Built for the operators, not the PowerPoint.
The practice
Cold Iron Labs is a strategic advisory practice for private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies. Our focus is industrial and manufacturing: the segment where operational technology, enterprise IT, and data systems are most intertwined, and where the gaps are most expensive.
We lead with AI strategy and implementation - and, unlike most advisors, we build the systems we recommend. Around it: fractional CIO and CTO leadership, strategic initiative planning, data analytics design and execution, and cybersecurity program management.
The name is direct. Cold iron is iron that has been worked correctly - no heat shortcuts, no tolerance for slop. That is how we think about AI and technology in operating companies.
The founder
Michael Franklin founded Cold Iron Labs after more than two decades building and leading technology in operating companies. He works as a fractional Chief AI Officer and strategic advisor to PE sponsors and portfolio-company leadership - setting AI strategy and then building the production systems behind it.
His edge is range most advisors do not have: he is hands-on with modern AI - agents, retrieval, applied LLM systems - and has shipped them in production, not just advised on them. That sits on deep IT and transformation experience: legacy ERP modernization, data platform architecture, and cybersecurity governance.
Michael runs multiple active client engagements simultaneously. When he takes one on, he is the operator - pragmatic, realistic, and accountable for what actually ships.
Michael writes regularly on AI, private equity, and operating technology. Follow along for the latest thinking between the essays here on Insights.
A practice, not a solo act.
Most fractional AI advisors are one person with a laptop. Cold Iron Labs works differently. Michael runs the practice from two offices in Frisco, Texas, and operates as part of a collective of independent senior operators - partners who bring their own depth when an engagement calls for it. You get a principal who is personally accountable, with real capacity and continuity behind him.
AI strategy that ships - with the operating depth to back it.
AI strategy and governance - the highest-value AI moves for this business, prioritized and made real.
Production AI grounded in actual data - agents, workflows, and analytics that ship, not demos.
Embedded IT and transformation leadership through the hold period.
Pre-close assessments that give sponsors a real picture in 21 days.
Multi-ERP consolidation and modern data stacks that survive carve-outs.
The IT and AI story and data room, built twelve months out.