Active Ingredients

In this episode of the Active Ingredients podcast, host Thomas Dove interviews Tom Hochuli, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Board Member at Millrock Technology.
Tom Hochuli is a military-trained operator whose career spans Army platoon leadership to CEO roles in life sciences manufacturing, including at Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and Lonza.
In this conversation, he shares how Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) training gave him the self-confidence at the heart of his leadership philosophy. He covers situational leadership, team DNA, and why reading the room sets great leaders apart.

Key Takeaways
- Explore situational leadership in practice through Hochuli’s J&J experience, where two teams with different histories required entirely different approaches to change.
- Apply the concept of team DNA to understand how aligning mission to the motivations of each group creates cohesion across pharmaceutical and life sciences organisations.
- Learn why self-confidence is the bedrock of effective leadership, and how it enables trust, vulnerability, and decisive action in life sciences organisations.
- Identify the non-negotiables of high-performance culture: mutual trust, respect, and the readiness to act when individuals undermine team cohesion.
- Understand the value of leading by example, and why Hochuli’s refusal to ask his team to do what he wouldn’t do himself built lasting trust throughout his career.
- Take away Hochuli’s hiring philosophy: why surrounding yourself with people talented enough to take your job is the hallmark of a self-confident leader.
- Discover why military leadership isn’t about giving orders, and how Hochuli’s Army training instead taught him empathy, people development, and the value of leading from the front.
- Gain practical advice for the transition from operations to CEO, including how to spot transferable skills, volunteer for stretch roles, and build a leadership team that covers your blind spots.
- See how AI is changing life sciences manufacturing, and why human qualities like connection, calm judgement, and decisive thinking will matter more as technology advances.

Snippets
- "You have to be confident in yourself to trust. You have to be confident in yourself to be vulnerable. And that's how you build trust."
- "Move obstacles for people, don't do their job... and then just sit back and be amazed at how good they are."
- "What sold our business and our product was not the product, it was the people."

Timestamps & Topics
The following timestamps are approximations:
- [00:00] – Intro: Tom Hochuli’s leadership journey in life sciences
- [01:30] – Key Ingredients: Self-confidence, trust and honesty
- [11:34] – Tower Story: What poor leadership taught Hochuli about leading
- [19:08] – Situational Leadership: Two teams, two cultures at J&J
- [26:47] – Team DNA: Aligning mission to different groups
- [37:47] – Hiring Philosophy: Build a team that can replace you
- [40:01] – Future of Life Sciences: AI as a leadership tool

Resources
- Follow Tom Hochuli on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cellandgeneceo/ - Follow Thomas Dove on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lifesciencesexecutivesearch/

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Remember to tune into our next episode for more inspiring insights. You can also subscribe to the Active Ingredients podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and other leading podcast platforms.

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In this episode of the Active Ingredients podcast, host Thomas Dove interviews Yariv Hefez, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Business Franchise Oncology at Merck Group.
Yariv built his career across three distinct fields: law, entrepreneurship and pharmaceutical leadership. He has built businesses from scratch, led turnarounds and scaled a €2 billion oncology franchise across more than 60 markets.
In this conversation, Yariv shares the three ingredients he believes define strong leadership: clarity, momentum and people. He discusses hiring for diverse thinking, using co-creation to build team ownership, and why taking a role before you feel ready is the only path to real growth.

Key Takeaways
Learn why clarity means making decisions without complete data, and why moving forward amid uncertainty separates effective leaders from cautious ones
Discover how talented teams still stall in large pharma, and why generating momentum through process-heavy environments is a core leadership responsibility
Understand why Yariv Hefez deliberately recruits people who challenge his thinking, and how productive disagreement leads to better decisions than consensus-first cultures
Explore why turning around a declining product is harder than launching a new one, and why approaching it with launch-level energy is the key mindset shift
Identify the three building blocks of a high-performing team: trust, productive tension that encourages challenge, and a co-created vision that the whole team owns
Gain practical advice on hiring for genuine diversity: recruiting people who look different but think alike produces diversity on paper only. The goal is diversity of thinking
Apply Yariv’s self-direction framework to your own career, including his view that waiting until you feel 100% ready for a role means that moment will never come
Take away the lesson Yariv had to unlearn early: good work does not speak for itself, and making your contribution visible is a professional skill worth developing deliberately
Uncover how AI and quantum computing could reshape drug discovery, and why tomorrow’s leaders will need the confidence to use these tools and the courage to override them

Snippets
"The way I did it was really being very open and upfront about the fact that I don't have all the answers."
"Only when you have diversity of thinking is when you have real diversity. Otherwise it's just diversity on paper."
"If you are waiting to be 100% ready for a role, it's not going to happen. You are 100% ready for a role when you are in the role, not before you start the role."

Timestamps & Topics
The following timestamps are approximations:
[00:00] – Intro: Yariv's career journey from law to global oncology leadership
[00:01:18] – Key Leadership Ingredients: Clarity, momentum and people
[00:13:51] – Turnaround vs Launch: Why reversing a declining product demands the same energy as a new launch
[00:21:41] – Team Building: Why diversity of thinking produces better decisions than demographic diversity
[00:31:04] – Self-Direction: How to take career risks and stretch roles before you feel fully ready
[00:33:25] – Unlearning: Why great work alone is not enough and making your impact visible matters
[00:40:32] – Future Outlook: How AI and quantum computing will reshape drug discovery and life science leadership

Resources
Follow Yariv Hefez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yarivhefez/
Follow Thomas Dove on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lifesciencesexecutivesearch/

Don't Miss an Episode
Sign up to the Active Ingredients podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.activeingredients.fraserdove.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.
Remember to tune into our next episode for more inspiring insights. You can also subscribe to the Active Ingredients podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and other leading podcast platforms.

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In this episode of the Active Ingredients podcast, host Thomas Dove speaks with Elliott Berger, Executive Strategy & Marketing Advisor, Board Director at Orientation Marketing & Fractional CMO.
Elliott began his career as a Management Consultant before joining Johnson & Johnson (J&J), where he worked across strategy, marketing and sales. He then spent 14 years at Catalent, helping transform a private equity-backed business into a multi-billion dollar public company. He now advises investors and senior executives across the contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO), contract research organisation (CRO) and biotech landscape.
In this conversation, Elliott shares what it takes to build a commercial engine that delivers results in life sciences. He covers how to align marketing, sales and commercial operations, what makes CDMO commercial strategy different from large pharma, and how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is beginning to change the way commercial teams work.

Key Takeaways
- Learn why a structured commercial system matters more than individual talent, and how even skilled people will underperform without a clear framework.
- Discover Elliott Berger’s three ingredients for great leadership: vision and strategy, building a strong team, and finding the right mix of delegation, attention to detail and a drive for excellence.   
- Understand how to spot where a commercial engine is failing to convert, whether the problem sits at the top of the funnel, during the sales process, or in onboarding and delivery.•        
- Explore why healthy friction between marketing and sales signals that both teams are doing their jobs, and why the absence of that friction should concern commercial leaders.
- Gain practical advice for building commercial strategy in the CDMO space, where selling to pharmaceutical and biotech organisations requires a very different approach from large pharma.
- Identify why senior leaders moving from large pharma to CDMO environments often struggle, and what mindset and skill shifts are needed to adapt to faster-paced, more uncertain commercial settings.
- Apply lessons from Elliott’s approach to customer experience across the full client lifecycle, from the first site visit through to onboarding and ongoing delivery, and why any weak point can cost you the relationship.

Snippets
- "Being good or average is not good enough — you have to be excellent. Because if you're good, somebody who is excellent will eat your breakfast."
- "I often think of a leader like an orchestra conductor. You've got to know where you're driving the music and who is good at doing what, where."
- "You can build a commercial machine on top of good factories. You cannot easily build good factories underneath a good commercial machine."

Timestamps & Topics
The following timestamps are approximations:
- [01:14] -- Key Ingredients: Three essential traits for great leadership
- [05:19] -- Career Origins: From management consulting to life sciences
- [12:06] -- Leadership Realisation: When Elliott recognised he was a leader
- [20:20] -- System Failures: Where most organisations break down commercially
- [26:12] -- CDMO Strategy: How commercial strategy differs from large pharma
- [44:06] -- AI and Commercial Teams: How AI is changing commercial strategy in life sciences

Resources
- Follow Elliott Berger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliott-berger/
- Follow Thomas Dove on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lifesciencesexecutivesearch/

Don't Miss an Episode
Sign up to the Active Ingredients podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.activeingredients.fraserdove.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.
Remember to tune into our next episode for more inspiring insights. You can also subscribe to the Active Ingredients podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and other leading podcast platforms.

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In this episode of the Active Ingredients podcast, host Thomas Dove speaks with Abbie Celniker, Partner at Third Rock Ventures.
Abbie Celniker has spent four decades in the life sciences, from early scientific roles at Genentech to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) positions at Taliesin and 11 Biotherapeutics, and now as a partner at Third Rock Ventures, creating and developing new biotech companies.
In this conversation, she shares what it means to be a biotech pioneer, why the CEO should act as an emcee (master of ceremonies), and how patient urgency shaped the first generation of company builders. She also covers investor-operator dynamics and what the next generation of leaders will need to succeed.
Click or tap the play button to watch the video or tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music.

Key Takeaways
Learn why authenticity and trust are practical foundations of biotech leadership, not soft skills, and how they hold high-risk teams together when the science becomes uncertain.
Discover how patient urgency drove the first generation of biotech builders, and what that mission-driven instinct means when creating new life science companies today.
Understand the CEO-as-emcee principle: how surrounding yourself with domain experts and stepping back from the spotlight creates stronger results across every function.
Explore why letting go of execution is a requirement at senior level, and how staying too close to the data holds your team and your organisation back.
Gain insight into what an integrated leadership team looks like at each company stage, and how to stop internal competition from undermining collective decision-making.
Identify the tension between investor and operator perspectives on boards, and why balancing those viewpoints leads to better scientific and strategic decisions.
Take away practical advice for stepping into senior leadership before you have all the experience: why your executive team must act as thought partners, not simply direct reports.

Snippets
"All of a sudden, you don't have any real line oversight of the people who are doing the work for you. You have to lead by influence, and you need to get things done."
"I want every single person I hire to know more than I do. I want them to be more expert in every area... I just want them to be superstars."
"If they're constantly so out looking to grab the spotlight, they're going to potentially be missing opportunities to be motivating some of the superstars that can actually deliver the goods."

Timestamps & Topics
The following timestamps are approximations:
[00:00] – Intro: Abbie Celniker’s four-decade career across biotech and life sciences
[01:30] – Active Ingredients: Authenticity, trust, and culture as leadership foundations
[07:35] – Career Start: Joining Genentech in 1986 and the power of cross-functional project teams
[16:38] – Biotech Pioneers: How patient urgency defined the first generation of company builders
[29:09] – Letting Go: Why moving from execution to leadership is a requirement, not a choice
[37:25] – CEO as Emcee: Leading through experts rather than being the expert in the room
[45:41] – Boards and Investors: Navigating operator-investor tension at board level

Resources
Follow Abbie Celniker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbie-celniker-277a356/
Follow Thomas Dove on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lifesciencesexecutivesearch/

Don't Miss an Episode
Sign up to the Active Ingredients podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.activeingredients.fraserdove.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.
Remember to tune into our next episode for more inspiring insights. You can also subscribe to the Active Ingredients podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and other leading podcast platforms.

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In this episode of the Active Ingredients podcast, host Thomas Dove interviews Paula Gildert, Strategic Advisor & Board Member, Xyant Services.
Paula Gildert is a procurement and transformation leader who has worked across AstraZeneca, Novartis and Takeda. She served as President and Chair of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) and now advises life sciences organisations on strategy and governance.
Paula reveals how values, courage, and commitment fuel her leadership style. She shares frameworks for breakthrough thinking, champions speed and quality over pure cost, and vividly describes her journey from corporate executive to board advisor.
Key Takeaways
Experience how courage, authenticity, and commitment ignite leadership and help senior leaders build trust across the pharmaceutical landscape.
See why “context is decisive” in transformation. Gildert shows how reading your team’s environment sets every strategy in motion.
Unlock how breakthrough thinking turns stretch goals into tangible results by zeroing in on what’s missing and boldly making clear promises.
Discover how speed and quality ignite value creation in procurement and watch cost savings flow naturally as business processes evolve.
Gain practical advice on keeping teams energised during multi-year change by celebrating progress and keeping senior leadership visibly engaged.
Identify how communication training gives leaders a lasting edge. Gildert explains why structured frameworks for conversations pay dividends across every setting.
Explore how a Royal Marine upbringing shaped Gildert’s early leadership. She traces her resilience, her ability to hold her ground and her openness to being wrong back to her father’s influence.
Sharpen your listening and curiosity as a young leader. Gildert shares how face-to-face conversations and focus groups shape strategy from the ground up.
Use Gildert’s “third chapter” story as inspiration to shape your own vibrant move from executive to impactful advisory, board and voluntary roles.
Snippets
Business is mostly bad news with a spattering of good. If you’re in a high change environment, it’s not a balance.”
“Once you work in the pharmaceutical industry, and you’re driven by a higher purpose, everything else will pale in comparison.”
“Oftentimes, you have the team you need. You just haven’t rallied them around the right challenge.”
Timestamps & Topics
The following timestamps are approximations:
[00:00] – Intro: Paula Gildert’s leadership journey in the life sciences
[01:37] – Key Ingredients: Values, authenticity and commitment
[03:51] – Early Influences: Growing up with Royal Marine leadership
[16:29] – Delivering Impact: Inspiring teams through large-scale change
[23:12] – Value Creation: Why speed and quality beat cost in procurement
[27:03] – Breakthrough Thinking: Turning stretch goals into real results
[34:30] – Emotional Intelligence: Leading when values don’t align
[46:09] – Third Chapter: Leadership beyond the corporate org chart
[56:50] – Future of Life Sciences: Access, affordability and new technology

Resources
Follow Paula Gildert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paula-gildert-547b987/•
Follow Thomas Dove on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lifesciencesexecutivesearch/

Don't Miss an Episode
Sign up to the Active Ingredients podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.activeingredients.fraserdove.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.
Remember to tune into our next episode for more inspiring insights. You can also subscribe to the Active Ingredients podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and other leading podcast platforms.

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