05.05.23

Welcome from Founders: What is the WIW Summit and why have we created it?

We chat to Mariella Frostrup, Janet Lindsey & Laura Biggs , who will be sharing their wishes for the Summit and how we can really start to influence a real change for women in work
Mariella Frostrup is one of the UK’s most respected broadcasters and columnists. Her contribution to arts and literature along with her advocacy on gender and social issues have placed her at the forefront of the cultural landscape. She made the ground-breaking BBC1 documentary ‘The Truth about Menopause’ and she currently presents her own daily show on Times Radio covering issues of the day.

12.05.23

The importance of breaking the reproductive health taboo in the workplace

Join us as we chat to Lina Chan the founder of Parla, who will share her personal experience and what led her to launch Parla. Here's a snapshot of Lina's story that we will highlight alongside how her employer supported her on this journey and how companies can support their employees through their reproductive health.
The 25 weeks that Lina carried Mia, she experienced complications, with heavy back to back bleeds from the beginning of her pregnancy. She held her breath through every scare and every abnormal scan, hoping that her little girl would make it into the world. Looking back, Lina sees that she was always at high risk of losing her baby, but the love she had for her and her optimistic nature kept her rooting for her to live. Sadly, before Lina could reach her third trimester, Mia’s heartbeat stopped. Lina not only lost her beloved baby, but she also had to give birth to her during an 8 hour labour that would shatter her already broken heart and change her life forever.
Lina Chan is the CEO and co-founder of Parla. Lina spent most of her career working as a private equity investor in the US and the UK. After experiencing multiple pregnancy losses, difficulty conceiving and preterm birth, Lina became acutely aware of the gaps in women’s health care.
She founded Parla in 2018 with the mission to improve women’s access to expert support and health education. She quickly grew the company to over 15,000 users in 80+ countries before being acquired by Holland & Barrett, Europe’s largest health and wellness retailer, in early 2022.
Lina is also a regular public speaker advocating for women’s health issues at various events like GIANT Health, VivaTek, HIMSS Health and Femtechnology Summit.

19.05.23

A Real-Life Women's Health Case Study - How I coped, how my employer supported me and what advice I'd give to employers

Join us as Katie Muir chats to Rachel Yendoll Head of Content at Channel 4, about her health issues and how Channel 4 have supported her throughout her life stages.
Head of Content Management at Channel 4.
A senior leader with significant experience across the media at Channel 4, UKTV and the digital sector. Skilled in leading large operational teams, managing content and access services across multiple platforms.
Operational expert across live multi-platform events, have led on projects including the award winning Paralympics, Stand up to Cancer and Formula 1. I am adept at leading large complex teams, with multiple stakeholders in a highly demanding and changing environment.
Head of Access Services across programming at Channel 4 – sets the strategic vision for ensuring content is accessible for all, supplying subtitles, audio description and signing for content and live events.
Champion and advocate for diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
A convert to HRT after undergoing two operations for cancer and going into surgical menopause.
Kate was chief film critic of The Times for seven years, and is the author of three novels. She is an expert public speaker on women's health and the menopause, and an activist for The Menopause Charity. Kate has given menopause speeches at The Royal Institution, and Cambridge, Brighton and Leicester universities.

26.05.23

Menstruation - Menopause: Introducing a new British Standard

Join us to hear more about the soon to be released FREE BSI standard for Menstruation / Menopause policy guidance for all companies
Anne Hayes heads up the BSI Knowledge teams that lead the Sector strategies and the standards to ensure UK and global innovation and policy are supported with relevant standards. Having spent 20 years working within the standardization world she has experience across a broad range of industries and sectors having headed up teams for Governance, Risk and resilience as well as healthcare and sustainability.
Previously to BSI Anne was Editorial Director at Sweet & Maxwell Ltd.
Darron Dupre is Head of Local Government at UNISON Cymru Wales. As the senior negotiator for around 35,000 UNISON council workers in Wales, 75% of whom are women, Darron places equality as well as terms and conditions at the heart of his work.
Darron became a union rep for the National Union of Public Employees in 1991 whilst working in the NHS. In 1993, NUPE became UNISON and in 1994, Darron became UNISON's youngest Branch Secretary at the age of 23. In 2000, Darron joined the Wales Trade Union Congress (Wales TUC) as Research Officer and in 2006 returned to UNISON as a Regional Organiser.
In 2017, Darron attended the Wales TUC launch of their Menopause Toolkit, an event that he says, 'was the most profound of my career'. Armed with his Toolkit, Darron asked Velindre University NHS Trust whether it would work in partnership with UNISON around a menopause awareness and support campaign for all staff. This project created the very first employer Menopause Cafe in Wales, won a number of HR Awards for the Trust and was used as the best practice example for NHS Wales. Darron also negotiated for NHS Wales to send bi-lingual menopause awareness posters to every GP surgery in Wales.
Noting that the Local Government workforce in Wales is statistically older and female, Darron is currently working with the Welsh Local Government Association to place menopause awareness and support at the top of the workforce agenda . To support this, Darron will be conducting a survey of the entire UNISON council and schools' membership, women and men, to better understand the menopause experiences of local government workers in Wales.

02.06.23

What makes a woman happy at work?

Discover what makes women more happy at work (based on rigorous employee sentiment surveys), where the happiest women are and what your organisation can do to make your workplace a place where women (and business) can thrive.
Lord Mark Price is the founder of WorkL, an employee experience platform helping organisations to measure, track and improve engagement and commercial success. Mark spent 34 years in the John Lewis Partnership, the final 10 as MD of Waitrose and Deputy Chairman of the partnership. After leaving the John Lewis Partnership Mark was the Minister of State for Trade and Investment. Mark is also the President of the CMI and is on the board of Coca Cola Europacific Partners.

09.06.23

Meno-economics: the real cost of losing mid-life women

In this session , Author, Journalist and documentary maker Kate Muir will share with us the findings from her research on how losing midlife women form your workforce can have a dramatic effect on your bottom line

16.06.23

Fertility Matters at Work

We will be chatting to the founders at Fertility Matters at Work. 1 in 7 people will suffer with infertility. It can be incredibly hard to deal with a diagnosis like this within the workplace. We will be finding out how best to support women with an issue that impacts every part of your life.
With over 15 years of broadcasting experience with the UK’s leading commercial radio stations and award-winning voiceover artist Natalie launched The Fertility Podcast in 2014, once pregnant after fertility treatment.
It was the UK’s first dedicated podcast on this taboo topic at a time when podcasts weren’t as popular as they are now. Over the last seven years, Natalie has spoken to numerous men and women about their struggles and interviewed fertility experts around the globe. To date, the podcast has had almost half-a-million downloads.
She is a patient advocate and regular panel host and chair at key fertility industry events and a qualified Freedom Fertility Formula Coach. In 2019, Natalie shared her experience of IVF whilst hosting a breakfast radio show in Grazia magazines' ‘Womb with a View’ column and then went on to speak as part of AXA’s Diversity and Inclusion festival and work with Barclays Banks, before joining forces with Becky and Claire.
After working in HR for over 12 years for a number of well- known corporate and public organisations, Becky is now a Fertility Blogger and Patient Advocate as ‘DefiningMum’, having written and spoken about fertility at work as part of BBC Fertility Week 2019. She is also the Founder of Paths to Parenthub, a virtual support platform for those needing to use donor conception to build their family.
Following a difficult fertility journey, which involved numerous IVF Cycles and miscarriage, Becky is now mum to three girls thanks to egg donation. She’s passionate about raising awareness and wants to change the support available for those experiencing fertility treatment in the future, particularly in the workplace.

23.06.23

The role of a Menopause Ambassador

What is the role of the government's first menopause tsar?
Helen Tomlinson is the UK’s first-ever Menopause Champion. Working alongside the Department for Work and Pensions, Helen helps employers develop policies that empower women experiencing menopause to stay and progress in work.
Advocating for gender equity is the common thread throughout Helen’s 30-year career in the recruitment and employability sectors. In addition to her voluntary Menopause Champion role, Helen is Head of Talent (UK and Ireland) for the Adecco Group, the global leader in HR solutions. Her pioneering podcast on menopause and work inspired the Adecco Group to design and implement one of the UK’s first corporate menopause policies.
Since then, Helen has supported companies of all sizes to create supportive environments, encourage open conversations, and help women thrive at work through menopause and beyond.
With three decades of experience across commercial management, sales, and strategic HR planning, Helen helps organisations realise the business benefits of an enlightened approach – and drives positive, pragmatic change for employers and their people.

30.06.23

How to be a Male Ally

Andrew Tiernan, a leader at global strategic advisory firm, Hakluyt, a former British Army officer, and father of three daughters, who will share his own experience and learnings which have helped him become a successful male ally, both at home and at work, where he has led several successful inclusion and mentoring initiatives.
A self-confessed token male, Andrew is also the only male member of the St John’s College Women’s Network Steering Group at Oxford, the only male speaker at the Army’s annual servicewomen’s conference, and helped get a conventional female artillery officer deployed onto the front line alongside UK special forces operators. In his role at Hakluyt, Andrew has led a mentoring initiative which aims to enable senior male leaders to be mentored by women.
At home, where even the family golden retriever is female, Andrew is used to being outnumbered, but allyship is a role he relishes.

20.07.23

Women at Work - A Personal Experience

Join journalist and author Alice Smellie and Tina Blackhouse, GM of Theramex UK - for a candid chat about women's health and why it's so important that we have open conversations about the impact it can have on us at work.
Tina Backhouse in the UK General Manager for Theramex.
Theramex is a specialist Women’s Health Company. Tina has over 25 years’ experience in global senior leadership roles the pharmaceutical industry.
She brings experience of launching innovative products across diverse range of therapy areas within both large and small pharma companies.
Tina Joined Theramex in January 2020 and during this time, the UK has grown to be the largest affiliate in Theramex. The UK HRT Market has grown by over 30% in the last year and Tina is passionate about ensuring that all women have equal access to treatment and care during this transition of their life and that they are able to make educated choices about their menopause treatments.
She has appeared on BBC Breakfast, Radio 4 Breakfast and Women’s Hour talking about these issues and regularly appears in the media campaigning for equal access to treatments.

27.07.23

Why we need to support & understand women’s health at work

In this session we meet Leila Thabet, Regional Vice President, Global Growth & Partnerships, at global healthcare platform, Maven Clinic.
Leila is committed to improving access to healthcare for women and families. She leads Global Growth & Partnerships at Maven Clinic and was previously the Founder and CEO of Naytal, the UK's first virtual clinic for women. Naytal was acquired by Maven Clinic earlier this year.
A highly accomplished entrepreneur and marketing leader, Leila has over 20 years experience driving growth and digital innovation for world-leading organisations; including Sky, asos, Netflix, Tesco and Apple. She is a passionate and vocal advocate for women's health, promoting the importance of improving women's access to dedicated healthcare services.

18.08.23

Why I created the ad industry’s first menopause policy

Join us as we chat to CEO of Dark Horse's Melissa Robertson. In this session we will find out why Melissa created the first policy and more importantly why she shared it with her industry .
Melissa has been in the advertising industry for over 25 years, and is currently the CEO of Dark Horses. She has written extensively about how businesses need to more actively respond to the challenges of menopause and has created an open source Menopause Policy for any business to adapt and use as their own.

18.08.23

What is matrescence/patrescence and why employers need to understand it

Questions we will be asking...
1. What is the meaning of matrescence and how does it impact new mothers?
2. Do fathers experience something similar to matrescence?
3. How does matrescence/patrescence affect the transition back to work?
4. Why should employers be looking into matrescence/patrescence and it's impacts, what practical steps can employers take?
Susannah Dale is the Founder of The Maternity Pledge, a social enterprise dedicated to raising awareness of matrescence and keeping mothers in the workplace. Susannah started her career in consumer PR and later changed roles to become the co-owner of a wedding planning business, before finding herself completely and utterly floored by the transition to motherhood five years ago. After a good dose of counselling, Susannah began talking to mothers and trawling through the internet to find out what impact motherhood was having on women, particularly on their careers. She also stumbled upon the concept of "matrescence", a term coined 50 years ago by anthropologist Dana Raphael to describe the complex and transformational process of becoming a mother. It led to the creation of The Maternity Pledge, a social enterprise that encourages companies across the UK to make workplaces as supportive as possible for pregnant employees and new mothers

01.09.23

Menopause - time for an inclusive conversation

Menopause is not a one-size-fits-all. There are so many symptoms and so many different lived experiences. We'll hear from doctors on the importance of individualized care.
Dr Clare Spencer is a registered menopause specialist and an NHS GP. She qualified from Cambridge University and holds Membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners. She initially trained in obstetrics and gynaecology where she gained a Doctor of Medicine for research in fetomaternal medicine.
As well as her role of Clinical Director at My Menopause Centre, she currently runs an NHS menopause service and is a GP partner in a practice in Leeds. She is also a British Menopause Society menopause trainer and is involved in educating GPs about the menopause transition through talks, lectures and seminars. Dr Spencer has written menopause training modules and pathways for doctors.net, the Primary Care Women’s Health forum publication, Her Life Her Health, and the Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust.
While working as a GP she noticed a need for increased awareness and understanding of the menopause transition amongst her patients. As well as her own challenging menopause experience, she could see how their menopause symptoms were having a detrimental impact on all aspects of their lives and decided to qualify as a Menopause GP. Through her clinical work and being co-founder of My Menopause Centre, Clare is passionate about educating, empowering and supporting all women through all stages of their menopause transition.
Dr Manisha Singh is a Consultant in Sexual & Reproductive Health (SRH) and Community Gynaecology with over 13 years of experience as the Lead Clinician and NHS Consultant. She is passionate about all aspects of women’s health through all life stages and the menopause in particular.
She has been a Member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists since 1998 and is also a Fellow of the Faculty of SRH. She is active in teaching and training and regularly organises and chairs regional training days and meetings. She is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds Medical school and is the Training Programme Director for postgraduate training and is incredibly proud of being a part of shaping the future consultant workforce in community SRH. She is a Council member at the Faculty of SRH and has other responsible Faculty roles.
Within her NHS Consultant role, Dr Manisha focuses on women’s health and complex contraception and is responsible for clinical supervision and governance as well as assuring high standard, evidence-based clinical care. Dr Manisha has experience in the different, often unrecognisable ways menopause can present, the negative impact this can have and the life-changing benefits of tailored and collaborative clinical management. She feels strongly about raising menopause awareness and easing access to holistic and empathetic care.
Dr Tonye is an experienced Consultant in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Community Gynaecology and has been a BMS-recognised menopause specialist for almost 10 years. She was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in September 2016. She also holds the Faculty of Sexual Reproductive Health (FSRH) Advanced Menopause Certificate and is also the FSRH Menopause Guardian involved in the curriculum, logbook and training in menopause care basic and advanced certificate. A true advocate of women’s health and the menopause, she regularly facilitates and delivers sessions on contraception and menopause and has authored publications and delivered presentations regionally and nationally.
With a very kind and sympathetic approach Dr Tonye, is fully aware of the growing hunger for information and support for menopause care and believes in providing high-quality, individualised care for all women. During an initial consultation, Dr Tonye will explore her patient’s symptoms, needs and goals and, together with additional medical history, will work with her to establish the different options available for treatment and continuing the patient’s journey together.

08.09.23

Reimagining the parenthood at work journey

Research and Policy expert. Natalie is an ex-research scientist with a PhD in nanoscience. She co-founded Parent Promise in 2022 with Dearbump founder Emma Jarvis to ensure people starting families felt supported and able to thrive in their professional and personal lives. The motivation for doing so was that as a woman in her late 20s she felt, she had to start making preparations so that she'd be able to start a family when she was ready to; that included reassessing her career altogether, which many women do.
Emma is an ex-scientist, software engineer, mum of two, entrepreneur and Linkedin Top Voice for gender equity. She founded Dearbump in 2017 and Parent promise in 2022 to ensure women and parents were more supported than she was during her pregnancy. she focuses on helping businesses support the health and wellbeing of women and parents in the workplace, offering specialised support from pregnancy through to parental leave and early parenthood. Her ambition is to help women have a healthier, more positive pregnancy and birth experience, enabling them to feel supported and confident in returning to work if they choose.

13.10.23

How to Embed Women’s Health and Mental Health into an Organisational Health and Wellbeing Strategy

Amy is an award-winning Mental Health, Health & Wellbeing and Women’s Health consultant with more than 20 years of unparalleled experience. She coaches organisations of all sizes, putting into place evidence based, measurable and sustainable strategies which are as innovative as they are effective. She has created and implemented strategies in organisations of all sizes from big 4 accountancy firms (she wrote and implemented EY’s UK health, mental health and wellbeing strategy) and global strategies for FTSE 100s, to SMEs and start-ups. She was also a Non-Executive Director of Mental Health First Aid England.
Hannah Meredith is an award winning Health, Mental Health & Wellbeing Lead with over ten years experience in the industry. With a background in facilitating wellness retreats, Hannah draws on her own lived experience of mental ill health to bring a unique perspective and passion to the whole spectrum of wellbeing.
Hannah was appointed as the first Health, Mental Health & Wellbeing Lead in 2017 for global tech marketing company -MVF. As the sole creator of multi award winning Health, Mental Health & Wellbeing strategy - ‘Be Well’; Hannah has been responsible for designing, leading and delivering the strategy globally.
Hannah’s ‘Be Well’ strategy features an array of benefits, policies and activities which help to support the mental, physical, social and financial wellbeing of all of MVF’s employees with a big focus on where inclusion & wellbeing meet such as neurodiversity; pregnancy & baby loss; menopause; fertility and other reproductive health issues.

02.11.23

Infertility in the Workplace

With over over 3.5 million people in the UK going through some form of fertility challenge, 40% of employers still do not have a formal policy in place to help their employees with this incredibly difficult life experience.
In this session, journalist, fertility patient and working mother Sophie Sulehria talks to Centrica - an international energy company, who have made infertility a priority in the workplace, to discuss their gold standard fertility in the workplace policies.
Richard works in Centrica’s legal team as Lead Competition Counsel. Richard also co-leads The Fertility Sanctuary – one of Centrica’s Employee Networks dedicated to supporting colleagues who are going through a fertility journey. The Fertility Sanctuary provides an open space for discussion, helps to educate its members and other colleagues, and drives the agenda both inside and outside of Centrica to make workplaces more compassionate and supportive for people experiencing fertility related issues.
Ami is a Finance Project and Governance Manager and has been at Centrica for almost 10 years and has a passion for driving change. She is a chartered accountant having worked in FTSE companies and has been a working member and now co-chair of the Fertility Sanctuary Network whose purpose is to enable colleagues to “Grow their Families as well as Careers”.

18.10.23

Navigating Menopause in the Workplace

Join us for a chat with Elaine Banton Barrister at 7BR Chambers, Elaine will be joining us hot from Maria Rooney’s action against Leicester City Council is first tribunal case to consider the symptoms as a disability. This will be an interesting conversation about how to Navigate Menopause in the workplace both as an employer and employee.
Elaine is an experienced, highly regarded barrister practising across the whole range of employment, equality and discrimination law matters appearing regularly at all levels of tribunals and courts including the High Court and Court of Appeal. Acts for employees and employers in all areas of employment law in long running multi-strand discrimination matters and advises international and national businesses, charities and public bodies on high level strategic/policy matters such as the TUPE consequences of various contracting arrangements, whistleblowing and equality issues such as equal pay. Client base includes the arts, media, global financial institutions and high net worth individuals as well as group claims, executive termination, restrictive covenants and injunctions. Experience in all discrimination claims including public functions and services. Appearing in serious, high profile, high value and impactful cases, Elaine was featured as The Lawyer’s Barrister of the Week in November 2021 regarding a widely reported discrimination case. Recent cases also include success in the ET in long-running litigation involving a retrial of sex discrimination and harassment claims in Rajput v Commerzbank AG. A continuation of Commerzbank AG v Rajput [2019] ICR 1613 EAT. Elaine speaks, writes and broadcasts regularly on her specialist areas of the law. Contributor for Harvey Industrial Relations and Employment Law, co-author of Division J Family Matters and co-author of the chapter on Human Rights and Employment Law for Tolley’s Employment Law. Former Treasurer of the DLA for 6 years. In 2009 named a ‘Pro Bono Hero for 2009’ by the Attorney General’s Office. From 2011 to 2014 Barrister member of the Bar Standards Board’s Complaints Committee. Member of IBA, ABA, DLA, ELBA, ELA, ILS and Justice. Experienced in dispute resolution Elaine is a CEDR accredited mediator. Co-Chair of the Bar Council’s EDSM Committee and an elected member on the Bar Council’s GMC. Committee Member of the Inns of Court Alliance for Women. Bencher at Middle Temple Member of Middle Temple’s Appointment Committee and Former Co-Chair of Middle Temple’s Race Equality, Inclusion and Anti-Racism Working Group Head of 7BR’s Employment Team Member of Sadler’s Wells Development Council Chair of the Board of Talawa Theatre Finalist ‘First 100 Years Inspirational Woman of the Year Award’, Barrister of the Year 2022. Featured on BBC One’s Panorama episode “Belly Mujinga: Searching for the Truth” on 12th October 2020. https://www.7br.co.uk/barrister/elaine-banton/

06.11.23

Women's Health in the Workplace

Following a stint as a general practitioner in Buckinghamshire, Dr James moved across to the business sector. His various roles led him to develop expertise in domestic and global medical insurance, healthcare risk management, clinical governance, medical evacuation and quality improvement across a number of regions including Europe, the Middle East and Hong Kong. Based in London, Dr James is responsible for MMB’s Workforce Health Management capabilities in Europe, as well as supporting the execution of consulting work in the UK and inputting into the creation of globally standardised workforce health management advice and solutions. He also joins MMB’s global workforce health leadership team and sits on the MMB Europe leadership team. He reports directly to Kristin Parker, MMB’s workforce health management leader. He also reports to Tony Wood, MMB’s regional leader & managing director Europe for his work in Europe and into Christopher Bailey for his work in the UK.

30.10.23

How to Stay Steady, Stay focused with Lingo

Alice Smellie chats to Sarah Tan, General Manager, Europe, at Lingo, a company representing the future of consumer biowearables, or wearable tech. Many of you will probably already be aware of your daily heart rate, your breathing, exercise levels and sleep quality. Well, Lingo represents the next step in taking responsibility for your health, and that's what Sarah is here to explain to us.
Sarah Tan is the General Manager, Europe for Lingo, Abbott’s consumer biowearables division focused on helping consumers better their overall health and wellbeing through innovative technologies. Sarah has deep expertise working with consumer branded businesses, most recently in senior positions with Deliveroo (food delivery) and PepsiCo (packaged food). This followed almost a decade as a strategy and finance consultant advising on global deals in the retail, consumer, and leisure sectors. In her roles at Deliveroo as GM for Regional UK&I and GM Singapore, Sarah was a core part of the global leadership team, steering the business through major changes during the Covid pandemic and journey to initial public offering. An authentic and motivating leader, she gets her energy from bringing together large, diverse, cross-functional teams, drawing on her experience in both established multinational and scale-up environments. Originally from Australia, Sarah holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne. She enjoys travelling and interacting with different cultures, and has lived and worked in Australia, Europe and Asia.

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