Christian Rados, biotech executive headhunter and founder of Rados Recruiting, Munich

Biotech Executive Search.

The right person for your next stage. Permanent in under 30 days, interim and fractional in 3.

C-Level. Permanent, Interim, Fractional and Board Roles

Rados Recruiting, Munich. Christian Rados, biotech headhunter since 2011. 100+ clients, 1,000+ placements.

Book a call See the Rados Method

100+ clients since 2011. Biotech, among them:

AmgenBavarian NordicBiogenBioNTechHookipaImmunicleon nanodrugsValanx

What if most problems with clinical data, funding and partnerships are really selection problems?

You can't control the biology. But you can select who makes the decision.

Clinical

A trial built on the wrong endpoint.

Funding

A round pitched to the wrong investors, at the wrong time.

Partnerships

A deal signed too early, for too little.

Portfolio

A program kept alive a year too long.

None of these are science problems. They're decisions.

And every one of them was made by a leader. The quality of your data, your funding and your deals is the quality of the decisions behind them. And the quality of those decisions comes down to who you put in the seat.

The hard part? The wrong leader hides behind a great CV, a good conversation and a strong culture fit. Nobody sees it coming. Not you, not the board, not the investors.

So I developed a new way to select leaders for the stage you're entering.

The Rados Method

Stage fit and need fit.

The Rados Method is a framework for selecting executives and board members who stay, perform and decide well. Stage fit and need fit tell you whether someone fits the company you're about to become. An early-stage CEO and a commercial CEO share a title, not a job.

Stage fit and need fit are new in executive search. The research behind them isn't.

See the evidence

Every search has three parts. The first one is easy, everyone checks it.

The other two are where hires succeed or fail. That's exactly what the Rados Method focuses on: stage fit and need fit.

Prerequisite

Skill

Expertise, experience, track record. Every serious search checks it, and so do I, on every candidate. It gets someone into the room.

The Rados Method, the company side

Stage fit

What will the stage ahead demand from this role, and which needs will it feed?

The Rados Method, the person side

Need fit

Are those the needs that drive this person, year after year?

Skill decides who gets into the room. Stage fit and need fit decide what happens after.

See the Rados Method

Three questions

Three questions I get from boards and investors.

The short answer here. The long one on its own page.

Why is the Series A CEO rarely the right CEO for commercialisation?Same business card, different job. Early, the CEO tells the story and wins belief. Later, the CEO builds the organisation that delivers on it. Half of all founders are no longer CEO three years in, and most of them did not leave by choice. Read the answer

Why should a biotech board assess need fit, not only track record and chemistry?Track record tells you what someone can do. Chemistry tells you that you like them. Neither tells you whether the role will keep feeding what drives the person. The board sees the bill 18 months later. Read the answer

Why does biotech leadership fail despite a strong track record?Great interviews. Strong first six months. Then the quiet exit. The CV got them into the room. It didn't get them through the next stage. Read the answer

Organizational development

Which seat is due next?

Stage fit tells you whether a person fits the stage ahead. Organizational development comes one step earlier and answers the question before any search: should you hire this seat now? Which seats your company needs, in which order they come in, and when one has to change hands.

One of the biggest problems: the wrong person at the wrong moment. Often hired too early, or the wrong role entirely for the company's stage.

Where the company comes from, what the next round has to fund and where the clinic stands decide which role comes when.

Which role comes when, by stage

CFO CEO CSO CMO CBO COO CDO CTO CCO People

Pick a role and follow it from Seed to approval. The full reading, with the six stages, the five origins and when a role is actually due, is on its own page.

Organizational development: how I read biotech companies

Want to know which seat is due?

Sixty minutes on a call, no brief and no pitch. I name the role, the reason and whether it should be permanent or fractional.

Book a call

How to hire, seat by seat.

Once the seat is due, the guide for it: who you are looking for at your stage, where that person comes from, what to ask, what to check and what the package pays.

How to hire a CEO How to hire a CFO How to hire a CMO How to hire a CSO How to hire a CBO How to hire a COO How to hire a CTO How to hire a board chair

Services

You know which seat is due. Now, which shape?

Not every seat needs a full-time executive on the payroll, and the wrong shape costs as much as the wrong person. Fractional, interim or permanent is not a budget question. It is a question of what the work actually is. Write down the actual work for one month. Not the title. The work.

Europe and the US. Munich, Vienna, Basel, Berlin, Oxford, Cambridge, Copenhagen, Ghent, Boston, New York, the Bay Area.

A few decisions a month

A full week, every week

The work is ongoing

Fractional

Judgement, not hours. If the scope grows twice by day ninety, it was never fractional.

Permanent

You are hiring for the raise and the stage after it.

The work ends on a date

An advisor

Not a C-level seat. Do not give it the title, you will not get it back.

Interim

A defined build with an end. Or you started too late.

Permanent, interim and fractional, explained: contract models and the legal layer.

01 · Permanent

A seat needs the right person. A new one, or a better one.

The stage calls for a role that didn't exist yet, or the leader who got you here won't get you there. I find the person who fits the stage you're entering.

Shortlist in days. Closed in under 30.

Find your permanent hire

02 · Interim and fractional

You need leadership now. A permanent hire is months away or premature.

A readout is coming and the CMO seat is empty, or a full-time CFO isn't justified yet. I place senior interim and fractional leaders at C-level.

In three days.

Get interim leadership

03 · Board and advisory

Your cap table hands you a board. It doesn't hand you help.

I fill the seats with people who change the outcome: a director who has raised the round you're about to raise, a chair who has run a CEO succession.

So when the big decision comes, the help is already in the room.

Build your board

Client voices

Four clients, in their own words.

Every quote is public and linked to the original.

“Christian knows the biotech scene, quickly understands what kind of talent a young company needs, and finds the right people. Highly recommended for biotech founders and CSOs who are building their teams.”

Klaus Orlinger, Chief Scientific Officer, VALANX Biotech. Before that Chief Scientific Officer at HOOKIPA Pharma. Rated 5 of 5.
ProvenExpert, September 2026

“I am working with Christian since a couple of years and so far he has identified more than ten experts and leaders for me which I was happy to recruit and which are doing an excellent job for my company and me.”

Christoph Klaus, Chief Integrations Officer, Prange Pharma Group. At the time of the recommendation CEO Klosterfrau Berlin and Group COO, Klosterfrau Healthcare Group.
LinkedIn recommendation, March 2025

“Christian has an incredible large network, a deep understanding about the (bio-)pharmaceutical industry and is able to translate job specifications into attractive opportunities.”

Roman Necina, VP & GM Viral Vector, Cytiva. Client at Hookipa, where he was Chief Operating Officer.
LinkedIn recommendation, March 2025

„Individuelle, effiziente und schnelle Betreuung: Rados Recruiting kennt Industrieumfeld und Kandidaten-Background stets sehr genau.“

Christian Nafe, Chief Financial Officer, leon nanodrugs. Rated 5 of 5.
ProvenExpert, September 2026

12months

The guarantee.

If a permanent executive I placed leaves within twelve months, I run the search again at no additional fee. The two fits are not a promise of effort. They are a promise of outcome, and I carry the risk of being wrong.

Full recommendations and search experience

Ecosystem

The people in this ecosystem share one goal.

Help the biotech industry bring novel drugs to patients. Life Science Nord, HTGF, BIO Deutschland, Van Lanschot Kempen and BIOTECH AUSTRIA work on that from different seats. So do the guests on Willing to Win.

Mentor

Life Science Nord Mentoring Network.Quarterly one-hour sessions with life science start-ups on leadership, executive recruiting and team composition.

Podcast guests

Achim Plum, HTGF. Oliver Schacht, Life Science Nord. Jan De Kerpel, Van Lanschot Kempen. Klaus Weinberger, Metaron Diagnostics.

Willing to Win: Biotech Leaders Against All Odds.

A long-form podcast featuring biotech founders, CEOs and Chairpersons who have built companies through real adversity: failed trials, board fights, near-bankruptcy, regulatory setbacks, personal cost. Not the highlight reel. The willingness.

New

Sorted by the situation you are in.

The same conversations, cut by the problem a biotech CEO is sitting with: how it felt, what the guests did the next morning, and what came of it. Standing on the shoulders of giants.

If you fear running out of cash before the readout

Episode 21Latest episode

Episode 21 | I Shouldn't Be Here: Moderna's First CSO on Making Life Count (Antonin de Fougerolles)

Antonin "Tony" de Fougerolles · Founding Chief Scientific Officer of Moderna; board chair and investor

Tony de Fougerolles was born in Montreal three months premature, weighing about a pound and a half. He was the youngest child in Canada to survive at that age and weight. Twenty years of operations followed: doctors two or three times a week, surgery every summer, every Christmas. Ask him what he would change, and he says: nothing. "I shouldn't be here. This is all extra, let's make the most of it."

Watch episode

YouTube Spotify Apple Podcasts

Episode 23 | The Moment You Doubt Yourself Is the Moment You Should Stop (Sezai Taskin) Sezai Taskin · CEO, ViferaXS →

Episode 22 | So, Do We Have a Deal? (Achim Plum, HTGF) Dr. Achim Plum · Managing Director of HTGF (High-Tech Gründerfonds), heading Life Science and Chemistry →

Episode 20 | I Can't Not Be Fascinated (Wolfgang Hofmann) Wolfgang Hofmann · CEO, leon-nanodrugs (Munich) →

All episodes

Stream on these platforms

FAQ

Questions I get on the first call.

Answered the way I answer them on the phone.

What is Rados Recruiting?

A boutique executive search firm for biotech, based in Munich. I founded it in 2020 after nine years as a biotech headhunter, and I run every mandate myself: CEO, CFO, CMO, CSO, CBO, COO, CTO and board seats, permanent, interim or fractional, for venture-backed and listed biotech from Seed to Public, in Europe and the US.

Permanent placements close in under 30 days, interim and fractional in 3. Permanent placements carry a 12-month guarantee.

What is the Rados Method?

The framework I use to judge a biotech leadership hire. Skill comes first and every serious search checks it. Most executive searches still select on skill and chemistry. The Rados Method adds two fits: stage fit, the company side, what the stage ahead will demand from this role and which needs it will feed; and need fit, the person side, whether those are the needs that drive this person, year after year. The full method is on the Rados Method page.

How is Rados Recruiting different from large global executive search firms?

Large firms sell process: a partner pitches, an associate searches, a researcher builds the longlist, and three months later you get a shortlist. I sell judgement. One person owns the mandate from the first conversation to the placement, every search runs through the Rados Method, and the shortlist arrives in days because I go into the whole market every time, not into a database.

Permanent placements close in under 30 days. Interim placements in 3.

What kinds of roles do you place?

C-level and senior leadership for venture-backed and listed biotech: CEO, CFO, CMO, CSO, CBO, CCO, COO, CTO, independent directors and chairs. Permanent, interim and fractional. Most mandates are Seed through Series C, most of them clinical-stage.

What is the difference between permanent, interim, and fractional executives?

Permanent: a long-term C-level hire, employed by the company. Interim: a full-time leader for a defined period, typically three to twelve months, through a readout, a restructuring or a gap. Fractional: a part-time senior leader, from two days a month to a few days a week. I place all three. Typical mandates: interim CMO during a clinical readout, fractional CFO before Series A, interim CEO between cycles. The contract models and the statutory officer layer are in the complete guide.

How fast can you fill a C-level role?

Permanent placements close in under 30 days from briefing to signed offer, interim and fractional in 3 days. Global search firms typically need four to six months.

Fast is the time to a shortlist, not a shortcut on diligence. Candidates surface in days because I go into the whole market every time, several thousand personal contacts plus everyone I have not met yet. The referencing, the assessment on both fits and the chemistry calls happen in full.

Do you also place Board members and Chairpersons?

Yes. Independent directors, chairs and strategic advisors for biotech companies and funds. Board mandates run slower and quieter than executive search, on the same principle: one person owns the mandate. The directors I place have operational depth in clinical development, regulatory, business development or commercial launch. Not names for the deck.

How is your fee structured?

Permanent executive search: a retainer of 30 percent of first-year compensation. Seed-stage companies and teams under five people: special rates, on request. Interim and fractional: hourly, daily or a monthly retainer, agreed per mandate. I go through the investment and the contract in the first conversation. Nothing hidden.

When does a biotech actually need a strategic CFO, not just a financial manager?

Most early-stage biotechs need a financial manager, not a CFO: a clean monthly close, the cap table, support for the next financing. Jan De Kerpel said it on Willing to Win: "In early stage companies, the CFO role is not a CFO role. It is actually a financial manager role."

The strategic CFO becomes necessary when financing moves from supporting the CEO to co-leading with the CEO, typically between Series B and Series C. Too early, and you pay twice for the role and watch the person leave. Too late, and the CEO carries the financing alone. The biotech CFO, stage by stage.

When is the right moment to bring in a Chief Medical Officer?

Not when the asset is three years from first-in-human; at that stage a medical advisor or a fractional CMO, two days a month, is enough. The full-time CMO becomes necessary twelve to eighteen months before the readout that defines the value of the asset, typically late Phase 1b or early Phase 2. Companies that delay pay in trial momentum and regulatory missteps. Companies that hire too early pay a senior salary for an underemployed executive. The biotech CMO, stage by stage.

When should a founder-CEO transition out of the role?

Later than most founders think, and earlier than most boards say it. The founding CEO and the commercial CEO are different jobs. The signals: the board has private conversations about CEO readiness, the founder's week is eaten by operational decisions, financing stalls because investors want institutional leadership, or the next round requires it. Founders who are honest with themselves recognise the moment and lead the move. The others wait for the board, which usually happens a year too late. The biotech CEO, stage by stage.

“The CV tells you what someone can do. Stage fit and need fit tell you whether it will work here.”Christian Rados, founder of Rados Recruiting. Munich.

Let's talk.

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.

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