Chris Gusty — Fractional Ops & Finance for Healthcare & Life Sciences

01 / Where I Help

Situations I'm built for.

If one of these sounds like your challenge, we should talk.

“We just closed our seed.”

Your board now exists. Your runway spreadsheet is already wrong. You're spending half your week on vendor contracts and hiring logistics instead of the work only you can do. I come in for three to six months and build the financial model, board reporting cadence, and operating rhythm your investors now expect, so you can get back to product and science.

See how this works

“We're raising Series B in six to nine months.”

Your model doesn't tie to your actuals. Your data room is a mess. And you need someone to help prepare for due diligence. I act as your fractional support through the raise: model builds, value creation plans, data room, investor narrative, diligence prep.

See how this works

“We want to scale without scaling headcount.”

You're watching competitors do more with smaller teams and you know AI is part of the answer, but you don't know where to start or what's safe to automate in a regulated environment. I audit your workflows, build the systems you need to scale, and train your team to run them.

See how this works

02 / What You Keep

Most consultants leave behind a deck. I leave behind systems.

Every engagement produces working infrastructure your team owns and runs after I'm gone. No dependency on me, no black boxes.

A financial model that updates itself.

Wired to your accounting system, your CRM, and your payroll. Actuals flow in automatically. Your runway, burn, and scenario planning stay accurate without a week of month-end cleanup.

An Operating Cadence designed around our team.

Strategic planning frameowrks, OKR processes, and tracking systems embedded across the organization.

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An AI-audited ops stack.

A documented map of which workflows are automated, which are human, and why. Your team gets a system, not a mess.

A Series B-ready data room.

For founders preparing to raise: the model, the metrics, the narrative, and the diligence answers, organized the way investors actually work through them.

03 / Selected Work

Where I've done this before.

Flagship · 2018 — 2026

Mend Labs

Health tech startup. Chief Operating Officer, founding through Series A.

Joined at the founding stage and built the company's full operating system: org structure, operating cadence, OKRs, financial model, and investor narrative. Led $25M+ in fundraising across seed and Series A, owning the model, diligence, and stakeholder management end to end.

Grew the team to 40+ employees, signed 20+ B2B contracts serving 10,000+ end users, and stood up the internal data infrastructure and AI workflows that ran the business day to day.

$25M+

Raised, seed through Series A

0 → 40

Employees built and managed

20+

B2B contracts signed

I've lived the exact journey my clients are on, from the inside of healthcare.

04 / About

Ten years building from the inside.

I spent the last decade building from the inside. As COO at Mend Labs, I scaled a venture-backed health tech startup from founding to 40+ employees, led $25M+ in fundraising, and built the operating model, finance function, and go-to-market motion from scratch. Before that, I advised large organizations on technology and operations strategy at Deloitte, leading programs that contributed to $150M+ in contract value.

I work in healthcare and life sciences specifically because these companies face problems generalist operators do not understand as well as someone who has lived the journey.

I take on a small number of clients at a time so every engagement gets senior operator attention. No associates, no handoffs.

Stanford AI in Healthcare · MIT Drug and Medical Device Development · Financial Modeling and Valuation Analyst (CFI) · Certified Revenue Cycle Representative (HFMA) · AWS Solutions Architect, Associate · BS Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland · Primary Ventures Mastermind Network

05 / FAQ

The obvious questions, answered.

How do engagements typically work? +

After aligning on scope: I embed with your team, review your financials, operations, and systems. From there, engagements typically run three to six months at a defined weekly time commitment or deliverable output. For fundraising support, engagements are scoped to the raise itself.

What does it cost? +

Engagements are priced by scope and time commitment, not hourly. A typical three to six month embedded engagement runs in the range of a senior operator's fractional salary, well below the fully loaded cost of a full-time hire. I'll give you a firm number after the diagnostic.

How is this different from hiring a COO or CFO full time? +

You get senior operator experience from day one, with no 90-day ramp, no equity package, and no long-term commitment. When your company is ready for a full-time leader, I help you hire them and hand off cleanly.

Do you work with companies outside Healthcare and Life Sciences? +

Occasionally, when the problem fits and the timing works. But my deepest value is in regulated health and life sciences contexts, and that's where I focus.

What stages do you work with? +

While it depends on each engagement, Seed through Series B is my sweet spot. Earlier than seed usually doesn't have the budget or the problems that justify fractional ops. Later than Series B usually needs full-time leadership, not fractional.

Can you work with our existing finance or ops person? +

Yes, and often that's the best setup. I work alongside controllers, bookkeepers, ops managers, and chiefs of staff to level up what's there rather than replace it.

Let's talk

Let's see if this is a fit.

Thirty minutes, no prep required. Bring the problem you're wrestling with this week and we'll figure out whether I can help or whether someone else is a better call.

Book a 30-minute call↗

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