From DeepTech Pioneer to Commercial Scale: Hiring the Operational Leader for a VC-Backed DeepTech Company

The Challenge

Founded and led by a team of scientists and engineers, this Dutch deep-tech company spent a decade building nanoparticle synthesis and deposition tools that cut material innovation cycles from 15 years to as little as one. Its clients span leading research institutions and industrial players in electronics, renewable energy, green hydrogen, gas sensing, and materials discovery.

By early 2025, the company had raised ~€21M across a Series A and an A2 extension, built an international customer base across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America, and reached an inflection point: the leap from research-stage pioneer to a structured, commercially scaled business.

The investors needed to act on two fronts:

• Install operational leadership: a COO/President who could build and run a structured organisation alongside the founding team
• Accelerate commercial scale: turn world-class technology into repeatable revenue growth across international markets

The profile required a rare blend: real science or engineering depth, large-company operational experience, and the entrepreneurial mindset to survive an early-stage environment. They turned to The Big Search.

Overview of the Executive Search

• March 2025 → August 2025
• VC Value Creation: Science-to-Business Transition Phase

Between March and August 2025, The Big Search ran the search for that COO/President. The search closed in August, and the client gave it a 9/10 NPS.

Executive Search Across European Deep-Tech, Scientific Instruments & Life Sciences

The hunting strategy targeted COO, President, and Managing Director profiles at the intersection of scientific instrumentation, hardware, and materials science, people who could operate between a technical founding team and a scaling organisation:

• Engineering or scientific academic background (chemistry, physics, materials science)
• Operational leadership inside instrument manufacturers or research technology companies
• Track record scaling international commercial operations across Europe, the US, and Asia
• Board-level exposure in a venture-backed environment

Target archetypes: analytical instrumentation companies, scientific equipment manufacturers, life sciences tools businesses, and hardware scale-ups across Europe and the Nordics.

We ran an exhaustive mapping exercise, identifying 156 candidates.

First shortlist

22 days from kick-off

Of the 156 profiles identified, 73 were contacted and 24 reached the consultant interview stage. That gap tells you how rare the target profile was: scientific credibility, operational maturity, and an entrepreneurial mindset rarely sit in the same person. Fifteen made the shortlist, 7 went through a three-round client interview process built to test cultural fit as much as credentials, and one was hired. As the client put it:

"Really enjoy working with you."

Client NPS

9/10

The Placed Candidate: A Commercially Minded Operational Leader With a Scientific Foundation

The candidate's background sits exactly where the search needed it: engineering rigour on one side, business leadership on the other.

• Scientific credibility — M.Sc. in organic chemistry and materials science from a top European engineering university, giving the technical depth to earn trust from a founder-led scientific team.
• Operational leadership at scale — built a career inside a leading scientific instruments and life sciences organisation, including a highly selective General Manager Development Programme.
• International commercial experience — managed cross-border operations and commercial teams across European and global markets.
• Board-ready — completed formal board member training, ready to operate at governance level in a venture-backed environment.

Most VC-backed deep-tech companies underrate how hard the science-to-business transition actually is. We closed this search in five months, placing a COO whose background joins the founding team's scientific credibility with the operational discipline needed to scale. Of the 156 candidates mapped, only a small number combined real science depth with large-company operating experience. The profile is rarer than the title suggests.

If a portfolio company is approaching this same inflection point, ready to scale but not yet structured to do so, let's talk.