The CEO question
The founding CEO and the commercial CEO are different jobs with the same business card. 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.
01 · Same title, different week
A CEO in Formation, seed money in the bank: the week is the lab, a pitch deck, the first scientist to hire and a grant application, all before lunch. That role feeds variety, and it feeds recognition, because everything that happens has their name on it.
Four years later, Series B. Same title, same business card. The week is now a partnering deal with two pharmas at the table, a Phase 2 that has to answer the question the next round will ask, a board that wants a decision on which program goes first, and a round in the high double-digit millions to close.
At seed, a surprise is a result. At Series B, a surprise is a deviation. There are sixty people instead of six, a protocol that regulators and a pharma partner will hold you to, auditors, and investors who want the monthly numbers to match the plan. The CEO wins this stage by making things predictable. That role feeds predictability, and it starves variety. Someone who runs on variety gets bored by it, and starts creating surprises of their own.
Early stages feed variety. Late stages feed predictability. That's why the CEO who built the company rarely scales it.
02 · Success, not failure
Noam Wasserman at Harvard found that 50% of founders are no longer CEO three years in, and most of them did not leave by choice. The surprising part is the trigger. Once a founder has led the company through its most important task, the chance of being replaced goes up a lot.
The science works, the money comes in, and suddenly the CEO job asks for something else. Processes, structure, a commercial engine, a room full of investors. The stage changed. And often the role stopped feeding what drove the founder in the first place.
03 · The people who fund it
Both run life-science funds or banks that see dozens of boards a year. Both said it on my podcast, in their own words.
"The founding CEO is rarely the commercial CEO."Managing Director and Head of Life Sciences, Van Lanschot Kempen. Hear the conversation
"Raise your hand now and drive the leadership question yourself. Or someone else will drive it for you."Managing Director, High-Tech Gründerfonds, Life Sciences. Hear the conversation
04 · The signals
Four things show up before anyone says the word succession out loud.
Private conversations about CEO readiness, without the CEO in the room.
The founder's week is eaten by operational decisions nobody else can take.
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.
05 · What planned looks like
Jan De Kerpel brought this one up on Willing to Win. 2023, Karen Massey joins Argenx as COO. 2026, she becomes CEO and co-founder Tim Van Hauwermeiren becomes chairman. The stage changed from building to running a commercial company, and the person for that stage had been in the building for three years. Jan calls it the blueprint. Succession planned, not forced.
I don't search for the stage you're in. I search for what the stage you're entering needs.
That is stage fit, the company side. Then need fit, the person side: are those the needs that drive this person, year after year? Both questions, in that order, before I look at a single CV. The biotech CEO, stage by stage.
Let's talk
Sixty minutes on a call, no brief and no pitch. We start with the stage your company is entering and what it asks of the CEO role, then we talk about the person.
Christian Rados, Rados Recruiting, Munich. Biotech executive search in Europe and the US, headhunter since 2011.