So when I stepped into CMR, one of the things that I was shocked to find was the number of processes, internal processes. And that was the outcome or just, you know, everything happened just because at the beginning, all the people came from big companies, and they tend to replicate what they knew. Okay? And we ended up in having processes that normally you find in $80 billion revenue companies. I said, okay, you know what, let's start from there. Let's start to restructure. So processes are important, but the number of processes that we can handle needs to be at the level of, I guess I said, not a startup, but as a network. You need to be agile, nimble, and so on.

Welcome to Medsider, where you can learn from the brightest founders and CEOs in medical devices and health technology. Join tens of thousands of ambitious doers as we unpack the insights, tactics and secrets behind the most successful life science startups in the world. Now here's your host, Scott Nelson.

Hey everyone, in this episode of Medsider, I sat down with Max, CEO of CMR Surgical, the company developing Versus, a next generation surgical robot for minimal access surgery. Max brings more than three decades of healthcare leadership experience spanning Medtech and hospital systems. He He has held leadership roles at Johnson and Johnson and Smith and Nephew across Europe, Asia Pacific, and The Middle East. He was previously CEO of Evercare Group, a TPG portfolio company. Here are a few topics we explored in this conversation. First, after you've raised, how should you think about capital allocation? Second, how do you know when a start up needs to restructure its operating processes? Third, how do you design market research to unearth go to market insights? And last, what steps can you take to ensure good board governance?

Before we dive into the full episode, I think you'll want to check out Medsider courses. These new eight week courses are designed to help you learn winning formulas from world class CEOs. Medsider courses cover topics like fundraising, device design and development, clinical and strategy, commercialization, and M and A. Each course covers hard earned lessons shared by the Medtech Founders and CEOs who join our program. Medsider courses can be purchased individually or they're included at no additional cost with the Medsider All Access Pass. You can explore Medsider courses at medsider.com/courses. Again, that's medsider.com/courses. Alright. Without further ado, let's dive into the interview.

Hi, Max. Welcome to Medsider Radio. Appreciate you coming on.

Well, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Likewise, I'm glad we're finally able to do this after a couple of reschedules. Think, at least I was sick and you've got a gazillion things going on at CMR. So I'm glad we're finally able to do this. So with that said, I recorded a very abbreviated bio on your background, but it's much more extensive than what I recorded. So maybe let's start there. Give us like one, two minute overview for those that aren't familiar with your various experiences in space leading up to taking on the CEO role at CMR.

Yes, with pleasure. Normally I feel still very young, but when I go into this, you know, I realize that I'm not that young, because I must say that I've been around in the healthcare for now thirty four years. You know, I saw your bio and say 20 plus is I'm almost doubling it. I've been thirty four years in healthcare, actually thirty years in the Medtech and four years, I will tell you more on the provider side, which was a fantastic experience for me. So I've been I started with J and J, Johnson and Johnson. I've been with that company for twenty one years. Of course, it was it was great. It was great career path with many, many promotions in many parts of Europe and Middle East and Africa. So I left J and J after twenty one years. Jumped on a very interesting project in Smith and Nephew, another British company.

I've been with Smith and Nephew for six point five years. I've covered in only six in six point five years, I cover two regions. Basically, I was in first in emerging market, then I went to Asia Pacific, and the last three years in Europe leading EMEA and being part of the executive team. And then I took a break, so I was really interested in working in a smaller company, possibly private equity backed, and that happened to me. So I got an offer from TPG, The US big private equity group, and they were about to take over in health funds called Evercare.

And we basically and was in charge as the CEO of the fund and the holding group. We own more than 32 hospitals, more than 200 diagnostic centers, 16 clinics, and it was really an amazing experience for me. First of all, because it was the first time with private equity. Second of all, because I moved on the other side. So I was, of course, I didn't run hospitals myself, but I was in charge of the holding group and all the CEOs of the hospitals used to report to me.

So great experience. Quite successfully, after four years, we ended over to Blackstone. So Blackstone took the control, TPG remained as a minority investor and then I decided to basically look at an opportunity to come back to Medtech because it's the industry I belong. I felt like I could have another good run. So I joined CMR two years ago. So it was part of a very well planned succession planning move. So I came in as a Chief Commercial Officer for ten-eleven months. As planned, I moved to the CEO role in October 2024, and now I've been in charge for fourteen months and I'm ready to tell you more, but this is my background.

That's super helpful. And we're recording this in early twenty six. You mentioned that it's been about two years, right, since you joined the CMR team. Tell us a little bit more about like why, I mean, I'm sure you probably had a fair number of companies that you could have maybe joined and started to build but you chose CMR for reasons. So maybe touch on that and then also, I'm sure this had a lot to do with it, right? Tell us a little bit about the robot, right? I think most people that are listening in this are at the very least familiar with intuitive, but there's a fair number of players, right? So maybe touch that and how you think about the space in general and where you're maybe choosing to disrupt first, what area you're choosing to disrupt first?

Well, the two things are really well connected because if you ask me the reason why I chose CMR was because it was robotic. And I have to tell you more. So I've been always in robot enthusiastic guy at the point that when I was in Smith and Nephew was one of the biggest advocate for us to enter the robotic market in orthopedics, so most probably you know, but after Mako Smith and Nephew was the second company entering the robotic market. I was there, was part of the project, we made the acquisition, it was a good move for the company, and I remember that I was really passionate about this kind of business, and the reason is that it projects us to the future, you know, the future of of surgery overall because it's not only robotics, it's digital, it's the AI implementation.

It brings us to really the next level of Medtech, and that was the reason why I said, oh, I like this one. I knew that it was a challenging market to enter in and, you know, to challenge the the market leader, but nevertheless, I said, I can learn a lot. I can be stimulated by new things, and and that was the reason. Now that's why it's it's I said that it's quite well connected to the second part of your question because I said Versius was for me the way of entering robotics with something that is different. Know, I see the market becoming quite crowded, but the reason why I'm very positive about CMR and Versius is because we continue to be very different from all the others.

I see the tendency overall of trying to emulate, if not copy, what Intuitive Surgical has done in the last twenty five, twenty six years, and in fact our strategy is completely different. We want to be different, if not complementary, to whatever robotic surgical program is needed around the world. So therefore, differentiation of the product, the fact that it's portable, the fact that it basically is the only one which fully replicates the laparoscopy approach. And then it gives an gives an opportunity to just move robotically whatever you have, you know, and and adopt robotically whatever you learn from a laparoscopic standpoint. This differentiation, you know, excites me and makes me believe that we have a brilliant brilliant and bright future.

Got it. And I'm on the website now which is cmrsurgical.com. Cmr like the the letters just as it sounds, cmrsurgical.com. Highly encourage you to check it out. Robot is super super cool. It's very portable, right? I think most people when they think when most people think of robots, they think of a pretty pretty large inside the OR. But Versius is definitely not that very small, very easy to move around it looks like. But again, we'll link to it in the full write up on Medsider but if you don't get there, cmrsurgical.com, I highly recommend you check it out. Max, give us a sense for kind of we're gonna go back in time and learn a little bit more about your journey and kind of where, maybe touch on some things that you're trying to do different, right at CMR.

But with that said, us a sense for kind of where the company's focused at in 2026, especially coming off your your recent 510(k).

Yes. Sure. It's an exciting an exciting year. We have we have been working on the 2026 plan. So let me start by saying that we are so pleased about the 2025 results.

We do not disclose results, I can tell you that it was not only a year of transition, but was really successful 2025. We deliver against all our objectives. We grew very, very healthy all over the world. We had successful fundraising at the beginning of the year. Then we got the FDA approval even before, I mean, earlier than what we expected, thanks to the hard work of our people in tech and the regulatory, they did an excellent job.

So 2025 was very successful, and we entered 2026. As you can imagine, one of the main goals for Us is to do the right thing by entering the most important and most competitive markets in Medtech, which is US. We are now approaching the first future clients and we are really excited about what's going to happen in The US next. But that is not the only objective that we have. Of course, as you can imagine, we remain strongly focused on R and D planning execution.

I want CMR to be even more ambitious in terms of future generations and also to accelerate, and this is where we have allocated the $200,000,000 plus that we raised at the beginning of the year. We want to of course focus on US, but also accelerate our plans in R&D. I do believe that by accelerating the plan and by focusing our investments in the right areas, we can continue to, let's say, be perceived as an innovative company and perform well into every market, including The US. So it's about execution. If you ask me to summarize what 2026 looks like, I think execution, execution, execution, the plans are clear, people know what they have to do, and now we have just to execute.

Yeah. I had a feeling you're probably gonna touch on on on executing here in The US, but you did exactly One of the things that caught my attention kind of leading up to this interview and doing some background research is I think, again, most people that are listening to this show know of CMR, right? I wouldn't pretend that I'm some expert when it comes to the robotic space. I follow it loosely, but I always had this kind of assumption that CMR was earlier in kind of its life cycle and maybe for lack of a better description. But I didn't realize that you guys have done over 40,000 procedures with Versius already. So that's an impressive feat alone. And I'm sure it's gonna provide a launching pad right into The US market here this year.

Yeah, we are well above 40,000 now. And I think that we are very proud of the outcomes and the patient safety. We have our own CMR register and we keep recording all thanks also to the telemetry, but we have a close relationship with the users and it's not only about the number but it's also about the fact that the outcome for patients is safe and the outcomes are really positive and we keep expanding in terms of procedures, we keep expanding in terms of countries where we sell. We are now active in more than 35 countries. And of course, US is not yet there, but we will be soon there. And when people ask me why this success story, considering that was early in the cycle, as you can as you said correctly, because the market needs alternatives.

I have a huge respect and admiration for what Intuitive Surgical has been doing since twenty five years. I think that that is a great company, but at the same time, I do believe that competition makes the markets and the industry better. So I think that the market was waiting for alternatives on other things, and as I said at the beginning, the good thing is that we are really complementary. We are not a copy paste of whatever they have used. They have to they can look at us as a completely different solution to get similar results or or to operate in the similar surgical areas.

Very good. I think it's a super helpful background and kinda sets the stage for maybe the next twenty, thirty minutes where I wanna wanna cover some some some key topical areas, right, that are core to what you're doing at CMR, but also pulling on kind of lessons learned throughout your career leading up to you taking on the CEO role here at CMR. So let's start with the first one because I think it's a nice transition, right? From what we were just discussing, which is you're gearing up for a pretty significant commercial launch. You have a ton of experience as you mentioned, right?

Thirty plus years now, twenty plus years at J and J, another, what was it seven or eight at Smith and Nephew and not just experience in The U. S. Globally. So when you think about kind of what a couple of the key things that you're trying to kind of instill in the culture at CMR based on that breadth of experience and other large strategics, what are a couple of things maybe that stand out? And you can feel free to flip that question around, or things that you're definitely avoiding, right, based on things you've you've learned as well throughout your career.

If I try to summarize in in a few bullet points or in a few words, I would say the key points, the key learning points for me have been point number one, it's always about people and talent. You know, you only succeed if you surround yourself and you, you know, fulfill the company with talented people. You can spend all your time designing whatever strategy you can have or whatever org chart. But if you don't if you don't have it, you don't attract the right people, you go nowhere. So people and talent make the difference.

Then when I look at my past experience, and I have, again, a huge respect for all the companies I have worked. I'm really grateful for the experiences, but moving to a small company, no longer a startup, but not yet a huge company. What I try to keep in mind every time is that bureaucracy and internal politics can kill performance, and that is exactly the message that I give all my colleagues every day, especially those colleagues who come from big companies, say, look, you have to bring with you all the great experiences, but you also have to understand that we cannot replicate it. We have just to adapt and adjust because the environment is different, And I can give you a nice example. So when I stepped into CMR, one of the things that I was shocked to find was the number of processes, internal processes.

And that was the outcome or just everything happened just because at the beginning, all the people came from big companies, and they tend to replicate what they knew. And we ended up in having processes that normally you find in $80 billion revenue companies. I said, okay, you know what, let's start from there. Let's start to restructure. So processes are important, but the number of processes that we can handle needs to be at the level of, I guess I said, not a startup, but a small company. We need to be agile, nimble, so on. These are my learnings. So it's all about people and keep it simple. Keep it simple, agile, nimble, and customer focused. All the rest you can make.

I heard, it kind of reminds me of a conversation that Justin Klein had with Mike Mahoney at the Medtech Conference in the summer of last year, '25. And I remember listening, I wasn't there, but I remember listening to the podcast. It was a great interview. And Mike mentioned obviously Boston Scientific's much larger, more akin to J and J and Smith and Nephew, but he said they have kind of a mantra in his leadership team of what stupid rule did you kill this week in essence. Right?

And I think that's I'm paraphrasing. I think that's kinda close to what he had mentioned, but I thought it was something good. Right? And I'm sure the people that are listening to this, at Boston Scientific say, well, we still have a of stupid rules, but I think the message was it's something active, right? There's gotta pay attention to and be mindful of, of like, you know, on weekly basis, like being proactive, right? About trying to squash rules or in your case, kind of trying to squash unnecessary processes. So I'm glad you brought that out.

Now that you are saying this about Mike, I mean, I worked for Mike back in the at the time of J and J. So when we were in J and J, maybe I motivated it for Mike, just kidding. But I I share, he is is a much more important CEO in the in this industry, but I share what he he said.

Yeah. But I I don't wanna underappreciate like the something I mean, that can be it sounds fairly straightforward to talk about, but you coming in, you know, first as obviously, you know, chief commercial officer with the plan to take on the CEO role, sometimes those processes are kind of used as security or people that have been there a while kind of hang on to those processes and it can be kind of challenging, right? Saying, we're gonna remove a lot of this stuff, right? And so you obviously have the courage to do that because But it's something I don't wanna gloss over because especially at CMR you mentioned it. I mean, it's not a startup anymore, but you also don't wanna lose that kind of that agile kind of nimble kind of mentality.

So yeah, anyway, I'm glad you touched on that because it wasn't something that I probably would have expected you to bring up. So with that said, let's touch on another kind of topic, right? Which is largely around kind of lessons learned kind of in the similar vein of commercial execution. You mentioned that you're kind of positioning versus as almost complimentary, think is the word you use to other robotic systems, intuitive. And taking a step back, thinking about making a splash in U.S, myself included, but most people would say like you're taking on a monster, right? Intuitive is the defacto player in the space, etcetera. So maybe touch on that. Like, what's the like the the commercial approach? Give us a kind of a peel back the maybe the layers of that a little bit to give us a give us a sense for kinda how you're how you're approaching the The US market.

Well, first of all, thanks for this question because it gives me the opportunity to clarify that I don't think that we are only complementary. We can be complementary, but we have also a huge market where we can win without be complementary to anyone. So if I look at The US, and please, is the question more about US or

Yeah. Maybe let's stick to The US. Yeah.

Yeah. If I look at The US, I can tell you one thing. So last year, for more than twelve months, actually, we worked hard in getting data information. We worked with best in class firms in order to get feedback from the market, understand the market. At the beginning, the idea was really to focus on ASCs because of our portability or our characteristic, our features.

We said we wanna win ASCs, and this was all about the the main the main objective of our strategy. But but during our, let's say, learning process about US, we learned we we heard that, you know, there is a need in in The US of something that a product like Versius that could offer, first of all, an alternative overall and also different characteristics for all the hospitals that need those kind of characteristics. I'll I'll give you an example. There are hospitals that have invested heavily in robotics. They get the first one, the second one, the third one, and then they have many others ORs, and then they have many other specialties, and they know the CEOs of these the GM of these hospitals always get requests from chief of department, they want to start with robotics and they look at, okay, what should I do?

Should I just keep buying new robots and some specialties will not really have the number of performance that will give me a payout or a payback and so on. So we were we we can work with them and have a strategy where, you know, thanks to the features and the characteristics of our robot, they can leverage this portability, the modularity, the versatility, and, you know, moving it from an OR to another if they need, giving access to multiple specialties to the same robot, just moving robot from an OR to another. And then, of course, it's about outpatient department where spaces are smaller, the kind of needs are slightly different. So what we learned in a nutshell, Scott, is that it's not going to be only about ASCs. Our strategy is going to be a wider strategy and what we want to do, we want to just go remain humble, aggressive but humble.

Will I keep saying this to my team, we need to be aggressive but humble. Recognize that The US market is a challenging market, that expectations are very high, and it's also a market that is dominated by the incumbents and it's not going to be easy. So I think that our idea is really to show first of all, how good is the product, which is I think that this stage of robotics is important to start from clinical outcomes, rather than fireworks about marketing tools. One of the things I'm obsessed when I hear about telesurgery, all this stuff, said, look, first, let's start by showing the surgeons and the patients that the clinical outcomes are simply great and perfect. After that, we can build whatever success story only if we start from clinical outcomes, because at the end of the day, we're not looking for the commercial success. We are are looking for patient benefits, and the patient benefits and surgeons benefit will bring us to the commercial success.

Hey, everyone, let's take a quick break to talk about Fastwave Medical, the company I co founded and lead as CEO. We're developing next generation intravascular lithotripsy, or IVL, systems to tackle complex calcific disease. Over the last few years, we've closed a series of oversubscribed funding rounds, bringing the total investment into Fastwave to over $50,000,000 Corporate interest in the IVL space is growing too. The $900,000,000 acquisition of Bolt Medical by Boston Scientific in 2025 and Johnson and Johnson's 13,000,000,000 acquisition of Shockwave Medical signal a lot of attention on emerging IVL startups like Fastwave. And we're making serious progress.

In addition to recently receiving our ninth patent, we've successfully completed peripheral and coronary feasibility studies and are gearing up for pivotal trials. If you're interested in investing in the fast growing IVL market, head over to fastwavemedical.com/invest. Again, that's fastwavemedical.com/invest. Now let's get back to the conversation.

I'm glad you brought that up because it's easy to get lost especially with a newer technology. You're rolling out all these various features which I wanna jump into here in a second, newer capabilities, etcetera. And you find yourself kind of going back to like the core needs, right? Which are safety and efficacy, right? I mean, ultimately that's what physicians care about first and foremost, right? Is like, what's the clinical right? Show me that it actually works and it's safe first and foremost. And so sometimes I think it's easy to kind of, I don't wanna say forget about that, but like, you know, focus on all of the, you know, the newer things and lose sight of what's, you know, what's still for, you know, important, right, to clinicians.

I'm I'm really happy to to drill down on this because sometimes I see the tendency in our industry of just, you know, going to the market and trying to make a big marketing splash with very futuristic things. In this only in this specific area, I remain old style for me. For me, what matters is really are the clinical outcomes and showing the surgeons and the patients that by using the product we sell, in this case, Versius in CMR, we really accomplish that. We give them a better access to surgery.

Yeah, and just to kind of circle back to what I mentioned earlier, it's like, you spend whatever six to twelve months gearing up for a commercial launch and you're in the weeds talking about this new feature or this new capability, right? And when you end up having discussions with physicians, they always seem to come back to, well, is it safe for my patients and does it work? Like show me the clinical data. So it's good stuff.

We went through Scott, it's extremely important. You said there would be people listening to our chat, and they know even more than me about robotics. So it's important that the message gets out clear, and it takes time before you end up having a performing stable system in robotics. This is an inevitable cycle you have to go through. Everyone is inevitably going through this cycle.

When you first launch your first robot, most likely is not the most stable, the most performing. You have to learn. You have to take, collect the data and be quick in assessing and fixing. And this is where CMR, in my opinion, has done an incredible job because in comparing to other experiences, in few years, we were able to launch Versus plus You know, we started with Versus. Now we launched Versus plus few and Versus plus is really a super stable performing reliable system.

On that note, let's talk a little bit about capabilities, right? Because I think on, I believe it's Versius Plus, you have Limelight, the ultrasonic sector were a couple of things that seem to stand out from my perspective kind of doing some background research leading up to this conversation. But maybe answer this question within the context of how you decide to deploy capital. Because you mentioned this earlier when you take on the CEO role. Yes, there focuses on a U.S Commercial launch, but you're also thinking about what's next from an R and D perspective. And so how do you, like what are some key things that you've picked up on over the years, maybe even circling back around your time at J and J and Smith and Nephew in terms of like making those decisions on where you're going to deploy capital next from a R and D and product perspective?

I would like to be very specific on CMR. I'm not referring to past experience, although as I said, I had some robotic experience in one of my previous companies. But here specifically, the way I look at deploying capital is keeping in mind my big aspiration. So I always joke and say that I should put a trademark on what I'm saying before everyone will use it. But I keep telling everyone that I would like CMR to become the first Techmed company instead of Medtech company, which means I want to deploy capital behind huge development in R and D and really working on the digital side, extract whatever possible from this AI revolution that we have been living in.

And therefore, for me, R and D inevitably is and will remain one of the key areas of development by, you know, and I go back with I go back to what I said. First of all, I want to be sure that I attract, hire, and retain the best talent in r and d. I need very innovative, smart guys who help me in bringing this company from the Medtech to the Techmed world. And then, you know, as you as you can imagine, you know, this is the way you work and keep your differentiated approach to the market by offering more and more support and tools to the surgeons through digital. This is where we are focusing now.

As I said, we started with Versius, we just launched Versius Plus As you can imagine, we are already working big time on Versius two, and we have clear how Versius three will look like. But in the meantime, is a lot that we can do on a digital front and side in order to make Versius two versus three even more better and more performing than what we had in mind when we agreed on what Versius two, Versius three should be. So r and d and driving the digital evolution of robotics is for sure one of the main objectives of this of our company. And of course, of course, we are small, and when you're small, part of your capital is inevitably needed to scale up and to continue to invest in the countries where you can win. So we are we became quite selective. We know where we want to go and win, and we will keep investing in those counties. There are not few, but we have cleared the list, and we have clear plans on how to invest in commercial execution.

Got it. You mentioned the word Techmed. For those that have never heard that phrase, right? Because it's one that, I don't know, it was introduced maybe, I think in our ecosystem maybe one to two years ago, first started hearing about this word. But how do you explain the concept of Techmed versus Medtech?

Well, as I as I said, it's where where all the digital solutions will probably enable more the existing product rather than just inventing new products. Mhmm. I always use the example of, know, it's a classic example, everyone uses the self driving automobile industry where, you know, you want to be sure that you give every time new tools to the drivers in order to stay safer and to drive safe and and to have better outcome at the end of their trip. So it's exactly what we would like to replicate here, knowing that somewhat this is part of what people say is a democratization of surgery, because if we can really develop the kind of robots that give almost zero chances to make mistake, then you end up in giving an opportunity for patients to be operated with, I would say, 100% sure, but 100% clear expectations in terms of outcomes.

Let's transition to capital, right? We talk about your thoughts and how you frame up deploying capital at a company the size of CMR. You just came off a pretty big fundraise. So let's touch on raising capital. And most of the founders and CEOs that I have on the program, I would say the majority kind of fall more in the series A, series B, sometimes series C, maybe every now and then a series D kind of CEO will join the program. But this is high stakes, right? Raising a $200,000,000 round, that is no easy feat. So those who may be CEOs that are listening now, right, that have had successful kind of series B, series Cs under their belt, but they're more like in the neighborhood of $30, 50, 60, 70 million range. At $200 million, what changes at that level? What do you think are some keys to closing a round of that size?

I heard something some I think few years ago, I heard something that I like always to keep in mind, and it was like if I remember what it was like, early investors bet on the products and late investors bet on exit. So, you know, I'm very lucky and fortunate because our investors, although they have been around for long, some of our VC funds have been around for more than five, six years, they are not focused on exits, they are focused on giving CMR the opportunity to create value. Are really supporting all of us with new fund because the 200,000,000 came mainly from existing investors and partially with debt, but the existing investors were very clear. We really want you to continue to focus on creating value and making this company every day better. They are not really pushing me in any direction on taking decisions in short term in order to monetize, not at all, very lucky, very grateful of having this kind of investors.

So therefore, what I could say to my fellow colleagues and CEOs is just be sure that you are surrounded by the the right investors and at the same time have a transparent conversation and expectations because that is the only way of, you know, keeping the the collaboration at the right level.

On that note, I wanna get your thoughts on team building, right? And hiring because it is one of the things that you mentioned very early on in the conversation, The importance of people. But let's touch on board, right? Because you've got obviously a pretty sophisticated board now with at CMR stage. What do you think are like the one or two things that are especially important to maintaining a functional board, a board that actually is helpful to the company versus a distraction?

Well, I'm I'm very patient about this because I at the time I was working with TPG, I went through I went to INSEAD, and I got a diploma on international directorship. I'm very passionate about boards and how the boards run business or influence the business they are involved with. So I think that the point number one for me is, first of all, personal trust. You know, you have to spend time in building the mutual trust between board and CEO board and management, single board members and CEO, single board members and key manage key manager, key leader of of the company. Second of all, I would say a clear governance with very distinct roles and no gray areas between board and management because, you know, it's inevitable.

Sometimes you have gray areas, but you have to minimize the possible conflict when people don't really follow the script and they don't apply a clear governance on how to be distinguish the role between board and management. I think that basically these are the two. If you build the right trust, if you basically create sort of common vision and way forward between the management and the board, and at the same time, have a clear governance. And as a CEO, every time you see the tendency of, you know, going beyond the governance or taking over a little bit of the management role, you have to have the courage to say, what? Stop here. We need to keep these two things fully differentiated if we want the company to succeed. This is what I think personally.

I'm glad you mentioned governance because it's a I think to most people kind of a bland, you know, topic. Right? But it's it's really, really critical, especially at certain stages. Well, really at any stage for that matter, but especially at a stage like yours, where there's difficult conversations that are undoubtedly gonna come up, right? And sometimes those devolve into emotional conversations. And if everyone's sort of aligned from a governance perspective, it's really, really important. Right?

Well, I mean, I don't know if it's a little bit too much for them? I in conversation with a friend of mine, the CEO of another mid-sized company, a private company, was telling me about the fact that after two, three years, he has realized that now the board is entering in his decision, taking decision and so on. And I asked him, sir, are you trying to push back? He said, I'm trying, but I'm not able. So then I said, they are just asking you to go.

You know, they're like, if the governance was there, you know, there there are boards that are not structured. But if the board is a structured board, there is a governance. And after a few years, you see this falling apart, you know, something went wrong. I mean and therefore, you have to jump to some conclusion and and understand that it's there is a message behind it.

No doubt. No doubt. Well and and sometime, you know, especially if maybe you're coming into a company for the first time, everything feels good, board seems otherwise pretty normal, pretty healthy. You're undoubtedly gonna run into challenges and difficult conversations. And that's why I think it's like especially important that you brought up governance.

Because if you can establish that upfront and sort of always point back to that as a North Star in those difficult conversations, just becomes I guess what I'm trying to say is it's one of those things that you don't maybe think is as important until you're in the throes of some of those challenging times and and it does it does become very, very important. So maybe the take the takeaway is establish that upfront or make it a priority to get alignment around governance from the get go if you're joining a new company, large or small.

Agree. Agree. A 100%.

Yeah. I wanna leave a little bit of time for the rapid fire portion of this interview, but let's touch on hiring, right? And kind of circling back around to what kind of one of those key things that you mentioned that you're bringing, not necessarily bringing to CMR, but you're like, it's a focal point, right? Of like the people concept. And so when you think about either working with a group of people that's been at CMR, right? Or recruiting and finding new talent to build up maybe a certain function, maybe it's commercial execution in The US as an example. What are a couple tips, right, that you'd give to other CEOs that are, maybe don't have quite the team building experience that you have?

Well, I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna say the obvious, but for me, the way I look at hiring new people is mindset more than skills. I mean, skills is something that's, you know, you can get in a fairly short amount of time, but mindset rarely you have a quick change of mindsets from people and considering the world we live in, I think resilience is another thing and is another characteristic I look at when I hire people at all level. As I said, if they have a strong background and they know what we are talking about is good, but if the mindset doesn't fit into the culture and the needs, yeah, better you go over and and try to find the right people with the right mindset and and the right approach to business.

Mindset and resilience. Those are two those are two really, really great ones. I don't I don't know if they're they're they're overly obvious too. May maybe mindset a little bit. May maybe resilience, I guess, to a certain extent but so important. Especially, I mean most of the folks that listen to Medsider are kind of more startup oriented. And maybe CMR is still kind of consider CMR a startup maybe later stage startup. But hiring is like so crucial. And if you're not careful, right? About bringing on folks that do have similar kind of similar thinking, right?

A similar frame that they're working from or maybe haven't had some of those experiences prior, right, that have really pushed them to the edge, and they've shown a sense of resiliency. If they're learning that for the first time at your startup, I don't know. Sometimes it it can be a little bit rough. Right? So if they've had had to work through some of those things in previous roles, it's super crucial.

So with that said, Max, let's jump to the rapid fire portion of this interview. Again, everyone listening, cmrsurgical.com, cmrsurgical.com, just as it sounds. We'll link to it in the full write up on Medsider. If you're new to these Medsider interviews those longer form write ups try to highlight some of the key insights that our guests share on these podcast discussions. So highly encourage you to check those out if you haven't before and we'll link to CMR's website there as well as Max's LinkedIn profile.

You can check them out there too. So with that said, Max, first question on the docket, feel free to expand on your answers if you want to, but meant to kind of be more rapid fire in nature. Since joining CMR a couple years ago, what's the most surprising or unexpected thing that you've learned?

Well, let me think. I learned a lot. As I said, the business per se gives me an opportunity to challenge my intellectual curiosity every day. But I would say, look, I would say that the thing that surprised me the most is how quick can be a turnaround if you surround yourself with the right people. I just want to be honest, the results that we had last year are well above my expectations, although I'm very positive normally when shared plans and business plans and goals and objectives, I'm very positive.

I pushed the organization, but we ended up with fantastic results. And I believe that I was surprised by that. I was surprised. And the reason is that we added so we had great people already on board, but we added also another three or four, and that made a huge difference.

That's good. Kinda touching on the people concept, right? Once again, so definitely a definitely theme of this conversation. Let's say we just finished up dinner. Maybe it's a summer evening in Cambridge there in your neck of the woods. We're sitting around a group of medtech, other medtech entrepreneurs, right? Kind of some earlier than earlier stage in CMR, maybe somewhere around the same stage. What's like the one lesson that you would wanna leave them with, right? That if they're gonna find any sort of success in their venture, they really need to hone or really need to focus on?

Well, is, I would love to be original, but I'm not sure that I can get there, but I would say that the only advice for me is just being yourself, your job title, regardless, you know, your pay grade, whatever it is, just be yourself and apply your values, principles. And I'm sure that that is the only good way to succeed in life and in business.

Yeah. Interesting that you brought that up because that's one of the, when I think about, I don't have thirty plus years quite yet, although I'm getting starting to get gray. My sideburns are starting to show a little gray. I'm more like kind of closer to twenty five, twenty to twenty five years in Medtech anyway. But that's one of the I look back on in my earlier kind of earlier stage of my career is like sometimes you're just trying to maybe get that next promotion or just trying to fit in and you tend to kind of like bend or not kind of morph into someone you're not in essence, right?

You don't maybe necessarily lean into your strengths. And so I think that's just a, I'm glad you mentioned that, right? Because it's really important, for those that are kind of earlier in their career. So with that said, talking about kind of earlier in your career, let's go back in time, you know, and and maybe whisper something in the ears of the younger Max, you know, call it, you know, put put yourself like maybe late twenties, early thirties. You know, your your professional career at that point in time is probably, you know, really starting to take off. Anything you tell the the younger version of yourself?

I'm happy to say that I have no big regrets, so I'm not going back and talk about big things. But maybe an advice that I would give to myself at that age is to celebrate more successes, the successes of your life. As you correctly said before, I mean, we are in this business or whatever business, and we just look at what's the next promotion, what's next big job I can get. I think that I've been always like this, always focusing on what's next. And the advice would be enjoy more successes because of course you have also to spend a lot of time in learning when you fail. But when you succeed, enjoy the time of you know, and reward yourself.

Yeah. Good way to to wrap the conversation. I love the the answers to the last two questions specifically. So that said, Max, I can't thank you enough for coming on the program. This has been a fun conversation.

Cmrsurgical.com is the website, cmrsurgical.com. Again, we'll link to it in the full write up. Definitely encourage you to check out the site and obviously CMR is be doing some big things in '26, right? With the Versius robot. I'm kind of excited to kind of watch, mentioned it a couple of times earlier, but like Versius two and then Versius three, I'm not sure how far those are out, but it'd be fun to watch CMR take on a giant here in the U.S. So I can't thank you enough for carving out some time to do this, Max. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. It was fun. Thanks a lot.

Yeah. I'll have you hold on the line here, but for everyone listening, you made it this far. Appreciate your attention as always. Until the next episode of Medsider, goes live. Everyone, take care.

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