Fractional Leadership in Action
How Nett Front Built REFRONT and Reinvented Its Market
When you’ve led your industry for nearly twenty years, it’s tempting to rest on your reputation. But Nett Front — one of Romania’s top manufacturers of furniture fronts — wasn’t wired that way.
They didn’t need new product ideas; they already had plenty. Their factory was bursting with them. What they needed was a way to test truly disruptive innovation — without shaking the stability of their main business.
That’s how REFRONT was born.
And that’s how a Growth Hacking project turned into something much bigger — a long-term Fractional Management role that helped launch an incubator for new ideas.
The Turning Point: From “More Ideas” to “Let’s Build a Space to Test Them”
The early conversations weren’t about products at all. They were about rhythm.
How do you keep innovating when your core business is already running at full speed?
The answer wasn’t another strategy session. It was structure — a separate space where the company could experiment fast, fail small, and learn quickly.
We called it REFRONT: a new business unit designed to bring innovation to market safely, without disturbing the engine that kept Nett Front growing. It became the incubator that every established company secretly wishes they had.
Fractional Management: Leadership, One Day a Week
At first, the plan was simple: finish the Growth Hacking project, hand over the roadmap, and move on. But one idea stood out so strongly that it demanded execution — not advice.
So I stepped in as Fractional Manager, one day a week.
That meant taking responsibility for turning the plan into a working business: building the team, defining the offer, managing launches, and leading meetings — until a permanent structure was ready to take over.
Fractional Management is often misunderstood.
Owners sometimes ask:
“Can someone really make a difference if they’re only here one day a week?”
The truth is — yes, if that person has done it before.
Fractional leadership works when it’s built on real, diverse, battle-tested experience — not theory. It’s not consulting from the sidelines; it’s doing the work, leading through people, and leaving behind a system that runs.
Building REFRONT: From Concept to Company
The mission was clear: turn innovation into action.
In less than a year, we:
Built the team — people who could mix creative energy with operational discipline.
Defined the product offer — 13 premium collections of IKEA-compatible furniture fronts.
Built an e-commerce platform — with a 360° product viewer for a tactile, digital experience.
Launched a mobile showroom — first at Deco Days Cluj-Napoca, then right next to IKEA Bucharest.
Ran targeted marketing and PR campaigns — with real metrics, not guesswork.
Created designer partnerships — launching an affiliate program that rewarded collaboration.
Tested the market in real time — every event and interaction became an opportunity to learn and adjust.
By month nine, REFRONT wasn’t a project — it was a brand.
What Fractional Management Teaches You
When you’re inside a company, it’s hard to bring new energy. You see the same problems, the same processes, and the same reasons why “we can’t do that yet.”
Fractional leadership brings fresh eyes and focused time — no politics, no distractions, just the discipline to move things forward.
It’s temporary leadership, but with lasting structure.
Owners are often skeptical at first. They imagine someone halfway committed. What they get instead is someone fully accountable — someone who brings rhythm, momentum, and execution power without the long-term overhead.
It’s leadership as an accelerator.
The Core Insight: Innovation Needs New Energy
Here’s what this journey really proved: Sometimes innovation doesn’t need another plan or department — it needs a new voice. A different perspective. A spark from outside the usual rhythm.
And sometimes, even one day a week of the right leadership can change everything.
That’s what happened at Nett Front. REFRONT became their testing ground for new ideas — a place where execution replaced hesitation, and structure met creativity.
The Outcome: A Living Incubator
REFRONT continues to grow, both inside and outside the company. It has become a living incubator, launching ideas that challenge and inspire the entire organization.
The next chapter? Designer Collections — the next wave of innovation, already underway, with its own story to tell soon. Because when you build the right system, innovation never stops — it just evolves.
Business Services Family Services Book a Clarity Call