

Is CarterTodd based in Columbia, South Carolina?

Yes. CarterTodd is led by Lorri-Ann Carter in Columbia, South Carolina, and works with organizations in the region and across the United States.

Is a fractional CMO the same as hiring a marketing agency?

Not exactly. A fractional CMO is a senior leadership role inside the business. CarterTodd can also lead defined agency engagements, bring in specialist partners, and build the communications or marketing work the moment requires. The engagement shape follows the problem.

A good place to begin

Tell me what the business is trying to become.

Not the polished version. The version that's keeping you up at night. That's usually where the useful work starts.

Start a conversation