Why Diversity of Thinking Builds Better Oncology Teams with Yariv Hefez

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/

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