Name: MPW Summit 2023: Menopause And The Workplace
Uploaded: 2023-10-12
Duration: 15 min 54 s
Description: Kate Ryder, Founder and CEO, Maven Clinic Joanna Strober, Founder and CEO, MIDI Moderator: Maria Aspan, FORTUNE

Kate Ryder, Founder and CEO, Maven Clinic Joanna Strober, Founder and CEO, MIDI Moderator: Maria Aspan, FORTUNE 

MPW Summit 2023: Menopause And The Workplace

Conferences

Now we want to talk about something that's not talked about enough, something that affects or will affect just about every single person in this audience at the summit. In some way, menopause right now, more than 50 million women in the United States are over the age of 51. The average age that menopause hits and for some menopause symptoms start even earlier around the age of 40. According to a recent study by the Mayo Clinic, the US economy is losing more than $26 billion a year due to lost productivity and health expenses. As women in the workforce deal with menopause symptoms. The study also says menopause costs American women, nearly $2 billion in lost working time per year. Those are not the kind of data points we like to hear, but this isn't just about dollars and cents, it's about health equity as well. Our next two guests are leaders in the space and say we need more research, more effective treatments and better benefits packages at work that include menopause care, Kate, writer, founder and Ceo of Maven Clinic, the largest women's and family health telehealth network globally. And Joanna Strober founder and CEO of Midi Health, a virtual care platform for women in pre menopause and menopause. Fortune's Maria Aspen will lead this conversation. Please welcome them to the stage. Ok, I think we love the t-shirt menopause is hot. I have to say throughout this event, everyone I told about which sessions I was moderating was like this is going to be a good conversation. So thank you guys for making the time. Um And maybe to start off with your T shirt. You know, we women have been going through menopause since the birth of humanity. Why is it so hot right now? Yeah. Why are we finally talking about it? Right? I mean, the reality is we are talking about something that is de derailing women from their, from their careers and potential for for a very long time and it's been very secret because people have been embarrassed. So I mean, the reason I'm wearing t shirts like this is to bring it out in the open and kind of shout from the ceilings that all these things that are happening to your body during this time of life are very normal can be treated and don't need to derail people's lives. And so that's really the, I I think it's just super important that the conversation is starting and that people are talking about it and the more that they talk about it, the more less start looking for treatments and the more they'll start feeling better. He had anything to add. Yeah. Sure. So, um I, I, you know, at maven we cover not just menopause but pregnancy fertility. So we've been kind of seeing for the last nine years, a lot of these subjects that have been heavily stigmatized and taboo kind of come out of the shadows. And so for fertility, you know, like 10 years ago, people were suffering in silence, they're in fertility journeys with no support. Um you know, pregnancy, whether it's miscarriage or postpartum oppression. And you know, it took menopause quite a few years to now. Then come on the map. I think the pandemic kind of disrupted some of that. But you know, for our client, we, when I think about our platform, we have over 30 different types of specialists and the two specialists that are the most passionate and the most kind of enraged at the lack of, of care for women in certain areas are our pelvic floor specialists and our obgyns that specialize in menopause. And I think it's because they just see women suffering and they say there are treatments. It's simple. We, you know whether it's H RT, whether it's, you know, just little things that you can do to alleviate a lot of these symptoms. And so, you know, for us, we kept, we have a client advisory board across a lot of these other products. And we would ask our clients every year, would you buy a menopause product. And the answer was always like, well, you know, we're prioritizing other things and then about a year and a half ago, um, you know, in early 2022 we said, you know, would you, you know, what about menopause? We always kind of talk about what's on our product road map at the end of the year and all four of them, which are Fortune 50 companies said. Oh, yeah, my employees in the UK are talking about it because the conversation really started in the UK in 2021 in like a big way. And um and so when we launched our product at the end of of last year, it's the fastest selling product in the history of, of maven, like these other categories which are also are deeply underserved. You know, it took years to kind of, you know, bring them out of the shadows and 300 clients have now adopted menopause um in the last year alone. And it's, it's like an incredible and, and yeah, everyone is, everyone's like menopause like, you know, tell me what, what's really gonna happen or like this was my experience. And, and so it's, it's great to have the conversation finally with menopause. As with many things, women, women's health. There is the existential question of how do you make, how do you make men care? How do you make investors care? How do you make the CEO S of employers um who are you know, still 90% of fortune 500 companies care. Um And I'd love to hear, you know, with this stigma of this, with this historical stigma, maybe Joanna from the investor standpoint, and Kate from the employer standpoint, like how do you have those conversations with people uh who haven't traditionally had to think or talk about it? So, I mean, there's obviously two parts of this. Uh I get on linkedin messages from men every day asking how to help their wives. So I actually think men do care. They're seeing that their wives are suffering and they're seeing that their, their wives are having challenges and they, they actually really want to help them. Um with regards to making investors care, that's really about growth. And the reality is we're just growing incredibly quickly because there is a lot of desire for menopause care. And so investors are responding to the demand and there is finally a lot of demand from, from women saying that they deserve great care and they can get it. And so that I think there's a new generation of women who are not interested in suffering silently. Instead they're, they're looking for treatments and um you know, so the male investors are responding to that. Yeah, I I couldn't agree more. I mean, I'm, I'm also surprised sometimes when someone, a man will pull me aside in one of our, our client meetings and he'll say my my wife suffered. So much and I'm so happy to see something. So, um, so, so definitely that's a big, a big thing. I think, you know, one of the things that when one of our clients, um, she was going through menopause when she kind of brought on our products. So she tried our product and, and, uh, and so she was, was really, um, really amazed at, like, actually, wow, like I can have symptoms alleviated and not actually do that much in my really busy life, just get whether it's H RT or something. And so she's like in our communications then to the company, she actually wanted us to kind of really go deeper on what the menopause symptoms are. So all the men at, at the company because I could learn a little bit more even at the launch. Um, and I, I thought that was just very, uh, you know, there's, there's just a lot of people really eager to talk about it. I think that celebrity endorsements that have come as well have been amazing that, you know, celebrities are talking about this on social media and, and lots of people are now viewing it. And, and so I think, um just the, the, the overall conversation, there's just so many people contributing to it and, and, and, you know, I think more men, probably men don't want to talk about their wives journey, but, but certainly, um, have been really supportive in the background. I want to open it up to audience questions in a minute. But uh the celebrity endorsement factor brings up menopause treatment has historically been um in, in this weird space where H RT has, has been stigmatized. Now there's this gold rush. But you know, some of the treatments are more health care based than others. How do you separate? Um maybe starting with Kate, how do you separate like the real treatments from um what I'll call the snake oil? Well, this is happening everywhere in every category of health. We're seeing it a lot in the fertility industry as well at the moment. And so I think what, what, what is just so important is that, you know, you have the right treatments and you have the right doctors like for us um when we talk about our product, like we don't just someone comes to us, we don't just give them H RT S the second they come to us because, you know, they're asking for it. We actually have like a whole clinical protocol around, you know, what do you need if you need a drug, what type of drugs you need? And so I think, you know, providing that access to specialists is so critical to kind of combat some of this misinformation and then just talking about it more, more openly. I mean, I think we were just, you know, hearing some of these amazing talks today about just the social media, advertising and pharmaceuticals and how, um you know what that does to people. And so I think, you know, it's, it's really important to just continue and, and why telehealth is so important in this is to continue to educate patients and empower them so that they actually can separate facts from fiction. Um And, you know, I think our chief medical officer is very passionate about, you know, not overprescribing H RT, that H RT is really important and there's been a huge, you know, huge issues with access, but it's also important not to just kind of peanut butter, spread, everyone, give them hormones because you know, that's now what everyone's asking for because of some ad they've seen. How do you, how do you navigate this as the founder and owner and CEO of a company that is offering treatment? Yeah, you know, it's interesting you asked about celebrities. I think the fact celebrities are talking about this is great because it's brought a lot of awareness, but a lot of why they're talking about it is because they're pushing certain supplements that they're working for and, and that's a problem. So what maven is doing and what we're doing is we have trained providers who are medical experts who are taking care of people. This is a medical issue. It is not something that can necessarily be solved by a supplement that you read about on tiktok. It is a real medical challenge and it needs to be solved. By experts. So we spent a year building this thick pile of care protocols for all of the things that women are going through. And now we have this Midi University where we train all of our providers to do this level of care. And it's really that knowledge that has been missing from our industry. When you go to your doctor, they usually spend about two minutes with you and in that two minutes you're not gonna get through your joint pain and your lack of sleep and your painful sex and your anxiety and your sleep issues. And that's just five of the 32 or 64 symptoms that are related to menopause. So you have to have experts. And so this is really all about for both of us training the experts to give really high quality care to women. You're not finding that with the supplements that you're seeing on tiktok or on youtube, it really is medical care and, and offering women access to really high quality care. Do we have any questions? Yes. So, um so actually, that's a perfect lead to my question. So, um could you tell, oh, sorry, Linda Finley, um Ceo of Blue Apron. I, I really love the fact that we're seeing so much more awareness of menopause, but I'm a breast cancer survivor and from my conversations at this conference, certainly not alone and I, I am in medically induced menopause for treatment and I find that the, the swing to really talking about menopause has left that group a little bit out. Um And, and feeling like this, all the conversations around the H RT are around not demonizing H RT, which I totally appreciate. But for those of us who can't actually do it, it still feels a little bit lost. And, and there also does seem to be this sort of weird world in between of your oncologist versus other doctors and how they can actually help across different treatments in triangulating that. How are you thinking about that fairly large population of, of breast cancer survivors or ovarian cancer or anything else where hormones are, are critical? So, Doctor Mindy Goldman is our chief clinical officer. She is the head of UCSF Survivorship Clinic and this has been her entire career for 30 years. She's one of the first people who started focusing on what all the treatments are that are available for women who had breast cancer because you can't take hormones. So, what are the options? What are the supplements that are appropriate and tested? And one of the non um the non hormonal medications that are tested? We have an entire survivorship clinics that we have launched for women who had breast cancer have concerns about breast cancer and we have trained providers who only do that. And um it's a really important issue that we, we care really deeply about. So that is um access in all ways to great care is what we are, is how we is, how we think about this and, and so we do have an entire survivorship clinic. Yeah, I think it's the, it's the 1 to 1. Right. It's not the one to many. So, you know, you see a lot of women's health journeys, they're non linear except we've reduced them to, oh, menopause is when you don't have your period anymore. And that's the kind of common um, understanding of it or pregnancy, having a baby, it's just nine months, you're pregnant, you're fine, you know, go back to work. And so, um and so it's through a lot of the one on one conversations with providers that can, you can really start to unpack kind of how you're coming to the, to the table with your symptoms, your needs, your personal medical history. So it's why access to care is, is so critical in. And I think a lot of women's health journeys and, you know, we, they don't, we don't get enough in our actual like in person physical system. One of the statistics that I think is, is wild A 02 is so two of three women between the age of 40 64 don't talk about menopause CMPs to their provider of the one out of three that do talk about menopause. 75% of them. I'm told to just get on with it because it all happens to all women. So there's just a huge problem in a lack of training, which is talking about in the system where it's so important for, you know, if we have these access to specialists that you are training them and you're providing that 1 to 1, you know, in this age of A I, and everyone's talking about all the A A I bots again. Um, you know, uh it's really critical as well to keep, you know, so many of these providers um at the front and center of a lot of these very underserved issues where there's not as much data and, you know, you can't train uh maybe one day but like not any time soon. And so it's, it's just really important for reasons like that. A corollary, I would like to ask you both briefly. Um We started off this conversation by talking about the impact on the US economy of menopause symptoms in the workplace, brief advice for those of us in this room on how to broach this topic at work and have that conversation. Yeah, I mean, I think if you are a someone suffering from menopause, you should just, you know, just it's hard talk about it, you know. You know, because I think you are putting it, you know, an example for women who are going to come after you. Um You know, I think a lot of hr leaders are hearing about menopause benefits like ours in the market. So a lot of companies are under pressure to actually, if their peers have launched a menopause benefit, then they might have to too, if you're in a leader where you buy benefits. I think, um, you know, menopause has become just as much a health equity issue as so many other parts of, of, you know, health care benefits in the workplace. So there is, you know, there's always doors that open and close when you're trying to help kind of underserved populations and create new categories. But in this market, the door is open right now. And so this is the time to kind of be, be more um you know, vocal. Yeah. So we host um 10 seconds webinars uh where we have our doctors come and talk and we did one this week that had 3500 employees um from one company. And what then you see on the side, all the questions that are coming in and they're pouring in to ask what, what to do about things. And the message we got afterwards was that people felt so much less alone because they saw other people were asking the same concerns they had Joanna, I'm sorry to cut you off, but that's all the time we have. Thank you both so much.