VP of Engineering, Karim Fanous

Previously

VP of Engineering, Dremio,
VP of Strategic BizOps, Qumulo

Company

Kheiron Medical was founded in London in 2016 with the sole focus of helping radiologists detect breast cancer earlier with machine learning software. Kheiron offers a breast-screening product called Mia, which serves as a “second reader” to help radiologists decide whether to recall a patient for further evaluation. It’s designed as a supportive tool rather than to replace medical professionals — an automated second opinion. In 2019 they raised $22m in Series A round of funding led by Atomico, with participation from Greycroft, Connect Ventures, Hoxton Ventures, and Exor Seeds.

Search Background

The team are first time founders with deep knowledge of the problem being solved for scientifically but only limited exposure in how to build enterprise software. They had not scaled technology teams beyond those in place (circa 20).

Requirements

The requirement was to bring in a ‘settler’ profile who understood how to balance implementing a framework for the scale of people, processes and technology without impacting culture and pace of innovation. At Series A, an engineering leader must also be able to dive into the technical nuances of a team made up of data science, data engineering and software engineers. They would need to drive architectural decisions with the team as well as have the commercial acumen to translate quickly evolving commercial requirements into engineering sprints. With the sensitive nature of implementing technology into cancer pathways, the right candidate also needed to have a strong appreciation of regulated industries. In short – they need to be a generalist with the stage commensurate experience of getting deeply involved in a broad array of topics.

Result

With the compelling nature of the problem Kheiron are solving, we believed there would be strong interest on both sides of the Atlantic so conducted an international search to see if we could attract someone of a quality that would not only solve the immediate challenge but also set the bar very high for future engineering hires. The preferred candidate, Karim Fanous, spent 10 years with Microsoft as both engineer and then product manager before scaling Kleiner Perkins backed data platform Qumulo as a VP of Engineering. Karim will relocate from Seattle shortly.

Tobias Rijken

CTO & Co-founder, Kheiron Medical

Throughout our search for a VP of Engineering, the Erevena team has felt like a true partner. During the process, Sam asked smart questions, which helped us better understand the kind of candidate Kheiron needs now and the kind of VP Eng that would be complementary to me as CTO. With Karim, we found a perfect fit, both in skillset as well as cultural alignment. I didn’t know the real value a search firm can add until now. Sam and the Erevena team have defined a new standard for me.

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