The C-Level Hiring Guide · CSO
The founding CSO is usually a discovery scientist. The company, from Series A on, is moving toward the clinic. That gap is the whole story of this seat: the inventor has to become a programme driver, or the company needs one beside them. One concrete flag runs through every version of my reading: a founder who still holds the university post once the company is past Series B.
Two jobs share the title
No job description changes between them. The clinic does.
Is the science fundable, or does it want to be a paper? Builds the bench, the first data package, the scientific story investors buy.Formation and Build. Feeds variety and recognition.
Takes programmes to the clinic, leads scientists instead of experiments, runs portfolio governance, becomes the public face of the science together with the CMO.Translation onward. Feeds variety and contribution, and asks for some predictability. Strain comes only when the CSO clings to the bench instead of leading.
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.
FounderSeed, preclinical. CEO and CSO in place, two or three founders, a bench under the CSO. The question is whether the science is fundable.
FounderSeries A, heading for IND. A Head of Research and a Head of Preclinical under the CSO, an early CMC lead. The real risk: a founding CSO who is a discovery scientist while the company moves toward the clinic.
WatchSeries B, Phase 1b/2. Past Series B, a founder-CSO still running a lab is the one concrete flag. If the CSO is covering medicine, that is also the sign the CMO is due.
UpgradeSeries C, Phase 2. The Phase 2 readout. The CSO repositioning question begins here: does the founder lead the pipeline, or does a programme-driving CSO come in beside a chief scientist?
UpgradePhase 3, pre-commercial. Whether the founding CSO scales or should be repositioned. An independent advisor can frame that with dignity before the board frames it without.
SuccessionFiled, approved, selling. Next-generation scientific leadership, planned eighteen to thirty-six months out. Advisory work, not a search, until it is.
What makes the question live
Like the CEO, this seat is always held, so vacancy never counts. The problems surface late, and by then the board is already talking.
A founder who still holds a university post once the company is past Translation. Investors read it as a fit question, not a loyalty question.
Thin scientific leadership beneath the CSO. The science outgrew the hours the seat gets, and the programmes slow down. New investors see the delay and price the round lower.
A CSO answering the medical questions after the IND. That is not a CSO problem. It is the CMO seat, empty.
Which shape
The CSO is a permanent seat in my reading. The exceptions are real but narrow.
At Build, an independent scientific or regulatory advisor pressure-tests the thesis. No permanent technical hire is due yet.Scoped, not a seat.
During a platform pivot or a BD-led repositioning of the science.A defined build with an end.
The programme-driving CSO from Series C, or a Head of Development beside the founder from Series B.The founder keeps the science and the title of chief scientist; the programmes get an owner.
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 $448K to $502K | Target 38 to 47% of base | Annual grant median $96K to $2.0M | [1] |
| US, private | 2022 Pave sample: base median $250K, total compensation median $485K. Recruiter data puts the CSO 15 to 20% below the CMO | no reliable public figure | no reliable public figure | [2] |
| Europe, listed | Evotec CSO €450K | Evotec about 43% cash plus a deferred share component | no reliable public figure | [3] |
| Europe, private | no reliable public figure | 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. The outside-commitments line is the one that decides this offer: the academic post, the lab, the publications. Settle it before the offer, in writing, including what happens to the professorship at the next stage.
[1] Bedford Group Transearch, Biotech Compensation Report 2024 (FY2023 data, 189 Nasdaq-listed biotechs under $2B market cap). [2] Pave / Founder Led Bio compensation study 2022 (small sample, indicative). [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.
How I read the seat
The CSO question is almost never about capability. It is about which job the person wants to do.
The CSO is the one seat that never breaks on variety: new science keeps it alive through every stage. What changes is the ask for contribution and, at Scale, for predictability in portfolio governance. The discovery founder who moves from CEO to CSO makes the most common dignified move in biotech.
Bring in a Head of Development who takes the programmes to the clinic while the founder keeps the science. Or bring in a CSO who has run programmes through the clinic while the founder becomes chief scientist or scientific advisor.
Early-stage companies run into one conflict more than any other: the CSO and the CMO disagree about a dose. Both are right, neither can act, the trial waits. Write down who decides before the first patient, not after.
You already have a CSO
The question is whether the next stage feeds what drives the person. If the founder runs on variety and recognition, leading scientists instead of experiments can feed both, or starve both; one conversation tells you which. If a change is needed, the dignified version is a Head of Development or a programme-driving CSO beside a chief scientist, agreed a year early.
The inventor does not have to leave for the programme driver to arrive.
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.