Mr. Shlomo Yanai served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. from 2007 until 2012. Under his leadership Teva grew its revenue from $8.4 billion to $18.3 billion and increased earnings from $1.9 billion to $4.4 billion through a combination of organic and external growth programs. Prior to joining Teva, Mr Yanai was President and CEO of Makhseshim Agan Industries from 2003 till 2006. Mr Yanai began his career with the Israel Defense Forces, where he retired with the rank of Major General. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Cambrex Corporation, Chairman of the Board of Protalix Biotherapeutics, Vice Chairman of the Rothschild Caesarea Foundation and a Board member at Lumenis and Quinpario Acquisition Corp. Mr Yanai is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s AMP program, holds a Master’s degree (MPA) from the George Washington University in National Resource Administration. His B.A. cum laude is in Political Science and Economics from Tel Aviv University and he is a graduate of the U.S. National Defense University – War College.
Key Take-aways
- Success in life and in business is about:
- Coincidence and being in the right place at the right time.
- Setting goals is vital to one’s path to success. Without goals, you are just dreaming.
- Knowing when is the right time to get out and move on – for Shlomo this meant leaving Teva once it met its 2012 revenue goals.
- Laying a ground work and doing your time – for Shlomo this meant serving many years in the military – and the hard work will pay off later.
- Having a good partner to take care of you and set you straight – for Shlomo this means his wife of 40 years.
- Reinvesting in what is important to you – for Shlomo this means investing in start-up and emerging growth companies that are close to his heart.
- Success for Israeli business people relies, to a certain degree, to Israelis learning and conforming to international business norms.
- Success for Teva was not about branding, which is counter-intuitive to today’s obsession with branding and marketing. Success for Teva was a product of forward thinking and efficiency-minded leaders.
