Longtime Chief Member Joy Allen-Altimare is President at Vella Bioscience, a women’s intimate care and wellness brand.

For decades, corporate America has invested heavily in helping people perform at work.

Leadership coaching. Executive development. Mental health support. Financial wellness. Productivity tools. Flexible work. Every one of these investments acknowledges a simple truth: People perform better when they're supported.

And yet one of the main drivers of performance — women's health, specifically midlife transition — has largely remained invisible. Not because it isn't important, but because we've been uncomfortable talking about it.

That discomfort has created one of the biggest blind spots in modern leadership.

As more women enter executive roles, found companies, sit on boards, and lead global organizations, we continue asking them to navigate hormonal transitions that affect cognition, confidence, sleep, energy, focus, relationships, and physical comfort, often without language, resources, or workplace understanding.

Then we wonder why burnout rises. Why talented women step back. Why experienced leaders leave.

Beyond healthcare, this is a conversation about organizational performance.

Leadership Doesn't Happen Outside the Body

We often speak about leadership as though it exists independently from the people doing the leading. It doesn't.

Leadership happens inside real bodies — ones that age, recover, and change.

Women's biology isn't static. From menstruation through postpartum, perimenopause, menopause, and beyond, hormonal shifts influence far more than reproductive health. They shape sleep quality, stress response, cognitive performance, emotional resilience, sexual wellness, and physical comfort. And together, they span decades of a woman's life.

Many workplaces, however, continue operating under assumptions built around a workforce that was never designed with women's physiology in mind.

The result? Women often spend precious energy managing symptoms privately while simultaneously leading teams, growing businesses, raising families, and making critical decisions.

Imagine the productivity we could unlock if women didn't have to spend so much energy pretending everything was fine.

We Have Mistaken Silence for Strength

One pervading myth in leadership is that professionalism requires invisibility.

Don't mention menopause. Don't talk about painful periods. Don't discuss vaginal dryness. Don't acknowledge declining libido. Don't admit you're waking up at 3 AM every night. Certainly, don't mention pelvic pain.

Instead, keep performing. Keep smiling.

Women have become extraordinarily good at managing these realities quietly, but silence has a cost. When people cannot discuss what affects their performance, organizations lose the opportunity to solve for it.

We normalize accommodations for countless aspects of health. Why should women's hormonal health be different?

We Need to Name Sexual Wellness in the Workplace Conversation

This is often the point where people become uncomfortable. Sexual wellness has long been treated as a luxury category — something adjacent to beauty or self-care.

That framing misses something fundamental: Sexual wellness as an essential part of whole-person health.

Healthy sexuality is deeply connected to physical health, emotional wellbeing, confidence, relationships, sleep, stress, and overall quality of life. When hormonal changes affect intimacy — as they often do during perimenopause and menopause — they don't stop at the bedroom door. They influence confidence, connection, mental health, and emotional resilience.

How someone shows up at work is inseparable from how they experience life outside of it. And so ignoring sexual wellness doesn't make it less relevant, it simply leaves millions of women unsupported.

The Companies That Win Will Understand Women's Health

We're entering an era where organizations compete less on salary and more on whether people believe they can build sustainable careers there.

Women are paying attention.

They’re asking, “Does this company understand menopause?” “Do leaders acknowledge caregiving?” “Can I ask for flexibility without risking my reputation?” “Will I still be viewed as ambitious if my health needs change?”

This isn't about corporate generosity.

The organizations that answer “yes” will become not only compassionate but competitive. They'll retain experienced leaders, reduce turnover, protect institutional knowledge, improve engagement, and attract the next generation of executive talent.

The Next Frontier of Leadership

The future of leadership isn't about asking women to become more resilient. Women have already proven their resilience.

The future of leadership is building organizations that no longer require unnecessary resilience just to succeed.

That means recognizing that women's health is not a niche issue or a benefit for a small population. It’s also not a conversation reserved for HR.

Women’s health requires a strategic conversation with CEOs, boards, investors, and managers, because health directly influences performance, and performance drives business outcomes.

When we invest in women's health, it’s about more than simply improving lives. We're creating workplaces where women can sustain long careers, not despite their biology but with the support they deserve.

It’s good leadership and, increasingly, it’s good business.