The FT PWM Tea Break Interview: What the World’s Premier Menopause Influencer Advises on Wealth, Power & Succession
When I walked into the Financial Times TV studio for a live interview with Yuri Bender, the Editor of Private Wealth Management at The FT, I knew this would be a defining conversation. The broadcast was part of the FT’s PWM Tea Break series - an intimate, no-fluff conversation with some of the most influential voices shaping the future of private wealth management and wealth creation.
And we didn’t just talk capital.
We talked about menopause.
Not from a wellness angle, but from a leadership, wealth, and succession perspective. Because for women like us - the C-suite leaders, founders, and inheritors navigating power, pressure, and personal shifts menopause doesn’t sit on the sidelines. It sits squarely in the middle of how we lead, how we build, and how we plan for the next chapter of wealth in our leadership and in our lives.
Why this conversation needed to happen
I’m often told that what I do is niche as a value creation strategist.
That helping elite women navigate career and company growth through menopause is "important" but "specialist."
But when you sit across from someone like Yuri Bender and he opens a mainstream financial platform to this conversation you realise just how overdue it is.
We are witnessing one of the most significant wealth transfers in history in the Great Wealth Transfer. Women are inheriting, building, and managing capital at unprecedented levels. Yet the financial world still fails to understand how hormonal transitions during midlife shape the way women invest, lead, and exit the companies they’ve spent their whole lives building.
I said this in the interview, and I’ll say it again:
This isn’t a wellness conversation.
It’s a power conversation.
It’s a legacy conversation.
It’s about the psychology of capital and what actually happens behind the scenes when high-functioning women hit a time in their lives that no one prepared them for.
Succession is shakier than we think
Whether you’re transferring a business, a portfolio, or a position of influence, midlife women are often in the driving seat of intergenerational succession. But the systems advising them haven’t caught up.
Succession planning in both family wealth and company leadership is full of cracks because it’s rarely designed with women’s real timelines, pressures, and physical realities in mind.
When menopause intersects with capital decisions, legacy planning, and the leadership peak, what you get is not simply an HR or health issue. You get a strategic blind spot.
That’s why I created the NOPAUSE™ Scorecard. It’s a private, diagnostic tool I use with women leaders to pinpoint where menopause is quietly eroding their decision-making edge, their command in the boardroom, and their ability to scale their careers or companies.
And here’s the thing most advisers and colleagues miss:
Women don’t want to slow down. But menopause when unacknowledged can create hesitation, erosion of confidence, and lost ground in ways that aren't visible until it's too late.
From M&A to menopause: why I sit in both worlds
I wasn’t invited onto FT's PWM Tea Break just as a menopause influencer.
I was there as this year’s M&A Advisor of the Year, bringing an unusual but vital fusion: frontline deal-making expertise and deep insight into what high-achieving women need during life-stage transitions.
Because let me be clear, when a woman is leading a transaction, navigating investment decisions, or restructuring wealth strategies, and she’s simultaneously managing menopause she’s too senior to speak about?
That’s where companies lose value.
That’s where exits underperform.
That’s where strategic decisions stall or skew.
And no one in the wealth space has properly factored that in.
What we covered in the interview
The FT interview was one of the most honest, unfiltered conversations I’ve had on air. We covered:
The $100tn Wealth Transfer Is a Missed Opportunity
How menopause influences leadership behaviour and wealth risk tolerance
The failure of current financial advisory models to read female psychology across generations
Succession Planning Is Stuck in the Past The misalignment between succession planning frameworks and the actual lived timelines of women alongside the preferred male succession archetypes.
Why women deserve more than inclusion - we deserve strategic positioning in wealth design
ESG Isn’t Over. It’s evolving and yes, whether women will lead the next wave of ESG investing.
I also talked about the constant applause we give high-profile male leadership through crises, while the women leading through complexity both quietly and competently and why it goes largely unrecognised. From Trump to tech moguls, we’re watching unethical leadership get rewarded. I call on the business world to stop confusing bravado with brilliance.
The future of wealth, leadership, and capital growth is female.
And right now? Most of the industry isn’t ready
Watch The Broadcast Here:
We can no longer afford to ignore this
If you are a woman at the top or someone advising them, the conversation has to change and how you advise them does too.
For many women mid life and menopause alongside it is the moment they prepare for a wealth transfer. For others, it’s the inflection point that pushes them to launch, significantly grow, or exit their investments.
But without recognising menopause as a structural, performance-affecting factor in that journey, we’re doing women, the economy and wealth creation a disservice.
Find Out Where Menopause Is Impacting Your Wealth
If anything I’ve said here resonates with you, start by getting your own clarity on what menopause is costing your career, your company and your wealth.
Take the NOPAUSE™ Scorecard. It takes under five minutes and shows you instantly where menopause may be silently costing you influence, growth, or income.
This scorecard is not about symptoms.
It’s about strategy.
And at The Menopause Maze I’m here to help you lead through it.
Lightbulb Leadership Solutions is the parent company of The Menopause Maze.