Our very own Fiona McKay is making waves with a haul of awards as the recently crowned Menopause Champion of The Year in the esteemed Wealth & Finance International Awards.

Additionally, she was honored as one of the Women of The Year 2023 for her tireless dedication to improving women's menopausal health, equipping women leaders with evidence-based tools to keep them well and working. Fiona has also been actively campaigning for HRT cost reforms in England and was a central activist in the successful introduction of the new HRT Pre-Payment Prescription Scheme.

Fiona's tireless efforts demonstrate that dealing with menopause symptoms should not hinder women from thriving in their leadership careers. Through her leadership, she has set a new industry standard in recognizing and supporting women leaders in menopause. As a gender acceleration architect, Fiona leads the charge in designing and implementing the infrastructure needed for women leaders, boardroom powerhouses, and female founders to accelerate their leadership lives through menopause.

The Finance Sector Needs to Wake Up

Fiona's groundbreaking work as a professional menopause coach to combat menopause bias in the corporate world has been transformative. Her initiatives on specific menopause support in the workplace for women leaders and menopause-friendly workplaces are paving the way for a more inclusive working environment in wealth, banking, financial services, investment, funds, VC, and family offices. However, there's a herculean effort and cultural shift needed to retain top talent in their menopausal years.

For many women leaders in financial services the workplace is the last place they feel safe to share their struggles in menopause. With 25% of women in the finance industry expected to be forced out of their employment due to menopause, financial services is facing the exodus of its top female professionals. This startling statistic magnifies an untapped issue that continues to exacerbate the gender imbalance in the finance industry. Fiona McKay cautions that businesses have yet to realize the impact of losing top female leaders on profitability and performance. Fiona says:

"Financial Services businesses have yet to catch on to the fact that when top female leaders leave, business performance dips. There is irrefutable evidence that companies with at least one woman in the boardroom improve profitability and performance," says Fiona. "When those women leave or are forced out often at the peak of their careers simply because of menopause, nobody is yet addressing the impact that will have on future innovation, cap raising, investor relations, ESG sustainability, and profit results."

Speaking exclusively to Money Marketing, Fiona emphasizes, "If women get into senior leadership roles in financial services, they tend to be in their 40s and 50s, and that point of life is when the menopause hits. It impacts on many levels – physical and cognitive things happen to you that affect mental health and physical health, and this needs to be addressed if the sector genuinely wants to retain its top talent."

New Research Shows the Menopause Benefits Women Actually Want

This supports our research at The Menopause Maze, showing that 73% of women leaders would leave their current job and move to a new employer if it offered a menopause career coach as part of their benefits package. This research has formed part of the transformative insights research report from The Menopause Maze on the workplace benefits women really want. It provides startling statistics that should make HR, wellbeing, and rewards teams galvanize into providing personalized benefits that retain their top talent.

Mariella Frostrup, Naomi Watts, Tamsen Fadal, Sharon Malone at the Women in Work Summit.Image: Courtesy of Women in Work; Design: Danielle Giarratano.

The issue of workplace benefits for women was also discussed at the recent Women in Work Summit, held on 9 November 2023, in New York. The summit included a panel on menopause in the workplace, featuring Hollywood actress Naomi Watts, who at 36 went into early menopause and shared the impact it had on her career, and Chair of The Menopause Mandate in the UK, Journalist Mariella Frostrup.

With 60% of FTSE 100 companies yet to provide a menopause policy in the UK, it raises the key question: if the top companies in the FTSE are failing menopausal women, what does that mean for SMEs?

Fiona McKay goes on to say, "Fundamentally the real issue in companies is their inability to value mid-life female talent and their unwillingness to invest in menopause benefits that advance opportunities for women and workplaces. They want to tick boxes rather than provide tailored tools, and they do so at their peril. In the next 5 years, they will be looking back in horror bemoaning that they should have invested and paid more attention to incorporating menopause in long-term human capital strategies than panic buying symptoms sessions. The time for action is now."

A Culture That Diminishes Women is Bad for Us All

This feeling of de-valuing women in the financial services sector is echoed by Baroness Helena Morrisey, DBE. She is a City ‘superwoman’ who, among other senior roles, ran Newton Investment Management for 15 years while supporting a family of 11. She also founded the 30 Percent Club, which seeks to bring more women onto company boards.

Writing recently in The Telegraph, she says, "everyday sexism is the norm for many women in finance. I’m not just making an educated guess. I chair the Diversity Project, which seeks to address the under-representation of women and other 'diverse' talent in the investment industry. Barely a week goes by without a sexual harassment scandal or fresh evidence of misogyny."

Revolutionizing Menopause Transformation

Fiona is one of the women changing norms, proving that menopause and the executive suite are not mutually exclusive. She is a role model, encapsulating the narrative of the modern career woman managing menopause, and showing that a woman in menopause can thrive in the C-Suite.

And we couldn’t be prouder of her.

For a copy of our exclusive research report on the benefits women want, access it below.