CEO
Chief Executive Officer.
From founder-CEO to institutional CEO. From clinical-stage operator to partnership architect. From scientist-builder to commercial-stage leader. Every CEO transition is a different role with the same title.
Service
Permanent Executive Search.
C-level placements for venture-backed biotech.
Permanent hires for Series A through C clinical-stage biotech across Europe and the Boston corridor. CEO, CFO, CSO, CMO, CBO. Most searches close in under 60 days from brief to signed offer. Boutique, founder-led, applied through The Rados Method.
The service
When the team that built it is not the team to scale it.
Permanent executive search is the right service when the company needs a long-term leader in seat, not a bridge. When the cap table, the clinical timeline, or the partnership pipeline requires continuity beyond the next 18 months. When the board has decided that the next chapter calls for someone who will own it, not just steer it.
Every permanent search at Rados Recruiting is run end-to-end by Christian Rados. No partner-pitch, associate-execution split. The same person who takes the brief writes the longlist, conducts the assessments, and presents the shortlist. Applied through The Rados Method: a diagnostic of which transition the company is facing, followed by a six-dimensional assessment of candidate fit.
Most searches close in under 60 days from brief to signed offer. Across Europe and the Boston corridor, for Series A through C clinical-stage biotech. The geography reflects where venture-backed clinical biotech operates: Munich, Vienna, Basel, Berlin, Copenhagen, Ghent, Oxford, Cambridge UK, Boston, New York, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
The stakes
The cost of getting the next leader wrong.
A misfired C-level hire in biotech is not a six-month inconvenience. It is twelve to eighteen months of lost trajectory: the time to recognize the misfit, the time to restructure the board conversation, the time to run a second search, the time for the new leader to ramp. In a venture-backed company with a defined cash runway, that translates directly into months of burned capital with no offsetting progress on the development plan.
Boards usually see the signals earlier than they act on them. A CEO who has stopped recruiting at the top of the market. A CMO who has lost the rhythm of clinical execution. A CFO who is reactive to investors rather than ahead of them. The signals are visible. The decision is delayed because of the next financing, the ongoing BD discussion, the cash position. Every postponed decision compounds the cost.
The work I do is to make that decision easier, earlier, and cleaner. To bring the right replacement into the conversation before the current incumbent has to be removed under pressure. To run a search in days, not quarters, so that the runway is not consumed by the search itself.
Roles
C-suite and senior leadership.
Permanent placements across the biotech C-suite. Each role transitions across the life-cycle in a pattern. Knowing which version of the role is due is half the work of getting the hire right.
CFO
Chief Financial Officer.
From financial manager to strategic CFO. The person who closed Series A is rarely the person who runs an IPO process. The CFO transition often runs ahead of the rest of the C-suite.
CSO
Chief Scientific Officer.
From bench scientist to platform leader. From inventor to translator. The CSO transition is where the science becomes a product, and where the wrong hire kills a company quietly over 18 months.
CMO
Chief Medical Officer.
From medical advisor to full-time CMO. From clinical lead to regulatory strategist. From single-asset focus to portfolio decision-maker. CMO hiring is the most timing-sensitive role on the C-suite.
CBO
Chief Business Officer.
From deal sourcer to partnership architect. From outbound BD to inbound diligence. The CBO transition decides whether the company captures or leaks value when the first partnership conversation lands.
Also
Senior leadership beyond the C-suite.
Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Technical Officer, senior VPs and SVPs. The framework is the same: identify the transition, assess the Companions, deliver a shortlist that has already been pressure-tested.
How it works
From brief to signed offer in under 60 days.
Four phases. One operator across all four. The speed is not from cutting corners. It comes from structure applied with judgement, instead of a bigger team running in parallel.
Phase 01
Brief & Challenge diagnostic.
Most search firms take the brief and start outreach the same week. The first conversation here is a diagnostic, not a briefing call. Which life-cycle stage is the company in. Which role transition is actually due. Is the threshold crossed, or is the board reacting to noise. Output: a written brief that defines the role for this transition, not the role generically. Searches that miss usually spent too little time here.
Phase 02
Search & Companions assessment.
The longlist is not built from scratch. It is built from the network compiled since 2011 across Munich, Basel, Copenhagen, Ghent, Oxford, Cambridge, Boston, and the Bay Area. The same network that knows who delivers, who pretends, and who is one board meeting away from being available. AI compresses the mapping work. Judgement compresses everything else. Each strong candidate runs through the six Companions dimensions. Only candidates who clear all six reach the shortlist.
Phase 03
Shortlist & client interviews.
Three names. Sometimes four. Not eight, not twelve. A shortlist that long is not a shortlist, it is a research output. Each name arrives with a written rationale. Why this person for this transition. Where they sit on each Companions dimension. What the risks are, in writing, before the first interview. Then introductions, second rounds, reference checks. I sit in where it helps the decision.
Phase 04
Offer & onboarding.
Offer construction, counter-offer handling, negotiation. Then the part where most search firms exit: the first 90 days. I stay in. Integration with the CEO, the board, the management team. The placement is not done at signature. It is done when the new executive is in flow with the company.
What is different
What you get that you would not get elsewhere.
Three structural differences from how permanent executive search is usually run. Each one is a design choice, not a side effect.
One operator. Every search.
Christian Rados runs every permanent search end-to-end. The person you brief is the person who writes the longlist, conducts the assessments, and presents the shortlist. No handoff, no associate-execution gap. The judgement that closes the search is the same judgement that took the brief.
Speed that is structural, not rushed.
Under 60 days from brief to signed offer. Half the industry standard. The speed comes from a more curated longlist, faster assessment loops, and AI-supported research that compresses what used to take weeks into days. Not corner-cutting, just less waste.
Retainer only. By design.
Permanent executive search at C-level runs on retainer at Rados Recruiting. The client invests in the search, the firm invests its full attention. This is the only structure under which a single-operator boutique can deliver a senior placement in under 60 days. Contingency would mean running ten searches at half-effort. That is not the offer.
Let's work together
Start the journey.
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.
© 2026 Rados Recruiting GmbH
