Service
Independent Directors with operational depth. Chairpersons who lead with judgement. Strategic advisors who carry weight in the room. For venture-backed and listed biotech, and for biotech funds across Europe and the US.
The service
Board search is not a smaller version of C-suite search. The frequency is lower. The chemistry tolerance is tighter. The wrong board hire does not get caught in three months, like the wrong CFO does. It compounds quietly across two years of board meetings, until someone finally says what everyone already thinks.
What separates a useful Independent Director from a name on a deck is operational depth. Someone who has actually run a Phase 2, raised a Series C, negotiated a partnership, taken a company through an IPO or an acquisition. Not as an observer. As an operator. That experience is what makes the difference between a board that asks the right questions and a board that asks the questions everyone already has answers to.
Founders and investors retain Rados Recruiting when the right person changes the trajectory of a company. The candidates are sourced from the same network compiled since 2011. Former CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, and CBOs of venture-backed and listed biotech, often in transition themselves, often ready for board work but not actively looking for it.
Three types of board work
Three different roles, three different fit profiles. The same network, the same method, the same operator running every search end-to-end.
Director
Non-executive board members for venture-backed and listed biotech. Operational depth in clinical development, regulatory affairs, BD&L, or commercial launch. The kind of director who reads the Phase 2 protocol before the meeting, asks the question that reshapes the next clinical decision, and stays in scope when it matters to stay in scope.
Chair
Chairs for biotech companies during foundation, growth, or transition. The role is half operator, half diplomat. Knowing when to push the CEO, when to back them, when to lead a board conversation away from where it wants to go and toward where it needs to go. Chair search is the highest-fit-risk hire in the company.
Advisor
Senior advisors for biotech companies and biotech funds. Domain experts engaged for specific questions: clinical strategy, regulatory pathway, BD positioning, fund thesis validation, portfolio company support. Not board members. Specific, scoped, on-demand expertise drawn from the same network.
Typical mandates
Four examples that recur across mandates for biotech companies and biotech funds. The names change. The patterns do not.
Independent Director with regulatory depth ahead of a pivotal trial or first regulatory interaction.
Chair for a board transitioning from founder-led to institutional governance.
Independent Director with commercial-stage experience for pre-launch governance or partnership readiness.
Strategic Advisor for a biotech fund evaluating an investment or supporting a portfolio company.
What is different
Three differences from how board search usually runs. Each one is structural, not stylistic.
Most board search firms place career Non-Executive Directors. People who collect board seats. Rados Recruiting places operators in transition: former CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, and CBOs of venture-backed and listed biotech, often a year or two away from their next operating role. They bring current operational thinking to the board, not advice frozen at 2008.
The strongest board candidates do not appear on board-talent platforms. They are operators with active companies, careful reputations, and limited bandwidth. The Rados Recruiting network reaches them because the relationships predate the board search. The candidate that says yes to one seat per year is the candidate that says no to forty inbound requests.
The right Independent Director for one company is the wrong one for another. Chair search has the same problem at higher stakes. The Companions framework applies with extra weight on Team Fit and Context Fit, because a board placement that fails on chemistry damages the company quietly for two years.
Methodology
The Challenge runs first. Which stage is the company in. What does this board need that it does not currently have. Is this a hire to fill a gap, or a hire to change a dynamic. The diagnostic shapes who the right director or chair actually is, not just the longlist length.
The Companions framework applies with adjusted weights. Capability Fit and Context Fit lead. Team Fit carries heavier weight than in C-suite search, because a director sits across the table from the CEO and the rest of the board for years. Motivation Fit is checked closely: a candidate who needs the title is a different candidate from one who wants the work.
Read the methodLet's work together
A first conversation is the cheapest part of any executive search. Forty-five minutes on a call to understand the phase you're in, what you actually need, and whether I'm the right person to help.