From Lab to C-Suite: Building the Manufacturing and Finance Leadership for a VC-Backed Fusion Pioneer

The Challenge

Founded in 2023 by physicists and engineers spun out of one of Europe's leading plasma physics research institutes, this company's mission is to deliver limitless, clean energy to the grid in the 2030s. It closed over €27M in pre-seed and seed funding by mid-2024, then completed Europe's largest private fusion investment round at €145M Series A (+extension) a year later, taking total funding to €200M. It now employs over 100 people across three countries.

The scientific case was made. What the company needed was the executive layer to turn a research programme into a hardware-execution programme, and eventually into a commercial energy business: two different hires, at two different moments. They turned to The Big Search for both.

Overview of the Two Executive Searches

Between July 2024 and April 2026, The Big Search ran two C-suite searches for this company: a Chief Manufacturing Officer to lead the shift from research to hardware execution, and a Chief Financial Officer to manage a €200M capital base through a pre-revenue, decade-long roadmap. The two searches were separate hiring problems, fifteen months apart, each with its own talent pool and strategy. Both closed.

Phase 1 — Anchoring the Hardware Programme: Chief Manufacturing Officer

• July 2024 → November 2024
• VC Value Creation: Science-to-Business Transition Phase

When this search opened, the team was built almost entirely of physicists and engineers. The scientific foundation was world-class; the manufacturing infrastructure didn't exist yet. This hire would be the first executive brought in to build it, owning the manufacturing strategy from zero and turning research outputs into a repeatable, precision hardware programme.

The hard part: finding a manufacturing leader willing to leave a senior role in a mature, well-resourced industrial environment for a challenge with no commercial precedent. Most executives at this level in aerospace, automotive, or medical devices sit inside large programmes with established teams and budgets. The pitch needed a specific kind of appetite.

Executive Search Across European Precision Manufacturing and Hardware Scale-Up Leadership

The hunting strategy covered three industrial sectors with the closest analogue to this hardware challenge: commercial aerospace, premium automotive, and precision medical devices, all of which demand extreme tolerances and the ability to build processes from scratch.

• VP Manufacturing and COO profiles at commercial aerospace companies
• Senior manufacturing leaders from premium automotive groups
• COO and VP Operations profiles at fast-scaling surgical robotics and medical device companies
• Candidates who had already moved between large industrial environments and high-growth hardware startups

We mapped 125 candidates across Europe. The client interviewed 8.

The Placed Candidate: A Manufacturing Executive Built Across Aerospace, Automotive, and Surgical Robotics

The candidate's foundations were laid at a leading German premium automotive manufacturer, followed by over 7 years at a global aerospace company during one of the most aggressive hardware scale-ups in modern industrial history. From there, they took a Chief Operating Officer role at a surgical robotics scale-up.

• Hardware scale-up at the highest level — 7 years scaling aerospace manufacturing from early development to high-cadence production is the closest available training ground for this programme.
• Depth across three industries — automotive, aerospace, and surgical robotics each demand zero tolerance for failure and the discipline to build processes from nothing.
• Proven startup transition — the surgical robotics COO role showed they could bring large-company discipline into a scaling, pre-commercial business.
• A builder, not a maintainer — a career defined by creating manufacturing capability rather than managing infrastructure someone else built.

Phase 2 — Installing the Financial Architecture: Chief Financial Officer

• October 2025 → April 2026
• VC Value Creation: Science-to-Business Transition Phase

By the time this search opened, the €145M Series A had closed and the company was managing €200M in institutional capital. The board included some of Europe's most prominent deep-tech investors, the roadmap was measured in decades, and the business remained entirely pre-revenue.

The role needed someone who understood long-horizon capital cycles, could hold investor confidence through years of heavy capex with no near-term revenue, and could eventually manage a shift to revenue or offtake structures. Pure operational finance experience wasn't enough. The candidate needed institutional capital markets exposure alongside an operating track record, a narrow combination.

Executive Search Across Deep-Tech Finance and Institutional Capital Markets

Two pools were defined: finance leaders who had run large institutional balance sheets through pre-revenue phases at VC-backed climate-tech or energy companies, and senior investment bankers with technology or energy transaction experience who had crossed into operating finance roles.

• Finance leaders at pre-revenue or early-revenue companies with large institutional balance sheets
• Investment bankers with 10+ years in technology, energy, or specialty finance who had moved into an operating role
• Board-level credibility and direct investor relations experience at Series A and beyond
• Multi-geography European capital markets execution experience

We mapped 454 candidates across Europe.

First shortlist

7 days from kick-off

All 17 shortlisted candidates proceeded to interview, a rigorous, methodical process rather than a slow one. The search ran 177 days in total.

The Placed Candidate: A Finance Leader With 15 Years in Investment Banking Before the Operating Seat

The candidate spent over 15 years as an investment banker across FinTech, Specialty Finance, and Banking, executing M&A, equity capital markets, and private capital raises across Western Europe, Emerging Europe, and the Middle East. They then moved into venture, and from there into the top finance seat at a European digital health unicorn.

• Banking and operating experience, in sequence — most candidates at this level have one background or the other; this one had both, at depth.
• Ran finance at a unicorn — proof they could build and run a function, not just advise one.
• Multi-geography execution — transactions across the UK, Western Europe, Emerging Europe, and the Middle East.
• Pre-revenue capital fluency — the specific skill of holding board confidence through a heavy-capex, no-near-term-revenue balance sheet.

Science-to-business transitions don't stall because the science fails. They stall because the executive layer isn't ready to execute.

This company got two hires right, fifteen months apart, from two entirely different talent pools: a manufacturing leader out of aerospace, automotive, and surgical robotics, and a finance leader who spent 15 years in banking before ever running a finance function. Neither profile is common. Finding them took knowing exactly where to look, and a case compelling enough that the right person said yes.

If you're building a leadership team around a science-to-business transition and need the right people in place before your next raise, let's talk.