Afton Vechery

Afton Vechery is the co-founder of Modern Fertility and served as its CEO. Modern Fertility is a reproductive health company focused on making personalized fertility information more accessible. The company created a category for proactive fertility providing at-home tests and digital tools for women earlier in life, available online and at major retailers. For its first flagship product, Modern Fertility validated that blood tests done in an infertility clinic could be done from home and published its findings in ACOG’s Green Journal. The company built a digital experience that allowed customers to understand their fertility hormones, built one of the leading digital communities for people with ovaries and expanded their product portfolio to serve women across their reproductive careers. Modern Fertility continues to publish in top tier journals and develop fertility diagnostics utilizing its largest consented database of fertile women. Prior to Modern Fertility, Afton led strategy and operations at various healthtech startups and most recently led consumer product at 23andMe. Afton has been named to Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list, Inc.’s Female Founders of 2022 list, Inc.’s 30 Under 30 list and Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. Modern Fertility was named Fast Company’s #1 Most Innovative Healthcare Company in the world and one of CNBC’s Most Promising Startups to Watch.

In 2021, Afton sold Modern Fertility to Ro for $225 million, where she joined as President of Women’s Health. In 2022, Afton transitioned from an operating to advisory role at Ro and is now investing and advising start-ups before she starts her next venture.

Afton is an alumnus of the Science Talent Search 2007 and International Science and Engineering Fair 2005. Her first company stemmed from her 2005 ISEF project, which started her entrepreneurial journey.

She joined the Society’s Board of Trustees in 2022.