CO-FOUNDER & PRINCIPAL PARTNER

Stephen Joyce

FractionalFunctions.AI

Stephen Joyce has spent thirty years sitting in rooms with smart, capable professionals who know exactly what they want to achieve — and helping them actually get there.

The earthworm record is a separate matter entirely.

WHY STEPHEN & AI

When AI arrived in professional services, Stephen recognised the territory immediately. Not the technology — that was new. But the human experience of adopting something unfamiliar, navigating uncertainty, and trying to build shared confidence around something nobody fully understands yet. That part he knew well.

Because the professionals struggling most with AI adoption aren’t held back by bad tools. They’re struggling because no one has sat with them long enough to understand how they actually work, what their clients actually need, and what the human layer around the technology actually requires.

After three decades of exactly that kind of plurk — across sectors, across cultures, on stages and in boardrooms — Stephen recognised the pattern immediately. He also recognised it as one he’d spent his entire career plurking through. At this point it would almost be rude not to help.

THE BACKSTORY — WHY HE’S THE RIGHT GUIDE

Psychotherapy trains you to do something most consultants never learn: listen past what people say to what they actually mean, fear, and avoid. It teaches you that stated problems are rarely the real problems, that resistance to change is almost never about logic, and that the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it is always — always — a human one.

Those turned out to be extraordinarily transferable skills.

What followed was a consulting career spanning healthcare, government, non-profits, and professional associations across North America and internationally. The settings changed. The pattern didn’t. Smart people, good intentions, and something in the human layer quietly preventing the outcome everyone said they wanted.

He founded Zenergy PD, served as an Organisational Resilience Consultant for one of Canada’s largest health authorities, and built an international speaking career — and an Amazon bestselling book — around a single question that never left him: what does it actually take for capable people to move forward together?

The obsession started much earlier, and in considerably less comfortable circumstances. Growing up on a farm in Northern Ireland during a period of serious political conflict, he watched what happens when intelligent people become incapable of working with the person across from them. Bright people. Catastrophically poor collaboration. It left him with a lifelong obsession — not with the conflict itself, but with what sits underneath it: the human dynamics that determine whether capable people build something together or talk past each other indefinitely.

IN THE SPIRIT OF FULL DISCLOSURE

🏆  Stephen once held a UK Guinness World Record for the fastest consumption of live earthworms — sixty seconds, Bristol University, 1982, all proceeds to charity, written consent obtained from every worm. He considers this an early demonstration of stakeholder alignment under pressure.

🚗  He has also managed to run himself over with his own car. He considers this a useful reminder that even experienced professionals benefit from a second set of eyes.

🐖  And his childhood best friend was a paraplegic pig named Herbie, who kept every one of his secrets loyally right up until a regrettable incident involving an empty pigsty, a suspicious breakfast, and a dawning realisation that arrived several bites too late. Some losses stay with you.

He mentions all of this because the plurk he does requires someone who takes the plurk seriously and themselves lightly. Thirty years in, that combination has yet to let him down. The worms, on the other hand, have never forgiven him.

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Sanjay

Co-Founder and Principal Partner, FractionalFunctions.AI

Sanjay helps FOFAs implement AI in ways that are practical, customized, and tied to real business growth.

Before FractionalFunctions.AI, he built high-converting webinar funnels, workshop funnels, high-ticket funnels, and book-a-call systems for coaches, consultants, and experts. His work has helped clients generate more than $3 million in revenue, while managing over $200,000 in advertising spend across campaigns.

That experience shaped how he approaches AI.

Sanjay does not see AI as a collection of tools. He sees it as part of the full client journey — from lead generation and follow-up to sales, delivery, retention, and internal operations.

His focus today is creating customized AI solutions for FOFAs: systems that reduce manual work, improve consistency, support smarter decisions, and help smaller teams scale without becoming overwhelmed by complexity.

Analytical, strategic, and detail-aware, Sanjay brings a rare combination of growth thinking and implementation discipline.

In short: he helps turn AI from “something we should probably figure out” into systems that actually move the business forward.

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