The C-Level Hiring Guide · CFO
At Series A there is, strictly speaking, no CFO job yet. At Series B the CFO runs the first finance-led raise. By Phase 3 the seat faces analysts and an audit committee. Same title, three jobs. Pick the wrong one and it costs you a year. This page walks the seat through the six stages, names the shape it should take, and lays out what the package covers.
Three jobs share the title
Write down which of these three you are hiring, what they own from day one, and what they do not. Then one more line most teams skip: when finance and the programme disagree, who decides.
Builds finance from zero. Owns burn, runway and the model, the data room and the raise story, and sits in the room for the terms.Often the only finance person in the building. The Series B CFO.
FP&A, controls, the board pack. Runs finance across entities, builds a function underneath, takes on tax, treasury and procurement.A systems job as much as a finance one. The Series C CFO.
Crossover rounds and the IPO. Public investors and analysts, the audit committee, quarterly reporting, the story after the listing.Closest to the capital markets. The Phase 3 CFO.
The seat, stage by stage
Six stages, one seat. The label is the state of the seat at that stage; the line under it is what the seat has to deliver. All ten roles on one timeline.
Not yetSeed, preclinical. A fractional finance lead or an advisor builds the seed-to-A model and narrative. A permanent CFO at this point has nothing to own.
FractionalSeries A, heading for IND. The CEO runs the raise. A fractional finance lead builds the model and the story beside them, keeps the runway honest and gets the monthly close clean. Finance moves from helpful to necessary.
First permanent hireSeries B, Phase 1b/2. Series B is the first finance-led raise, and the CFO in the seat is the one who runs it. The CFO usually goes first in this wave, because the CFO owns the raise that funds the CMO.
UpgradeSeries C, Phase 2. Series C is run by the CFO. The question in the room: can they model three scenarios live, in front of institutional investors? A weak finance seat gets priced into the round.
Public-readyPhase 3, pre-commercial. IPO or M&A. The profile moves toward lead-banker level. An interim CFO with IPO experience can bridge the gap while the permanent search runs.
SuccessionFiled, approved, selling. Public markets and the balance sheet. The next CFO is planned eighteen to thirty-six months out, not when the current one resigns.
Three patterns I see again and again
Not real companies with the names filed off. Patterns, and every one of them had a different fix than a search.
A founder-held one-tab model. The CFO arrived fourteen months later and found a runway that ended four months earlier than the board thought. Decide who owns the numbers on purpose.
A CFO at thirty people with nothing to own. She left four months before the Series B. A fractional finance lead would have carried those two years.
The right hire. Then the job turned into quarterly reporting and audit committees, and it stopped feeding him. Visible a year earlier, in which meetings he went quiet. A conversation, not a search.
Which shape
From Series A a fractional finance lead is usually the first seat. The permanent CFO is due when someone has to raise the next round and run the stage after it. A permanent hire alone is not a plan, it is a wish: hire the fractional lead now and search behind it.
A few decisions a month: the model, the runway view, the board pack. Two days a month to a few days a week.If the scope grows twice by day ninety, it was never fractional.
Three to twelve months with a defined end: the CFO leaves before a round, or an IPO-experienced bridge at Scale.Nine months of an interim teaches you what the permanent one has to be.
Investors want the finance lead in the room for the whole round. Start eighteen months before the money has to be in the bank: three months of search, three of notice, a year in the seat before the deal.Twelve months of runway means an interim CFO plus a bridge, because a permanent hire also raises the burn.
The package
Base, bonus, equity, change of control, severance. The structure is the same in every market. The numbers and the contract law are not.
What the package covers
The one number everyone quotes and the least informative one. It moves with market (Boston and Basel differ), stage and whether the company is listed. Private biotechs pay double-digit percentages below listed peers at C-level.
A target as a percentage of base, paid on milestones the board can verify. I tie it to outcomes, never to activity. Listed US biotechs set targets around 40 to 50 percent of base for non-CEO roles and 60 to 66 percent for the CEO (Bedford Group, FY2023 proxy data).
In a private company a percentage of the fully diluted shares, usually options, vesting over four years with a one-year cliff, refreshed at the next financing rather than annually. Listed companies grant an annual value, increasingly a mix of options and restricted stock.
Often the real negotiation. Candidates walk over trigger terms and unvested equity more often than over base. Double trigger (deal plus loss of the job) is what governance advisers and proxy firms prefer; over 85 percent of listed US biotechs allow some acceleration.
Private companies write one number in months of salary. Listed US companies: twelve months for the CEO is the norm, nine to twelve for the others, and eighteen months of salary plus target bonus on a change of control for the CEO (Pearl Meyer; Bedford). Notice periods in Europe are a contract matter, see the country layer below.
Sign-on appears from Phase 1 and 2 onward, rarely preclinical. Relocation is the honest conversation more often than people admit. Outside commitments (board seats, advisory work, an academic post) get settled before the offer, not after.
Ranges, with sources
Numbers move every quarter, so treat these as the shape of the market, not as an offer. Medians and ranges, native currency, source and year in the last column.
| Market and stage | Base | Bonus | Equity | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US, listed (small cap) | Base median $402K to $475K by market cap | Target 40 to 47% of base | Annual grant median $248K to $1.68M | [1] |
| US, private, Seed and Series A | Total cash median about $225K at seed | no reliable public figure | Fractional or outsourced finance is the norm | [2] |
| US, private, late stage (over $90M raised) | Total cash median $400K | no reliable public figure | About 1% fully diluted for a non-founder CFO | [2] |
| Europe, listed | Evotec €458K, argenx $578K, Immunocore $470K | Targets 40 to 75% of base | Idorsia LTI 100% of base; Zealand about 215% | [3] |
| Europe, private | Michael Page 2026, sector-wide: €170K to €400K, average €285K | no reliable public figure | no reliable public figure | [4] |
No public survey covers venture-backed European biotech at C-level. The listed-company figures above are mid and large caps and overstate what a Series B company pays. Sector-wide German data exists (Michael Page 2026: C-level in healthcare and life sciences €170K to €500K, depending on the role), but it mixes industries. On a call I give you the range from my own mandates, for your stage and your city.
What I tie it to. Bonus tied to forecast accuracy, a clean audit and milestones met, never to activity. A remote CFO who will not travel is a consultant. And the best CFO for a Munich company is often in Boston, so the location line gets settled before the offer.
[1] Bedford Group Transearch, Biotech Compensation Report 2024 (FY2023 data, 189 Nasdaq-listed biotechs under $2B market cap). [2] J. Thelander Consulting, private-company compensation data, 2024 to 2026. [3] Evotec remuneration report 2025. [4] Michael Page Gehaltsreport 2026, C-level healthcare and life sciences (sector-wide).
The country layer
The Geschäftsführer is an organ of the company, not an employee: a service contract, no protection under the Kündigungsschutzgesetz, no statutory severance. Because the statutory notice period is disputed, the contract has to fix it. Terms of two to five years are common, a post-contract non-compete runs at most two years, D&O cover is standard. Removal as organ does not end the service contract; both have to be handled.
Vorstand members are appointed for at most five years (section 84 AktG). The Corporate Governance Code caps severance at two years of pay and the remaining term, and asks boards not to agree change-of-control payments.
Statutory notice runs from one month in the first year to three months after ten years, and most executive contracts set more; Idorsia's executives sit on twelve months. In listed companies severance for board and executive committee members has been prohibited since 2023, and shareholders vote on aggregate pay.
Six to twelve months of notice at the executive level, defined-contribution pensions, and tax-advantaged option schemes (EMI, CSOP) in place of US ISOs. Listed companies put the remuneration report to an annual advisory vote.
At-will employment with the economics written into the offer: severance, change-of-control terms and acceleration carry the protection a European notice period would. Four-year vesting with a one-year cliff is the market standard.
Where the person comes from, and what to ask
You do not need to be a finance expert to interview a CFO. You need the questions that separate 'was in the room' from 'inherited it'.
Sitting CFO at a small biotech. VP Finance at a mid-cap, the strongest and most underused pool for a first CFO. A healthcare banker. Corporate finance at big pharma. Big 4 transaction services. A fund-side CFO. Each pool has one test question; the VP Finance gets 'What did your CFO do that you did not?'
Your last raise, what did the lead investor push on? A cash crisis, when did you tell the board? The runway model said eighteen months and was wrong, how did you find out? Fourteen months of cash and a readout in twenty, what do you do? Diligence that went wrong, how late did you catch it?
Identity and every name used. CPA, ACCA or Steuerberater registers. Degrees via the registrar. Employment dates with the employer. SEC actions and director disqualification registers. Every raise and deal on the CV matched to filings and press. Run during the process, by an independent firm, results to the board.
The first ninety days
Days 1 to 30: open the model and rebuild it, meet the auditors and the lead investor in person, one written runway and burn assessment. Not a listening tour, an opinion. Days 30 to 60: own the operating model and the runway view to the board. Days 60 to 90: one decision the company has been avoiding, usually with a burn number in it.
You already have a CFO
Grow into it, rare, and the tell is that they hire people unlike themselves. Hire beside, the common good outcome: a VP Finance who runs reporting while the current lead keeps the investor story. Move on, sometimes the honest answer. Before any of it, decide who holds the numbers on the Monday after, what the auditors, the bank and the lead investor hear that same week, and the date.
Three exits, and only one of them is a search.
Let's talk
Sixty minutes on a call, no brief and no pitch. I name the role, the reason and whether it should be permanent or fractional.