Alumni Spotlight: Cindy Eckert

Class of 1993

Current Role:

Founder and CEO, Sprout Pharmaceuticals

Cindy Eckert is a highly regarded entrepreneur, a strong advocate for female entrepreneurship, a pharmaceutical leader and one of the few women to have ever sold a company for a billion dollars. New York Times called her pharmaceutical product the “drug of a generation” and Fortune called her a “tireless force of nature.” Associates of hers call her unapologetically pink. 

Over a distinguished 24-year career in healthcare, she started and sold two businesses for more than $1.5 billion. Having co-founded and sold Slate Pharmaceuticals, which redefined long lasting testosterone treatment for men, she launched Sprout Pharmaceuticals immediately thereafter. As Co-Founder & CEO of Sprout, the company broke through with the first ever FDA-approved drug for low sexual desire in women named Addyi — dubbed “female Viagra” by the media. In 2015, Cindy sold the company to Valeant Pharmaceuticals for $1b cash. 

Today, Cindy is focused on mentoring, investing in, launching and building other women-led or focused businesses. In 2016, she opened the doors to The Pink Ceiling — a cross between a VC firm, a ‘pinkubator,’ and a consulting enterprise — where she is CEO. At The Pink Ceiling, she has personally invested $15m across 10 different health tech companies at various stages of development. 

Cindy’s work has been featured in countless major publications including The New York Times, Fast Company, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, Bloomberg, CNBC, CBS, Fox, Yahoo and on the cover feature of Entrepreneur Magazine. Cindy has been an invited speaker at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, the Fast Company Innovation Festival, Ad Week, Inc. Magazine, and many more.