CMO Compensation at Private Companies: What It Takes to Land a Top Chief Medical Officer

CMO compensation at private companies is climbing as the role becomes one of the most competitive executive searches in life science. What’s a trending role for private life science companies right now? CMOs.

Last week, we hosted a Lunch & Learn webinar (video below) with Cissy Young, PhD (楊 詩華), Managing Director True Search, and she shared why CMOs have become one of the hottest executive searches for private companies.

“Financing is starting to come back, but the investors are very disciplined and they expect that the entrepreneurs are going to be disciplined.”

If you’re going to spend the money on a top CMO, that spend has to be justified by their ability to deliver on key clinical milestones and catalysts that drive the next round of financing.

Using the Thelander Comp Planning Tool, you can see how the median and 75th percentile in total cash and equity shift as a company raises capital – from <$5M through $100M+ in total financing. It gives leadership a clear way to model: how much cash and equity to offer a CMO at your current stage, how that mix evolves as you raise additional capital, and what “paying a premium” looks like in terms of real-time market data.

Want to see how your CMO compensation compares to real-time market data? Participate in the no-cost Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey today. You’ll unlock data for every job title you complete—the more you give, the more you get.

Categorised in: Data Drops

This post was written by jthelander