Organizational development in biotech companies
Where the company comes from, what the organisation needs, what the next round has to fund and where the clinic stands set the demands on every role. The title stays the same. The job does not. This page is the reading I do before every search, in the order I do it: which role the stage calls for, how the origin shifts it, and when a role is actually due.
01 · Which role comes when
Six stages, from Seed to approval. Ten roles. Pick a role and follow it across the stages. The lime line marks the first permanent hire. A role in grey is not due yet, or the founder still holds it.
Which role comes when, by stage
02 · Where the company comes from
That depends on where the company comes from. A professor who spun out her lab and a repeat founder with a fast syndicate arrive at Series A with very different teams, so the same role is due at different times. I read the origin first, because it shifts the timing of every role by up to one stage. Five origins cover almost every biotech I see.
CEO, CFO and COO questions arrive a stage early.IP from a lab, a professor as founder. Nobody turns the biology into a development plan and a raise.
Every seat is an upgrade question.A fund or studio at founder level, a borrowed team. Which of the incubation leaders become permanent.
The seats are rarely empty.Repeat founders, prior exits, a fast syndicate. The question is whether the playbook transfers to this company.
Every seat arrives staffed.An asset or unit spun out of a named pharma. The question is adaptation to start-up speed, not vacancy.
The CMO fires a stage early.A commercial operator as CEO, a professor as CSO who keeps the chair. The CSO is a fit question from day one.
03 · When a role is actually due
Three things have to hold at the same time. The stage calls for the role. A trigger sits in the next twelve months. And the role is verified empty or mis-fitted, across two independent sources. Two roles at once is a sequencing question. Three or more means interim help first.
The last round, the clinical phase and the headcount should agree. When they don't, that contradiction is the first thing to look at.
A round, a readout, a partnering deal, a launch window, a senior departure. Each one points at the role that owns it.
A fractional, interim or acting title is not the permanent seat. A VP holding the function is not the permanent seat. Both are upgrade questions, not vacancies.
You already have a CFO
Then the question changes. Not whether the seat is filled, but whether the person in it fits the stage you are entering. The CFO who ran the Series A books and closed the round with the existing syndicate is not automatically the CFO who faces crossover investors at Series B and prepares the company for a listing. Same person, same title, a different job. Most boards notice this twelve months after the round, when the numbers already tell the story.
The honest check
Read the next stage against the person you have, before the next round reads it for you.
The CFO Hiring Guide lays out what each stage asks of the seat, which of those jobs your company needs next, and what to check before you decide to keep, upgrade or add. It works for the CFO you have as much as for the one you are about to hire.
The roles
Which human needs would the stage and the role feed?
Does the seat keep feeding the two needs that drive this person?
CEO. CFO. CMO. CSO. CBO. COO. CTO. Interim. Fractional. Board member. Chair.
I select every leader this way. Only the answers change. A first-in-human company needs an executive who rolls up their sleeves. A board needs someone who helps the CEO decide. That's why contribution has to be one of a board member's top two needs.
What each role has to deliver at each stage, which shape it takes, permanent, interim or fractional, and how I search for it: see the roles on the services page. The hiring guides go one level deeper, fifteen pages per role. The CFO guide is online. CEO, CMO, CSO, CBO, COO and CTO I send on request.
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.