Chief Product Officer — Research-Tools Business

The mandate

A research-tools company is six months from the planned launch of a flagship high-throughput instrument. The role will lead the product organisation through final development, launch preparation, and commercial introduction of the platform.

The launch business case relies on a significant installed base and recurring proprietary consumables. It was built around instrument capacity rather than completed experiments, and therefore understates labour, failed runs and workflow switching at customer sites. Sales has begun reserving demonstration slots, operations is preparing inventory and engineering is still accepting changes. The company must decide which issues are launch-critical, which can follow under controlled commitments and whether the date or volume case should change.

The Chief Product Officer will take end-to-end ownership of the product system: customer problem, workflow, portfolio, requirements, experience, lifecycle economics and launch evidence. Engineering, science, operations, quality, service and commercial leaders retain functional accountability. The CPO must create one product decision process that connects their evidence and prevents the schedule, a powerful customer or an elegant technical feature from silently becoming the strategy.

The role influences approximately 325 employees and material partners and is based on site in Copenhagen. It is an urgent, unplanned appointment reporting to the Chief Executive or designated executive sponsor. The board expects the incoming leader to make a fact-based launch recommendation quickly while protecting the credibility of the broader portfolio.

Why this seat is open

Product accountability is currently divided between research, engineering and commercial leaders. That arrangement worked for incremental releases but failed to resolve cross-workflow beta findings. The board created the Chief Product Officer position when it became clear that no one executive owned the completed customer outcome, lifecycle economics and launch threshold together.

What you will own

• Define the priority laboratory workflows and measurable customer outcomes for the instrument, including sample preparation, calibration, run, analysis, interpretation and repeat use.
• Lead portfolio and product management across an approximately 325-person and partner perimeter, clarifying requirements, evidence, decision rights and lifecycle ownership.
• Decide launch-critical beta findings with science, engineering, quality, service and customer evidence; recommend delay, scope change or staged release where thresholds are not met.
• Rebuild unit and lifecycle economics using completed experiments, utilisation, service burden, consumables yield, failures, software cost and customer labour.
• Establish requirements and change control that preserves traceability without allowing late internal preferences to destabilise hardware, consumables, software or validation.
• Design the beta and launch-customer programme, including representative site selection, training, support, issue transparency and terms governing reference use.
• Rationalise the existing portfolio where new and legacy instruments, assays or software compete for the same customer workflow or development capacity.
• Build product leaders capable of making scientific and commercial trade-offs and of owning products after launch through adoption, service, margin and retirement.

The first 12 months

• Days 1–90: Work in beta laboratories, quantify workflow failure and labour, and separate critical issues from preferences. Freeze uncontrolled changes, establish launch thresholds and present a board recommendation on date, scope and volume. Reconcile the instrument, consumables, software, service and training plans around one customer outcome.
• Months 4–9: Deliver the approved recovery or staged launch, close critical findings with evidence and retrain commercial commitments around verified use cases. Implement lifecycle economics and product decision governance across the portfolio. Select legacy products or features to retire so teams can support the new system responsibly.
• Months 10–12: Demonstrate sustained completion of target workflows at representative customer sites, with acceptable calibration time, run success, analysis hand-off and service demand. Validate consumables and support economics, complete the next product roadmap and transfer routine ownership to a strengthened product team.

What the board will measure

• Beta and launch sites completing defined workflows within agreed hands-on time, success, quality and analysis thresholds—not instrument throughput alone.
• Launch commitments aligned to verified readiness, with no material issue reclassified merely to protect the date or inventory plan.
• Installed-base activation, repeat consumables use and customer retention supported by site-level evidence rather than shipment volume.
• Service incidents, calibration burden, failed runs and software hand-offs within the revised lifecycle economics.
• Portfolio resources released through explicit product, feature or platform retirement decisions and redirected to approved priorities.
• Product-management depth and decision clarity across science, engineering, operations and commercial teams, with fewer unresolved escalations to the Chief Executive.

The person

You are a Chief Product Officer, global product leader, business-unit head or instrument-platform executive with 22–28 years in research tools, diagnostics, laboratory automation or closely comparable scientific products. You have launched a hardware, consumables and software system whose value depended on a complete workflow. You have owned at least DKK 1 billion in product revenue or investment and led at least 200 employees and partners.

You have made a real launch threshold decision. You can explain which beta evidence led you to delay, stage, rescope or proceed and what happened to customer trust and economics. You understand that analytical performance, usability, serviceability, supply and software are parts of one product, and can work with quality without using compliance as either a veto or a shortcut.

Relevant candidates may come from life-sciences instruments, molecular diagnostics, clinical laboratory systems or complex industrial technology with expert users. A software-only product career will not be sufficient unless it includes connected physical workflows. Sales leaders must demonstrate formal product and lifecycle accountability, not only launch execution.

The position is on site in Copenhagen because beta recovery requires direct work with laboratories, engineering and operations. International candidates may be considered if relocation is credible. The strongest leader will protect ambition while refusing to confuse technical capacity with customer productivity.

Compensation and terms

The indicative base salary is DKK 2,550,000–3,500,000, with annual incentive and long-term participation. Measures will reflect workflow success, launch integrity, lifecycle economics, portfolio focus and product-leadership depth. This is a permanent on-site appointment. Relocation and substantiated forfeited awards may be considered alongside the urgent start requirement.

Confidentiality

The client, instrument, beta sites and findings are confidential. Identifying and technical material will be shared only after fit is established and the required agreement is completed. Candidates must not contact laboratories, distributors or product communities to infer the company.

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