And if yes, which one, and how.
A 15-page workbook for biotech founders and CEOs. You have a molecule, a runway, and a raise that everything is pointing at. Somebody has to own the numbers that carry it.
PDF, 15 pages. Direct download, no form. The six templates come by email.
If you read nothing else, read this. The guide is those four things, slowly, with space to write.
Not yet, if a founder still owns the model and nothing is broken. Yes, once a raise is in sight: if the numbers are wrong in that room, the round dies. From Series A, a fractional finance lead is usually the first seat.
Three jobs share the title. One builds finance from zero and carries the first big raise, one runs the operating machine, one takes you public. Hire the one your next twenty-four months needs.
Three months to search, three of notice, three to ramp, a year owning the numbers before the raise closes. You start twenty-one months out. Later than that, bring in a fractional finance lead and search behind them.
The hire that costs you a year feels good on the day you make it. You made the mistake earlier, in what you never wrote down.
Three real companies, names changed. Nobody in them was incompetent, and in each one the problem sat in plain sight for a year.
He built the seed model alone and never gave it away. When the Series B started, investors asked who owns the numbers. The CFO arrived fourteen months later, into a runway four months shorter than the board thought.
She joined as CFO at thirty people. There was nothing to own yet. She built controls for a company that did not exist, and left four months before the Series B.
He was the right hire and had the best year of his career. Then the job became quarterly reporting and audit committees. Twelve months in, he resigned.
The guide shows what to do about each one.
Fifteen pages in the order you need them. Every page has space to write.
The small versions on page 14 of the guide, as fillable PDF documents: time plan, job description, interview questions, personality and human needs, background check, score sheet.
Leave your name and email, and the file comes from Christian personally, usually within a day, with one question back about your search.
The one decision the guide asks you to make. Same three levels on page 6 and page 15.
Two candidate suggestions who have the skills. Salary, location and need fit: gut feeling. You run it yourself, with the templates.
Two candidates, with salary and location checked on top of the skills. Stage fit and need fit: still gut feeling.
The entire available market. Salary and location checked, stage fit and need fit tested.
Christian Rados is a Munich-based executive headhunter for venture-backed biotech in Europe and founder of Rados Recruiting. Since 2011 he has placed permanent and interim leaders in biotech, pharma, and MedTech, over 1,000 placements from Director to C-level and board.
He hosts the podcast Willing to Win, Biotech Leaders Against All Odds.