Interim CEO, CFO, CMO, CSO, CBO, COO, CTO, full-time for a defined chapter. Fractional for the same seats, from two days a month to a few days a week.
Christian Rados, biotech headhunter since 2011. 100+ clients, 1,000+ placements, most of them at Director and VP level, one person on every mandate.
Not every gap is a permanent hire waiting to happen. Four situations where I would tell you not to start a permanent search yet.
You need someone in the seat and a full C-level salary is not in this year's plan. A fractional executive gives you the judgement for a few days a month, without the burn of a payroll seat the company cannot carry yet.
A readout, a restructuring, a regulatory milestone. Someone has to run the function through it, and then the job is done. That is interim. A defined build with an end. Or you started too late.
The round has not closed and the permanent seat is only fundable after it. An interim or fractional executive carries the function through the raise. Once the money is in, I run the permanent search.
The CMO seat before Phase 2 needs a medical advisor or a fractional CMO, two days a month, not a full-time hire. Fractional now, permanent once the readout is in sight. Same for the CFO before Series A.
The test I use: write down the actual work for one month. Not the title. The work.
Judgement, not hours. If the scope grows twice by day ninety, it was never fractional.
You are hiring for the raise and the stage after it. That is a permanent search, in under 30 days.
Not a C-level seat. Do not give it the title, you will not get it back.
A defined build with an end. Or you started too late.
These are the ones I see most often. The names of the seats change, the shape of the problem does not.
01
The readout is coming and the CMO seat is empty. An interim CMO runs the trial to the data, full-time, and leaves when the chapter is over. Whether you then need a permanent CMO depends on what the data says, and we decide that together, not before.
02
Series A is close and a full-time CFO is not justified yet. A fractional CFO takes the seat two to three days a week: clean close, cap table, the data room for the round. When the round closes and the work becomes a full week, every week, the seat becomes permanent.
03
The cycle turned. The founder is stepping back, or the board has decided the next chapter needs a different CEO, and the permanent search takes time. An interim CEO holds the company steady, keeps investors and team in the room, and hands over to the permanent hire.
Interim. Full-time in the seat, usually three to twelve months, with a defined end.
Fractional. Part-time, from two days a month to a few days a week, on an ongoing or retainer basis.
Investment. Hourly rates, day rates or a monthly retainer. Agreed per mandate in the first conversation.
Assessment and shortlist first. Client interviews and contract after.
Day 1
One call. Which stage is the company in, what the person in the seat has to deliver this chapter, and whether the honest answer is interim, fractional, or a permanent hire. Then I go into the whole market: several thousand personal contacts, plus everyone I have not met yet. The names surface fast. What took fifteen years to learn is picking the right ones for this stage and this role, and that is the assessment on the three fits of the Rados Method: skill fit first, then stage fit and need fit, then references.
Day 2
You get a short shortlist with a written rationale per name: why this person for this chapter, and where the risks are. You interview the same day or the day after.
Day 3
Terms, contract, start date. The person walks in ready, because they have run this function at this stage before. No four weeks of ramp-up.
Fast is the time to a shortlist, not a shortcut on diligence. Speed comes from fifteen years of knowing what this stage needs in this seat, not from skipping the work.
If the brief tells me the seat is permanent, I say so in the first call, and we run the permanent search instead: under 30 days, with the 12-month guarantee. An interim in a permanent seat means you pay for the chapter twice: the interim now, and the search you should have started first.
If the scope grows twice by day ninety, it was never fractional. And a fractional executive is not an advisor with a title. An advisor is a few decisions a month with an end date. Do not give that the C-level title, you will not get it back.
Every interim and fractional executive I place goes through the same three fits as a permanent hire: skill fit, stage fit and need fit. The stay is shorter. The check is not.
A first conversation costs nothing and takes up to sixty minutes. If the seat turns out to be permanent, I tell you on that call.
Talk it through. The seat, the chapter, and the shape that fits it.
Not sure which seat is due? Sixty minutes on a call, no brief and no pitch. I name the seat, the reason and whether it should be permanent or fractional.
A first conversation is the cheapest part of any executive search. Sixty minutes on a call to understand the stage you're in, what you actually need, and whether I'm the right person to help.
