13 Female Leaders Who Are Inspiring Change in Women’s Health

Nadya Okamoto

Nadya Okamoto is a co-founder of August, a lifestyle period brand working to reimagine periods to be powerful by creating sustainable period products that are accessible to anyone who menstruates. She is also the author of the book, Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement, as well as the founder and former executive director of the nonprofit organization, PERIOD. 

“I became really passionate about [being] period positive after learning about period poverty and the tampon tax,” Okamoto told Flow Space.

“The more I learned about the issue and how intersectional it is with so many other elements of gender justice, the more passionate I became about the work,” Okamoto said. “I hope we provide a space to challenge archaic period stigma—to reframe periods to be positive and powerful.” 

Dr. Sara Naseri

Sara Naseri co-founded and leads Qvin, a biotech company that harnesses the power of menstrual blood to advance women’s health.

While publishing one of the first peer-reviewed studies on the clinical relevance of menstrual blood, Naseri developed Qvin’s pioneering Q-Pad for women globally. The Q-Pad’s noninvasive, convenient menstrual pad eliminates common barriers to laboratory testing, such as access, health screening adherence, time and cost, while providing critical health insights.

“From an early age, I realized that my true passion lies in making a meaningful impact on people’s lives,” Naseri told Flow Space. “While there are many ways to do that, I found my calling in the healthcare sector, particularly in providing care and supporting individuals’ health.”

“Growing up, I witnessed the struggles of loved ones navigating difficult health challenges, which reinforced the critical importance of both mental and physical health,” she continued. “I am deeply committed to advancing healthcare and ensuring broader access to essential services. Ultimately, I hope to play a role in fostering a shift toward preventative care, empowering individuals to take proactive steps toward better health.”

Tammy Sun

Tammy Sun  is the founder and CEO of Carrot Fertility, a global fertility and family-building platform providing care for everyone, everywhere.

Prior to Carrot, Sun was a presidential appointee in President Obama’s administration at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and held various roles within the White House, national and local political campaigns, as well as forward-thinking public policy think tanks. Tammy also managed growth partnerships at Evernote. She graduated from NYU and attended the London School of Economics.

She was most recently honored as one of Modern Healthcare’s 2024 Innovators, Fierce Healthcare’s 2023 Women of Influence, a 2023 Woman Award for Corporate Leadership recipient presented by Engage, and named one of Entrepreneur Magazine‘s 100 Women of Influence in 2022. 

Dr. Janet M. Choi

Dr. Janet M. Choi is a double board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and OB-GYN, who also serves as the chief medical officer at Progyny, where she brings over 25 years of women’s healthcare expertise to ensure the benefits solution provider provides the highest quality fertility, family-building and women’s health services.

“I grew up with two parents as doctors who were incredibly hard working and very devoted to their profession,” Choi told Flow Space. “They practiced medicine for decades, and it became very clear to me that it was a profession that would not only help them succeed as immigrants in this country—where they came in the ’60s and faced a lot of racism but were still able to overcome that and do what they wanted to do, which was help a lot of people along the way. That helping people aspect was what really appealed to me when I looked at medicine.”

Choi is a Menopause Society Certified Practitioner (MSCP), sits on the medical advisory board of the Chick Mission and serves as a medical advisor for Respin Health.

Gloria Kolb

Gloria Kolb is the co-founder and CEO of Elidah, Inc., maker of Elitone, the first non-invasive wearable treatment for the millions of women with incontinence.

Kolb is a serial entrepreneur and inventor with more than 25 patents, whose designs have led to awards including Boston’s “40 under 40,” MIT Technology Review’s “World’s Top Innovators under 35” and CES’ Innovation Awards. She has earned mechanical engineering degrees from MIT and Stanford University, as well as an MBA in entrepreneurship from Babson College. 

“Unfortunately, so many women think that incontinence is just a part of aging, and they are resigned to suffer in silence, getting worse every year,” Kolb told Flow Space. “They stop doing activities they love, including necessary exercise, fun travel, social outings and much more that affect their mental well-being too.”

“There is a high correlation to depression; 60% of women don’t talk to their doctors about their condition,” she continued. “So, we want to provide a solution that is accessible to find, easy to do, covered by insurance and does all the hard work for them—so there are no barriers to getting real, life-changing help.”

Katie Diasti

Driven by the alarming discovery of toxins in traditional period products and their environmental impact, Katie Disati founded earth-friendly period care company Viv to be the brand she wished existed—one that resonated with real people while making a genuine impact.

“I wanted a solution that offered non-toxic, sustainable solutions for our bodies, but also spoke to me as a consumer in the way I wanted,” Diasti told Flow Space. “Viv was born out of that vision to help millions of menstruators across the country navigate what can be a stressful situation. Whether it’s learning to use a tampon for the first time or opting for more sustainable care, Viv is there to answer those questions in an approachable way.”

Jamie Norwood

Jamie Norwood is the co-founder and co-CEO of Winx Health, a vaginal and reproductive health startup focused on eliminating judgment and expanding accessibility.  

Winx Health offers a community of support to combat misinformation with medically reviewed and accurate information for any sexual or vaginal health question—plus, innovative intel-backed products that make navigating vaginal health issues more affordable and accessible.

“For too long, sexual health has been relegated to whispers behind closed doors,” Norwood told Flow Space. “Six years ago, with a mission to empower confident health decisions, we launched a pregnancy test. Current options on the market were antiquated—and didn’t speak to the range of experiences in the category. At Winx Health, we know that sexual health is not just a line (or two) on a stick, it’s a full spectrum of experiences.”

“We’re solving for these problems—to answer the sometimes literally *burning* questions people have around their vaginal and sexual health with a full library of comprehensive sex education materials and intel-backed, digital-first solutions,” she added. “Sexual wellness shouldn’t be stigmatized, and we want to be a part of addressing these conversations and problems head on, so women have the information they need to make empowered health decisions for their own bodies.”

Dr. Christy Lane

Dr. Christy Lane is the co-founder of Flora Fertility and has built her career in women’s health research since the ’90s. As a mom of three, Lane has gone through IVF herself and deeply understands the emotional and financial challenges of treatment. 

“Like so many parents, I did not expect to need fertility treatment when it came time for me to start my family,” Lane told Flow Space. “Infertility added an incredible amount of financial and emotional stress to the process that I had always imagined to be full of happiness. I ended up having my first two children with the help of fertility treatment and actually had to pay out-of-pocket for my care. I couldn’t believe how inaccessible these treatments were and how little community there was around infertility.”

Flora Fertility was created to provide a long-overdue solution to a problem that has plagued prospective parents across America.

Currently, only 2% of people can access fertility treatment due to its exponential out-of-pocket costs, often burdening patients with over $50,000 in bills for care—not including the additional costs of medications and other services that are necessary. Infertility rates are climbing in the U.S., meaning even more women and families are going to face the daunting reality of going into debt to build their families—on top of the already overwhelming cost of living and raising children.

“Flora is putting the power in the hands of prospective parents, helping them plan, predict and pay for their future fertility on their own terms and timelines,” Lane added.

Dr. Sharon Malone, Monica Molenaar and Anne Fulenwider

Two friends in their 40s, Monica Molenaar and Anne Fulenwider, were looking for healthcare solutions to different issues they were dealing with and quickly grew frustrated by the lack of safe and effective solutions to everyone experiencing menopause.

“When we heard Dr. Sharon Malone speaking about hot flashes, menopause and hormones on Michelle Obama’s podcast, we had an a-HA moment,” the pair state on their website. So, they decided to create what they’d been looking for—Alloy, a telehealth company that offers hormone treatments and other care for menopause symptoms, in addition to education, expertise and safe, science-backed solutions for all of the healthcare needs of midlife women.

Molenaar and Fulenwider even convinced Malone—who was already on her own mission to empower women to take charge of their health—to join the startup as Alloy’s chief medical advisor.

“In the beginning, when people asked what our product was, Anne and I used to say, validation, empathy and treatments that actually work,” Molenaar told Flow Space. “Because I spent the first five years of my menopause going to different doctors and each time getting a different answer; I was craving the facts, even for myself.  When I started Alloy, I was still very much searching and trying to figure it out for myself, so it was very important to me that Alloy be a trusted source of information and expert medical care—and accessible to as many women as possible.” 

Fulenwider, too, was trying to figure things out for herself when she and Molenaar founded Alloy; in fact, in a column she wrote for Flow Space last September, she admitted that it wasn’t until at least a year after starting Alloy that she realized that she might be going through perimenopause herself.

“I wasn’t even aware of the phenomenon of perimenopause until after I left my career of 25 years to start a menopause company,” Fulenwider explained. “The first time I heard the word was from a former boss, who happened to be 10 years older than me and British. I thought ‘perimenopause’ must be what they called [menopause] in England.”

In her column, Fulenwider wondered how women were supposed to learn about perimenopause when most healthcare providers admit they don’t feel knowledgeable enough to treat menopausal women.

“You’d think maybe our mothers or aunts could help,” she pondered, noting her mother had no problem sharing with their entire family when she got her period—there apparently was “a champagne toast in a crowded restaurant to Anne ‘becoming a woman'”—but never once did her mother mention the word “menopause.”

Of course, Fulenwider’s not alone in that respect; in fact, this lack of intergenerational conversation around menopause inspired Malone to write her New York Times-bestselling book, Grown Woman Talk: Your Guide to Getting and Staying Healthy, which former First Lady Michelle Obama called “a must-read for anyone who cares about their quality of life.”

“This book is about… all the issues that you may not have heard from your mother,” Malone told Flow Space during a video shoot back in April 2024. “I’m gonna talk about ’em with you, and I want you to talk about them with your youngsters.”

Believe it or not, it was actually Malone who ended up confirming to Fulenwider that she was going through perimenopause.

“I remember tentatively bringing it up to Dr. Sharon Malone, Alloy’s Chief Medical Advisor,” Fulenwider shared, “and before I even finished the sentence, she said, ‘Anne, I can tell you right now. You’re 48. You’re in perimenopause.'”

All of these personal experiences have shaped Alloy into the platform for midlife health solutions and education that women have desperately needed for decades.

“Menopause is universal, and the status quo is abysmal, no matter where you live, how much money you have or the color of your skin, Molenaar continued. “At Alloy, we are in the fortunate position to be able to focus 100% of our energy on creating the best, most convenient and most trustworthy way for women to manage their midlife and beyond.”

Dr. Piraye Yurttas Beim

Dr. Piraye Yurttas Beim is the founder and CEO of Celmatix Therapeutics, a preclinical-stage biotech transforming women’s lives through better ovarian health.

For over 25 years, she has been pioneering cutting-edge solutions that are purpose-built for women’s unique biology. She completed her PhD work at Cornell (Weill)/Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and her postdoc at the University of Cambridge, first focusing on women’s health oncology and then shifting to women’s reproductive health. When she moved into reproductive health, she was inspired by the precision medicine revolution in oncology and was early in seeing how the same playbook of genomics-guided discovery and medicine could be a game changer for women without cancer.

Given the funding disparities in women’s health research within academia, she transitioned to entrepreneurship and founded Celmatix in 2009, where her research teams have pioneered breakthroughs in decoding the genomic drivers of ovarian function and health through a multi-omics initiative that has yielded unprecedented insight into the key molecular drivers of ovarian function and related health conditions.

“As a child, I was on the fence about whether to be an archeologist, inventor or ballerina when I grew up,” Yurttas Beim told Flow Space. “In retrospect, what I was grappling with was synthesizing a love of discovery and creativity with a desire to build tangible things that improved the experience of being human. Over 25 years ago, I was fortunate enough to find my path to working as an innovator in women’s health and haven’t looked back since.”

Celmatix Therapeutics is progressing four groundbreaking drug programs that address three key therapeutic pillars that are missing or suboptimal for women today: 1) ovarian aging, 2) fertility and 3) female specific conditions, like endometriosis and PCOS. 

“One hundred years ago, the average life expectancy for a woman in the developed world was only 42,” Yurttas Beim said. “Thanks to medical breakthroughs in maternal healthcare, vaccines and antibiotics, our average lifespan has nearly doubled in two generations. But even though women are surviving longer than ever, we are not always thriving in our later years.”

Dr. Jessica Shepherd

Dr. Jessica Shepherd is a board-certified OB-GYN, head of medical affairs on the clinical advisory board at Pvolve, chief medical officer of Hers and founder of Sanctum Med + Wellness, where she combines traditional and holistic approaches to women’s health. With a focus on perimenopause and menopause, Shepherd goes beyond the biological effects, addressing the emotional, physical and lifestyle aspects to offer comprehensive support for women during these transformative stages. 

As the author of Generation M and a leading voice in women’s health, Shepherd empowers women to embrace longevity and well-being. Her expertise extends to media, where she regularly appears on Good Morning America and has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Women’s Health. 

“Building strong bodies as we age is essential to longevity, and exercise is one of the most powerful tools we have to achieve that,” Shepherd told Flow Space. “Pvolve is not just redefining functional fitness, it’s creating an entirely new category that’s making a lasting impact. I’m excited to be part of this movement and help women thrive at every stage of life. 

“With Pvolve, my goal is to support the brand’s strong legacy of innovative women’s health programming—including specialized series for menopause, fertility treatments, pelvic floor strengthening and more—and to take it to new heights,” she continued. “Vibrant, active forms of movement can create a different texture to how the body responds when movement is a priority. In addition, I aim to further strengthen Pvolve’s science-backed efforts to empower women through exercise, fostering strength, resilience and longevity.”