Eight years. Sixteen CTOs and Technical Operations leaders. One operating model. Free.
By Alex Cooke | Phase 3 Search | May 14, 2026
Today is Phase 3 Search’s eight-year anniversary, and today we publish the CTO Mandate Framework.
The framework defines the five lenses through which boards should evaluate technical leadership at every stage of company development. It names the dimension of risk each lens governs. It includes a calibration tool boards can use to surface disagreement about emphasis at their company’s current stage. It includes the deflection-resistant questions boards should be able to ask. It includes hard gates that should apply before any major capital event.
Download it here: https://ph3.bio/cto-mandate-framework/
Free. Email gate. The offer to help when you are ready.
Sixteen leaders made this what it is
The framework would not exist without the CTOs and Technical Operations leaders who reviewed it, pressure-tested it, contributed case patterns from their own programs, and corrected language that did not match the operating reality. By name: Patrick Y. Yang, PhD; Joanne Tzouvalopoulos Beck; Timothy Maines; Susan Abu-Absi; John Stubenrauch; Hari Pujar; Nur Nicholson; and ten more whose names will appear in the print edition. Several reviewed multiple drafts. Several pushed back hard, more than once, and the document is meaningfully better because of it. Any errors that remain are mine.
What is in it
Five mandates. Stage-specific emphasis. The platform-versus-machine distinction that explains why so many late-stage technical operations functions fail under scrutiny. Worked case studies tied to outcomes the market has already priced. A board KPI set. A standing question set boards can ask without being deflected. A calibration tool for surfacing where board members and management disagree about what good looks like at this company, at this stage. Hard gates that apply before any capital event.
Why it is free
The Mandate is not a marketing asset. It is a synthesis of what eight years of building out CMC, Technical Operations, and Quality leadership teams has taught us about the work. It is what Phase 3 Search uses internally. It is what boards already pay us for in private when we run the diagnostic on a search. Putting it in the open does two things. It moves the conversation forward in places we will never be in the room. And it gives every board director, CEO, and investor a shared language for one of the most expensive risks on the balance sheet.
This is not a framework written by consultants who have read about CMC. It is a framework written from inside the work. It is what eight years of placing CTOs, SVPs of Technical Operations, VPs and Directors of CMC, and Heads of Quality has taught us about what the role actually requires and how boards can evaluate it.
It is free because the value of getting it right is not financial. It is in the population of patients who continue to wait for therapies that clear the science and fail on operations.
Who should download it
If you sit on a biopharma board and the CMC update at your last meeting felt thinner than the clinical update, the framework is for you. If you are a CEO whose board has not yet asked the right CMCQ question, the framework is for you. If you are a CTO, SVP of Technical Operations, VP of CMC, or Head of Quality who has been carrying the operational reality alone, the framework is for you. If you are an investor pricing CMCQ risk with gut checks, the framework is for you.
Download: https://ph3.bio/cto-mandate-framework/
The case for governing technical operations at the board level has been settled in this audience over the last year. Today the operating model is in your hands.
So, let’s go do some good with it.
Alex
Founder and CEO, Phase 3 Search