About Chris Tillman

I've been filling roles for fifteen years.

Most of that time I've been the person doing the work: building the list, making the calls, running the process, closing the hire. Director-level operators, functional managers, senior individual contributors, executives. The roles that make a company run.

What I built on that desk led to a leadership role. I was already assembling the process pieces on my own: how I ran intake, how I structured research, how I tracked a search. As the firm grew, the CEO asked me to take that method, teach it to the recruiting team, and run the operation behind it. That became a Vice President role where I owned the recruiting function end to end. I trained the researchers, managed the recruiters, owned the metrics, and implemented the systems we worked in. I carried searches the entire time. The management was on top of a desk, not instead of one.

It also meant that when a search stalled, or a client was unhappy, or a role everyone said was unfillable landed on the desk, it came to me. The confidential replacement, the role a company had never hired before, the search that had already failed once. I got good at those because I had to be.

How I run a search

I take on a manageable number of searches at a time so each one gets real attention. You work with me from intake through start date, and I handle the research, outreach, evaluation, and every part of the search myself.

Before I contact anyone, I build a target list from the companies and teams where the right person is sitting today, and I show it to you first. If we disagree about where to look, I'd rather find that out in week one than week six. I trained researchers to do this work, so the list isn't a keyword pull.

Then you hear from me on a set schedule whether or not the news is good. Who I reached, who passed and why, and what the market is telling us about comp, title, or scope. I spent years measuring what a healthy search looks like at each stage, so when I tell you a search is tracking normally or drifting off course, that's based on data rather than a feeling.

Track record

15+ years in executive search and professional recruiting across biotech and pharma, healthcare, fintech, technology and SaaS, medtech, manufacturing, and construction. I place senior individual contributors through C-suite leaders at companies ranging from pre-revenue startups to the Fortune 100.

The searches below represent the senior and specialized end of my work. Most of my placements have been directors, managers, and senior individual contributors, and those searches remain a core part of my practice.

Representative searches I personally led or completed before founding Terrace Vanguard include:

Chief Medical Officer, Vaxart. C-suite medical leadership at a publicly traded clinical-stage vaccine company, where the pipeline is public and every candidate arrives with an opinion about it already formed. 

Vice President, Head of Clinical Quality Assurance, Takeda. A global function inside one of the largest pharmaceutical organizations in the world. Operating at that scale was as much of a qualification as the technical background.

Senior Director, Ophthalmology, Genentech. Therapeutic-area leadership in one of the most competitive talent pools in biotech. Nearly everyone qualified was employed and not looking.

Head of Project Team Leaders, Calico. No obvious title equivalent existed anywhere else, so the target profile had to be built from scratch rather than matched.

Senior Director, Business Development, BioMarin. The challenge was finding deal experience and scientific fluency in the same person.

Terrace Vanguard is also a certified Minority Business Enterprise, which matters if your organization tracks diverse supplier spend.

When I'll say no

I turn down searches when I'm not the right person for the assignment. If I don't believe I can reach the right candidate market, the comp is below what the market will clear, or the scope needs more capacity than I can give it, I'll say so on the first call.

You'll hear the same candor during the search.

Let's talk about your next hire.

If you're hiring and want to pressure-test the role, the market, or the best way to run the search, schedule a consultation and I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right fit.