Senior technology leadership for executives navigating consequential decisions.
I help executives understand what their technology is actually doing to their business, and fix the parts that are costing them.
Michael Snyder, Founder and Fractional CTO
30 years inside enterprise infrastructure. I have led global services teams at Dell Technologies, designed and operated production environments at scale across AWS, Palo Alto, Cisco, and F5, and supported organizations through mergers, acquisitions, and post-transaction integration.
My work sits at the intersection of technology leadership, business accountability, and decision clarity. Executives bring me in when ownership is unclear, when risks span teams, or when a decision affects cost, resilience, and delivery at the same time.
Tech Alchemy Consulting exists because I kept watching technology decisions get made without an accountable owner, and watching organizations pay for it later. The work is to make ownership explicit, name the tradeoffs, and produce a decision path leadership can defend. I built TAC because the work I kept seeing go undone sits between organizations, not inside them.
Why this work matters now
Technology drives margin, delivery reliability, and operational risk. When ownership is unclear, organizations commit spend, vendor direction, and delivery timelines before they agree on the decision frame. The result is drift that becomes expensive to unwind. Senior leadership restores control by isolating the structural issue, making tradeoffs explicit, and establishing a defensible decision path.
What leaders say about working with Michael
The following perspectives reflect how executives and partners describe working with Michael in complex, high-stakes environments.
"Michael is one of the most driven and meticulous IT leaders I have worked with. Over nine years at The Knot Worldwide, I watched him own and deliver some of our most critical initiatives, including two complete data center rebuilds. He handled complex infrastructure projects with calm precision and a clear view of how each decision affected resilience, security, and the business. His depth in networking, server architecture, and virtualization made him a trusted partner every time something important was on the line."
"I first met Michael when XO Group partnered with Dell Technologies and Presidio to modernize a legacy infrastructure. Michael did the hard work of evaluating multiple vendors and solution types, aligning technical requirements with financial realities, and shaping a solution that his team could operate with confidence. His insight and leadership were essential to moving the environment from aging and constrained to modern and flexible."
"Michael is one of the strongest problem solvers I have worked with. He consistently turned complex IT challenges into architectures that supported growth. When issues surfaced, he stayed calm, explored the full set of options, and chose solutions that favored long term stability over short term patches. His humility and curiosity raised the technical capability of the teams around him. Any organization that cares about thoughtful, durable technology decisions will benefit from his leadership."
"I first worked with Michael on a major virtualization project. He was clear on what his environment needed, open to collaboration, and focused on outcomes. Together we designed a platform that balanced performance, reliability, and cost. Michael also played a key role in explaining the value of the investment to executive leadership. He made the technical case understandable and compelling, which is rare and incredibly valuable."
Is this a fit?
Best fit
- CEO, COO, CIO, CTO, or PE operating partner facing a technology decision that cannot drift
- Founders preparing to raise where the technology narrative must hold under investor scrutiny
- Leadership teams navigating ownership gaps across vendors and internal teams
- Organizations experiencing rising cost, rising incidents, or slipping delivery without a clear cause
- Executives preparing for board, audit, or transaction discussions where technology exposure is material
Not a fit if
- You need task execution without ownership or governance
- You want a fixed package without engaging tradeoffs
- You are not prepared to assign decision accountability
- You prefer to defer the decision until it makes itself