Chief Executive Officer in Manchester

There are some rare opportunities that appear maybe once or twice in a career, where the science is real, the clinical evidence already exists, and the market is genuinely waiting to be opened by the right person. This is one of those, and we need a very specific type of commercial leader to seize the moment.

We are working with an early-stage, venture-backed business developing a wearable neurostimulation device that has already demonstrated meaningful clinical effect in a controlled trial setting. The technology works on the peripheral nervous system and has a highly credible, science-led roadmap into multiple conditions affecting tens of millions of people globally. It is launching first as a consumer wellness product, with a regulated medical device pathway planned to follow, and the founding team carries deep scientific and technical expertise. What they do not yet have is someone who knows how to build the commercial engine.

The CEO they are looking for has spent a significant part of their career building direct-to-consumer device businesses in health, wellness, or wearable technology, and has done it at a level of genuine commercial responsibility, owning budgets, setting strategy, building the team and delivering revenue growth across more than one geography. The solution is a device and therefore the company needs someone who has worked with the complexities of supply chain, manufacturing, scaling up, capex, returns, customer excellence and all the aspects which relate to a commercial consumer device.

They will understand e-commerce as a channel, they will have built or scaled communities around a health product, and they will know how to work with brand advocates and user-generated content in a space where the regulatory perimeter limits what the company itself can say. They will have done this before, because the nuance involved in understanding what a company can and cannot claim, particularly when operating across the line between wellness and medical device, is not something that can be learned on the job at this stage.

The fundraising dimension matters here too. The company's next phase requires capital, and the CEO will be expected to play an active role in securing it, including engaging with US-based institutional investors. Experience of having raised institutional money, or of having been a visible and credible part of a raise, in a health or consumer technology business is therefore a genuine requirement of the role rather than a nice-to-have.

On the leadership side, this is a company that is building its senior team now. The CEO will inherit a strong scientific and technical foundation, an experienced quality and regulatory function, and a board with significant medical device experience. What they will be asked to do is build out the commercial and operational infrastructure around that foundation, and to do it with the kind of disciplined, people-focused leadership that scales as the company grows.

They will need to be the external face of the business, comfortable with patient communities, comfortable on a stage, and capable of bringing a broad group of stakeholders together around a shared vision. The target markets are the US and Europe, and that international experience is important because the commercial model, the regulatory landscape, and the consumer behaviour all change meaningfully as you move between those markets.

The company's early community presence in its first indication is already strong. Its brand awareness within that community is disproportionate to its size. The person who takes this role will know how to turn that into a commercial foundation while the company builds towards a wider addressable market, understanding that the community will do a significant amount of the marketing work if the CEO is willing to invest properly in those relationships.

The board is engaged and capable. The science is solid. The product works. The gap, and it is a very specific one, is the direct-to-consumer commercial leader who has operated in a regulated or semi-regulated health context, who has raised money, and who can build and lead a team through the transition from early-stage product to international consumer brand.