Willing to Win

About Willing to Win

Biotech Leaders Against All Odds Biotech leaders, founders and executives are warriors chasing cures against impossible odds. Their journeys are not only about science, but about belief, resilience, and leadership. Willing to Win is the podcast where these stories are told - the late nights, the rejections, the doubts, and the unshakable conviction that keeps them going. Each episode gives listeners an intimate look into the emotional “why” behind biotech leaders, offering inspiration, connection, and lessons in leadership and perseverance that apply far beyond biotech.

Publisher

Christian Rados

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

16 Jan 2026

Latest episode

1 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

25 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   1 Oct 2026

   The moment you start to doubt yourself is the moment you should stop - Sezai Taskin

   "The moment you start to doubt yourself is the moment you should stop." Sezai Taskin says that after two years of investor no's, two of them one signature away. A few days before this episode went live, his company ViferaXS closed a Series A of up to 12 million euros, led by SPRIND and Huma. This episode is about the space between those two sentences: what a no does to your confidence, how he kept the doubt out, and where the decision about your company is actually made, in a meeting you are not in. Twenty years launching cancer drugs in big pharma, none of them his. Then a spin-out of four people, two of them paid. What you get: what a no does to your confidence and how long it takes to come back. Who to call first, and why your family has to believe before your investors do. The one call a day that kept him moving. And how to find out which questions will be asked about you before you walk in. ABOUT THE GUEST Sezai Taskin, CEO of ViferaXS. Clinical-stage biotech, Tübingen, peptide-based cancer immunotherapy heading into Phase II in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. 20+ years at Roche, AbbVie and AstraZeneca, finance first, then sales and general management, then oncology launches. Came to Switzerland from Turkey at nine without German. Calls himself multitasking, a joke a friend started about his surname. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sezai-taskin-3a39171 ABOUT THE HOST Willing to Win is hosted by Christian Rados, headhunter for biotech. Since 2011 he has filled leadership roles for companies from founding to commercialization, in Europe and the US. More than 1,000 placements across biotech, pharma and MedTech. His approach: skill is the simple part. First he works out what the company's stage really needs, and from that, which top needs a person must have to thrive in the role at that stage. The interview comes last and creates certainty on skill, stage and needs. rados-recruiting.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/christianrados-biotechdreamteams ABOUT THE SHOW Willing to Win - Biotech Leaders Against All Odds. Conversations with the people building this industry, hosted by Christian Rados.

2. 

   17 Sept 2026

   Episode 22 | So, Do We Have a Deal? (Achim Plum, HTGF)

   Achim Plum spent 25 years on the operator side of biotech. Two IPOs, one of them closed on the last day of the roadshow, sitting at a Zurich breakfast with no idea whether the book would fill by evening. His last company died on the science itself. He says: "I did every possible mistake one could do. I survived them mostly." Then he switched sides. Since January 2025 he runs HTGF, Germany's most active seed investor, as the Managing Director heading Life Science and Chemistry. Around 400 companies in the portfolio, roughly 800 invested in since the fund started, and the best deal the fund ever did was almost thrown out at deal-flow screening. It ended in a unicorn exit. We talk about mistakes as an asset, why he wants to be the most stupid one on his team, the conversation he used to have with CEOs at an ice bar (raise your hand and drive the leadership question yourself, or someone else will drive it for you), why founders who go quiet stop getting funded, what low single-digit percentages of Europe's pension money would do for venture, and why a company that fails on biology is not a founder who failed. ABOUT THE GUEST Dr. Achim Plum, Managing Director of HTGF (High-Tech Gründerfonds), Germany's most active seed investor, heading Life Science and Chemistry. 25 years in biotech operating roles before switching sides in 2025, two IPOs as a manager, PhD in genetics. He still talks about an IPO the way other people talk about a thriller, and he has lived through two of them. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/achim-plum-5692aa26 ABOUT THE HOST Christian Rados is a Munich-based executive headhunter for venture-backed biotech in Europe and founder of Rados Recruiting. Since 2011 he has placed permanent and interim leaders in biotech, pharma, and MedTech, over 1,000 placements from Director to C-level and board. Every search starts with a stage-first leadership analysis: stage first, then the seat, then the human. Willing to Win is his podcast with biotech leaders who built companies against the odds. Website: rados-recruiting.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/christianrados-biotechdreamteams ABOUT THE SHOW Willing to Win - Biotech Leaders Against All Odds. Conversations with the people building this industry, hosted by Christian Rados.

3. 

   10 Sept 2026

   Episode 21 | I Shouldn't Be Here: Moderna's First CSO on Making Life Count (Antonin de Fougerolles)

   Tony de Fougerolles was born in Montreal three months premature, weighing about a pound and a half. He was the youngest child in Canada to survive at that age and weight. Twenty years of operations followed: doctors two or three times a week, surgery every summer, every Christmas. Ask him what he would change, and he says: nothing. "I shouldn't be here. This is all extra, let's make the most of it." He picked science because it was his worst subject. He joined Alnylam when it was six people in one room, and in 2011 became the founding Chief Scientific Officer of Moderna, ten people working on a molecule the field considered too unstable to ever be a drug. Vaccines were not the plan. Tony spent two, three months convincing chairman Noubar Afeyan and CEO Stéphane Bancel to even test them. By his count, the technology his team invented sits behind vaccines that saved sixteen to eighteen million lives. We talk about the tenfold rule (biology without a 10x effect is not worth looking at), why a good experiment gives you a yes or no answer instead of a success, why he left Moderna after two years and what stock options had to do with it, why he interviewed every single hire as CEO of Evox, who actually guards a company's culture, and why the team beats the science. Every time. ABOUT THE GUEST Antonin "Tony" de Fougerolles, board chair and investor across AI, cell therapy, mRNA and radioligand medicine. Founding Chief Scientific Officer of Moderna, seven years at Alnylam leading the RNA delivery work that produced lipid nanoparticles, later CSO of Ablynx and CEO of Evox Therapeutics. PhD in immunology from Harvard, postdoc at the University of Cambridge. He plays tennis, basketball and football, which is exactly what the doctors said he never would. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/antonin-de-fougerolles-a41a819 ABOUT THE HOST Christian Rados is a Munich-based executive headhunter for venture-backed biotech in Europe and founder of Rados Recruiting. Since 2011 he has placed permanent and interim leaders in biotech, pharma, and MedTech, over 1,000 placements from Director to C-level and board. Every search starts with a stage-first leadership analysis: stage first, then the seat, then the human. Willing to Win is his podcast with biotech leaders who built companies against the odds. Website: rados-recruiting.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/christianrados-biotechdreamteams ABOUT THE SHOW Willing to Win - Biotech Leaders Against All Odds. Conversations with the people building this industry, hosted by Christian Rados. Music: "Impact Andante" and "Deliberate Thought" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com); "Amberlight", "Simplicity" and "With These Hands" by Scott Buckley (scottbuckley.com.au). All CC BY 4.0

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Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

4.4 / 5

9 ratings

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Guest appearances

Books guests

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