Valérie Hepp

Valérie Hepp is the founder of Breakline Resolution, based in Switzerland. She helps companies win negotiations they cannot afford to lose and resolves business-critical conflicts using advanced negotiation and conflict-resolution methods. Her expertise spans high-stakes negotiations, complex deal structuring, alliance governance, and commercial mediation. She brings more than 25 years of senior experience in life sciences innovation and business development, having led, negotiated, and closed more than 50 global transactions with a combined value exceeding USD 10 billion across mergers & acquisitions, in-/out-licensing deals, collaborations and digital/AI partnerships.

Valérie is typically brought in when execution risk is high — unclear decision rights, misaligned partners, competing priorities, or stalled progress. Her focus is to surface the real constraints, challenge faulty assumptions, and restore decision flow to protect value, timelines, and investment. She is an accredited commercial mediator (CEDR), using conflict-resolution expertise as a tool to sharpen judgment, improve decision quality, and redesign governance before friction turns into failure.

Career

Before founding Breakline Resolution, Valérie was a senior business development executive at F. Hoffmann-La Roche, where she held progressively senior roles. Earlier in her career, she held commercial and strategy roles at Actelion Pharmaceuticals, MediQuality and ZS Associates.

Education

Valérie has a background in aerospace engineering (TU Delft, The Netherlands), holds an executive MBA from the University of Zurich (CH) as well executive education degrees from MIT Sloan School of Management (Artificial Intelligence in Health Care), IMD Lausanne (High Performance Leadership and Mastering Board Governance), and Kellogg School of Management (Merger Week). She is an Accredited Mediator certified by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR, London UK). She is currently completing a certificate programme in Conflict Management and Mediation at the University of Zurich.

Private

Valérie is fluent in French, Flemish/Dutch, English, and German.