Susan L. Levinson, Ph.D. President
Susan Levinson founded the Strategic Choice in 2006, after 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry. As a pharmaceutical executive, her experience included leadership roles in marketing, licensing and business development, project management, drug discovery, development and strategic planning. Most recently, Dr. Levinson held executive positions in Business Strategy and Marketing Planning for Novartis Pharmaceuticals. Here Dr. Levinson led process redesign initiatives, led the implementation of a new global brand planning model for the US organization and managed the annual strategic and tactical planning process. Dr. Levinson built a new department which defined strategy and developed new capabilities across Marketing and Sales. Her team developed and launched technology solutions addressing Compliance needs to the marketing and sales organization in support of over 7000 end users, by creating collaborations across Sales, Marketing, Finance, Medical and Compliance. Dr. Levinson also was responsible for launch of a major cardiovascular product. Prior to her roles in Business Strategy and Marketing, Dr. Levinson was responsible for New Product Marketing for HRT, osteoporosis and chronic wound markets for the U.S. She began her career at Novartis as Director of Licensing for the former Ciba-Geigy organization, where she led licensing strategy and negotiations within the Bone, Inflammation, Pulmonary and Oncology therapeutic areas. As a business development and marketing executive, she has been responsible for research agreements, product and technology licenses, as well as marketing alliances for products cumulatively worth over a billion dollars. Prior to Ciba-Geigy, Dr. Levinson founded and built a consulting practice for healthcare clients, specializing in technology licensing. She began her career in the industry in Research, where as a Principal Scientist, she managed drug discovery programs at Ortho Pharmaceutical.
Dr. Levinson has a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology.
Return to About UsValerie A. Ceva, MBA
Valerie Ceva has had a successful track record in healthcare strategic consulting, business development and global venture capital transactions, including over 20 years of experience in operational and leadership roles with major pharmaceutical firms and healthcare start-ups, as well as in consulting and private equity/venture capital.
Before joining TSC, Valerie was a Partner with VentureWorks, LLC, where she focused on emerging technology, supporting venture capital firms in strategy development and investment, and early stage companies in business model development, venture capital acquisition and operational execution. She has specialized in biodefense, biotechnology and ehealth. Valerie’s recent work included several long term projects such as: creation of a vaccine/diagnostic company, the development and execution of a new strategy for a top tier venture firm (acting deal team) and operating as interim COO for an ehealth company during the expansion/commercialization stage. Prior to her work at VentureWorks, Valerie held key positions at Novartis Pharmaceuticals in Strategy, US and Corporate Business Development, Marketing and Sales, as well as Venture Manager at Accel Partners. Valerie’s broad portfolio of responsibilities involved all of the life sciences divisions, such as Pharmaceuticals, Consumer Health, Generics and Vision Care, across varied functional areas. Valerie spearheaded some of Novartis’ most critical capability improvement initiatives, including one to improve marketing planning effectiveness. Other accomplishments included: leading a reorganization and turnaround for the generic division, developing the company’s first lifecycle management/generic transition strategy, leading various post-merger integration initiatives and contributing to the early success of the managed care department.
Valerie has an MBA from University of Chicago and a BS in Biology from Bucknell University.
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