Jessica Wilan

Jessica joined Calico in July 2021. As Head of Human Resources, she is responsible for enriching our collaborative scientific culture to support innovation and creativity. She also leads the design and delivery of Calico’s end-to-end talent strategies, including the recruitment, training, development and ongoing engagement of our employees.

Before joining Calico, Jessica was Senior Vice President at 4D Molecular Therapeutics, leading the human resources and internal communications functions. Most notably, she spearheaded the transformation of the HR team to support business leaders in achieving their goals and talent strategies amidst the pandemic and the organization’s transition to a publicly-traded company. Jessica also implemented new programs and systems around recruiting, total rewards, performance management, employee development and leadership team effectiveness.

Prior to 4DMT, she was at Santen Inc., a global ophthalmology company, where she was responsible for all HR functions and programs for the company’s North America operations. Before that, she spent 10 years at Novartis in Switzerland and the U.S., primarily at their Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR), building and implementing programs across HR and organization development. Jessica began her HR career as a management consultant providing organization development solutions to clients primarily in the pharma and biotech industries. Between degrees Jessica coordinated education programs for the New York Academy of Sciences and was also co-founder of an Off-Off-Broadway Theater Company.

Jessica earned a B.A. in Biology from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Columbia Business School.