Remote AI, cybersecurity and fractional CIO consulting for Australian organisations.
Senior advisory delivered remotely, with the same artefacts, accountability and board-ready evidence you would get from someone sitting in your office. We are based in New South Wales, work on-site in Sydney, Newcastle and on the Central Coast, and deliver remotely to organisations anywhere in Australia.
Discuss a remote engagementDoes FORTE/CYBERx work with organisations across Australia?
FORTE/CYBERx delivers AI consulting, cybersecurity advisory and fractional CIO leadership remotely to organisations anywhere in Australia. We are based in NSW and work on-site in Sydney, Newcastle and on the Central Coast, and every engagement — readiness assessment, governance design, Essential Eight uplift, board reporting — is designed to run remotely without losing the artefacts or the accountability.
- On-site
- Sydney, Newcastle and the Central Coast, NSW
- Remote
- Every state and territory, Australian Eastern time
- What you keep
- Readiness scores, risk registers, policy sets and a costed roadmap
Structured remotely, so distance never becomes an excuse.
The full practice, wherever you are.
AI consulting
Every engagement produces artefacts you keep: a readiness score, a prioritised use-case register, an AI risk and impact assessment, a policy set and a costed roadmap.
- AI readiness assessment
- Use-case selection and business case
- AI governance and ISO 42001 alignment
Cybersecurity consulting
You keep the artefacts: a maturity baseline, a risk register mapped to controls, a Statement of Applicability, a vendor risk framework and a tested incident runbook.
- Essential Eight maturity uplift
- ISO 27001 readiness
- Cyber strategy on a page
Fractional CIO
You keep a technology strategy on a page, a costed roadmap, a vendor and contract register, a risk position for the board and a documented succession path.
- Technology strategy and roadmap
- Budget and vendor accountability
- Cyber and AI risk oversight
Talk to a senior advisor about a remote engagement
Tell us what you are trying to decide. A senior operator responds within one business day.
Sectors where remote works well.
Most of our clients are organisations carrying enterprise-grade obligations without an enterprise-grade technology function — funded programs, customer security schedules, Privacy Act reform and AI adoption pressure all landing on a small team at once.
Where we turn up in person.
Sydney
Typical cadence: an on-site discovery week, fortnightly on-site working sessions, and remote delivery in between.
Newcastle
Typical cadence: monthly on-site days across Newcastle and Hunter sites, remote working sessions weekly, board attendance on request.
Central Coast
Typical cadence: fortnightly on-site half-days on the Coast, remote delivery in between, quarterly executive reset.
Timelines, security and communication cadence.
Australia-wide remote consulting only works when the operating rhythm is explicit. Here is exactly how an engagement is scheduled, how your evidence is protected, and how often you hear from us.
Timelines
How quickly can a remote engagement start?
Discovery is usually booked within five business days of the first conversation. Because there is no travel to coordinate, remote engagements typically start one to two weeks earlier than an equivalent on-site piece of work.
How long does a typical remote engagement run?
An Essential Eight or AI governance assessment runs three to four weeks end to end. An AI use-case blueprint runs two to three weeks. Fractional CIO engagements are ongoing at two to six days a month with a quarterly plan reviewed against outcomes.
What does the delivery schedule look like week to week?
Week one is evidence gathering and interviews, week two is analysis and control testing, week three is draft findings and a working session, and the final week closes with the finished artefact and a board-ready summary. Each phase closes with a document you keep.
Security
How is our evidence and data handled remotely?
Evidence is exchanged through your tenancy wherever possible — a SharePoint or Google Drive folder you own and can revoke. Where we host the workspace, access is least-privilege, MFA-enforced and time-boxed to the engagement, and working copies are destroyed on closure.
Do you need administrative access to our systems?
Rarely. Most assessment work runs on read-only configuration exports, policy documents and architecture artefacts you generate. Where read access is needed, it is scoped to named accounts, logged, and removed at the end of the phase.
How do you protect confidentiality and IP?
Engagements run under an NDA and a written data-handling schedule covering what we collect, where it is stored, who can see it and when it is deleted. Findings are never reused as case studies without written consent.
Communication cadence
How often will we meet?
A standing weekly checkpoint of 30 to 45 minutes, plus a working session at the end of each phase. Fractional CIO clients add a monthly leadership session and a quarterly board or committee update.
Who is our point of contact between meetings?
A single named consultant owns the engagement end to end — no account handovers. Asynchronous questions go to a shared channel (Teams or Slack) with a same-business-day response target during Australian Eastern business hours.
How do we know progress is real between sessions?
Every checkpoint comes with a short written status: what closed, what is in flight, what is blocked and what we need from you. Nothing is reported as complete without the artefact attached.
Remote consulting in Australia — FAQ.
Do you work with organisations outside New South Wales?
Yes. We are honest about it: our on-site presence is Sydney, Newcastle and the Central Coast, and everywhere else in Australia is served remotely with travel arranged for the moments that warrant it. Remote delivery is the default for most of the work regardless of where a client sits, because assessments, governance design and board reporting do not require a desk in your office.
Does remote consulting produce a weaker result?
Not when it is structured. The failure mode of remote advisory is unstructured calls with no artefact at the end. We fix that by running to a defined phase plan where each phase closes with a document you keep and can hand to a board, an assessor or a customer.
How do you handle security assessments without being on site?
Essential Eight maturity, ISO 27001 readiness and AI governance reviews are evidence-based. We review configuration exports, policy documents, architecture and control evidence directly, and interview the people who operate them. Physical and operational technology reviews are the exception and are scheduled as on-site visits.
Can a fractional CIO work remotely?
Most fractional CIO engagements already run at two to six days a month, and the majority of that is strategy, vendor accountability, risk oversight and board reporting — all deliverable remotely. We attend board meetings in person where the organisation wants it and the travel is proportionate.
What time zones and hours do you work?
We operate on Australian Eastern time and schedule around Western Australian and South Australian clients where needed. Incident support and escalation are arranged as part of the engagement rather than assumed.
Talk to a senior advisor
Tell us the decision, constraint or opportunity. A senior operator responds within one business day.