Good morning! Citigroup in the middle of funding freeze fallout, Ursula von der Leyen offers Trump a “zero-for-zero” tariffs deal, and a CEO’s career path took her into genetic testing.
– Test results. So far in our special series about women in tech, we’ve covered venture capital and AI. Now we’re onto another world: genetic testing. My colleague Andrew Nusca profiles GeneDx CEO Katherine Stueland.
Stueland’s journey to the genetic-testing business started as a child, when she discovered at a family reunion that multiple members of her extended family had cystic fibrosis. She wondered what that meant for her and her immediate family. After a few different stops, her career took her back to that world.
On the way there, she worked on the first protease inhibitor for HIV/AIDS, the first cancer immunotherapy approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and efforts to destigmatize depression and anxiety medications, including Lexapro. Meanwhile, technology advancements started to make genetic testing more accessible. The 2013 Supreme Court case Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics played a role too, preventing companies from patenting isolated human genes.
For breast cancer, Stueland explains, “we’re diagnosing more women with breast cancer earlier, because we’re screening more,” she says, “but the morbidity rate is going down because we’re finding them earlier and able to intervene.”
GeneDx boasts $302 million in annual revenue and a $2.6 billion market cap. “Today I spend most of my time working with rare disease patient advocates,” she says. “It’s kind of full circle in a sense. I did not intend for it to be that way at all.”
Read the full story here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Stuck in the middle. As the U.S. government’s go-to banker, Jane Fraser’s Citi has been hit especially hard by recent turmoil, from funding freezes to tariffs. Citi’s head of public affairs says the bank has “always adapted to the natural change in priorities” between presidential administrations. Bloomberg
- Zero-for-zero. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, offered the U.S. a “zero-for-zero” deal after President Donald Trump hit the European Union with 20% tariffs. “Europe is always ready for a good deal,” she said, noting that the EU was “ready to negotiate with the U.S.” Politico
- Under attack. Planned Parenthood president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson talked about South Carolina’s fight to block Medicaid coverage of Planned Parenthood: “It is so anti-freedom, is so anti-choice, is anti-libertarian, so anti-conservative government, but it is about power, and control, and trying to deny us access to care.” Fast Company
- Mind the gap. Women working in finance in the U.K. earn around a fifth less than men, according to an analysis from Bloomberg. Plus, a report shows that the British financial sector is making slow progress when it comes to hiring women for senior roles.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Electric Power Engineers, an energy-focused consultancy, named Stephanie Badr CEO. She succeeds the company’s cofounder Hala Ballouz, who was appointed chief vision officer and chair of the company's board of directors. Most recently, Badr was the company’s COO.
Modern Health, a mental health care platform for the workplace, appointed Alyson Watson as executive chair of the board. She is the company’s founder and former CEO.
AI solutions company Comviva named Bhagwati Shetty CHRO. Most recently, she was the group HR business partner and DE&I leader at Mahindra Group.
Agtech company Pivot Bio appointed Laureen Thompson as head of people and human resources. She was previously the company’s head of total rewards, talent acquisition, HR systems and operations.
The Specialty Food Association named Mary Beth Vultee SVP of membership. She was most recently Executive Leader of Design at Whole Foods Market.
ON MY RADAR
An IVF alternative could make having babies less onerous Wired
Cars aren’t tested properly for women’s safety. Congress is trying to fix that NBC
The ultimate millennial multihyphenate New York Times
PARTING WORDS
“I have made peace with the fact that some people will not be able to feel comfortable around a fully expressed woman, and I don't really care to be in those rooms anymore.”
— Actor and singer Dove Cameron on feeling like she was “too much,” and exploring that idea in her latest single