Jessica Martin Eckerly

CEO & Co-Founder, Forward BioLABS

Jessica Martin Eckerly has over 20 years of successful management, strategy, and operations experience, largely in life sciences and medtech. Her work spans settings that include start-up (Stratatech, later acquired by Mallinckrodt), international company (contract pharmaceutical research organization PPD), and non-profits (WiCell).

She is currently the CEO and co-founder of Forward BIOLABS, a premier Midwest co-working life science lab for early-stage startup companies. With Forward BIOLABS’ hundreds of pieces of shared equipment and operational support, startups are launched with immense capital efficiency, and they join a nurturing environment where they cultivate relationships and collaborate with other companies advancing cutting-edge technologies.

Active in the startup ecosystem, Jessica teaches business strategy and corporate portfolio management as an adjunct professor for the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, and serves on the advisory board for WiSys’s Venture Home to advance tech transfer from UW System’s 11 universities. A double Badger, she earned an executive MBA and a master’s in biotechnology, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.