Making Menstrual and Reproductive Health a Priority in the Workplace Digital Conference

Professor Maggie O’Carroll co-founded The Women’s Organisation in 1996, which is now the UK’s leading agency for women’s economic development. Through research, policy influence, and innovative services, the organisation operates internationally to provide business innovation, development, and growth services to a range of public, private and civil society organisations.

O’Carroll is actively involved in shaping women’s economic development and wider economic development policy on a local, national, and international basis. Through her leadership, The Women’s Organisation have become a key player in the national workplace wellness programme, producing information, resources, and training programmes to help SMEs implement changes in the workplace that support female employees’ reproductive health.

O’Carroll’s work has been recognised across the UK, with multiple business accolades including ‘Entrepreneurs Champion of the Year’ and ‘Social Leader of the Year’. In 2024 she became co-chair of the True North Advisory Council.

Rebecca is an Associate Professor in Sexual & Reproductive Health Research (SRHR) in the Department of Public Health, Environments and Society at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She is a Public Health researcher with over 30 years of experience, nationally and internationally, in policy-related research, mixed methods, survey design, intervention development and evaluation of complex interventions. She was awarded an Honorary Fellowship with the Faculty of SRH in 2021 for her contribution to research. Interests include how preferences affect choice in healthcare, specifically around fertility-related decision-making, and how new models of care can be used to promote better SRH.

Recent work includes the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funded SACHA (Shaping Abortion for Change) study to examine how health services be best configured in Britain in response to new directions in abortion care, and the Department of Health and Social Care funded Women’s Reproductive Health Survey designed to monitor trends across the reproductive life-course in England. She is a co-investigator with the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Reproductive Health  led by University College London and with the NIHR Policy Innovation and Evaluation Research Unit led by LSHTM.

Rachel joined CIPD as a senior policy adviser in 2014 to help shape the public policy debate and champion better work and working lives. Rachel is a policy and research professional with over 25 years’ experience in the employment and HR arena. An important part of her role is to ensure that the views of the profession inform our policy thinking on health and wellbeing and employment relations.

Rachel is a qualified HR practitioner and researcher with a Master’s in human resource management from Portsmouth University and a post-graduate diploma in social research methods from Sussex University. Before joining the CIPD, Rachel worked as a senior policy adviser at Acas.

Katharine Gale is a Consultant Nurse and former Chair of the Royal College of Nursing Women’s Health Forum which launched the publication ‘Making Sense of Women’s Health’ in 2021. She currently represents the RCN on the Menstrual Health Coalition steering committee.
Katharine is an enthusiastic nurse who has used her expertise in a number of areas of women’s health to enhance care and professional practice, and this has included operational and strategic engagement in both clinical and political issues that affect service provision, healthcare, and the health and well-being of girls and women across the UK.
Katharine is sonographer, hysteroscopist and non-medical prescriber and has a specialist interest in menstrual wellbeing and menopause. She is currently employed by North Bristol NHS Trust and has received hospital charity funding to research the ‘Working lives of menopausal women in the NHS’. As well as a nurse, she is a Certified Coach working with female healthcare leaders and now lives in West Wales.

Janet Lindsay is CEO of Wellbeing of Women, a leading women’s health charity that saves and changes the lives of women, girls and babies. Wellbeing of Women is the only UK charity working to improve outcomes across all of women’s reproductive and gynaecological health by funding pioneering research, providing trusted health information, and leading award-winning campaigns. Janet started her career working for a global advertising agency before running her own communications agency. Prior to joining Wellbeing of Women, Janet worked for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and Starlight Children’s Foundation in fundraising and communications.

Emma joined Endometriosis UK as Chief Executive in February 2016, and has overseen a sustained period of growth and development for the organisation, including awareness raising, new campaigns, and building key relationships with healthcare practitioners, researchers, and policy influencers.

Emma’s background is as a strategic change management specialist with over 20 years’ experience gained working in volunteering, membership organisations including Diabetes UK, NUS and the Chartered Quality Institute. Emma has an MSc in Organisational Behaviour and an MBA.

Talycia is Programme Manager for Bloody Good Employers; BGP’s social enterprise dedicated to supporting workplace education surrounding period care.

Talycia aims to support the period equity space to become truly intersectional. As a South Asian woman, she has a lived understanding of how vital it is for minoritised voices to be heard in these spaces. Talycia is determined to break down barriers to access and eradicate feelings of shame and stigma surrounding periods in South Asian communities.

She is also a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Speaker & Consultant who has worked to champion the needs of people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community and neurodiverse people. Highlighting the importance of DEI processes and principles that take into account our intersectional needs as humans, is at the crux of what she stands for.

Claudine is interested in the transitional journey of women throughout their lifetime from puberty through to the menopause and postmenopausal ages. Within that journey, women endure the impact of changing menstruation, the effect of childbirth and hormonal fluctuations with subsequent impact on their lives with respect to general functioning, bladder, bowel and sexual issues. Education of women both individually and in groups to understand their bodies better is crucial to facilitating the patient partner relationship model of healthcare provision in the 21st century. She has been involved in research in premenstrual syndrome, menopause, pelvic floor disorders and sexual function.

Hannah is an experienced Employment Solicitor, Tribunal advocate and is CEO and the sole founder of Han Law.

Disillusioned by the traditional business model which too often failed to deliver the best for her clients, herself and her team, Hannah set up Han Law in 2019 with the goal of improving working lives for all.

Hannah takes a fresh, modern and fun approach to employment law, where innovation and creativity go hand in hand with technical ability and a life beyond the office.

Hannah’s a passionate advocate for equal rights in the workplace. She regularly presents and writes on the topic and during the Covid-19 Pandemic, she launched a campaign for employers to be more transparent about potential redundancies, to better protect women’s rights in the workplace.

Haley is a trainer, facilitator and founder of Menospace.

With a degree in Business Psychology and an MSc in Organisational Psychology, and having run a wellbeing centre in Greece, Haley is well placed to support organisations to become happier and more productive places to be.

In 2021, Haley discovered she was perimenopausal and like a lot of women, didn’t really know what this meant. Through her exploration, she discovered there are over 6.5 million menopausal women in the UK workforce, and a staggering 900,000 of them have left their jobs due to inadequate support.

Haley realised that something needed to be done and so she created Menospace, a menopause training and consultancy organisation.Haley is on a mission to normalise the conversations around menopause at work.

Some of the organisations Haley has worked with include NHS, Colt Technology, Wates Construction, Cardiff University, Thames Water, Wikimedia Foundation and Cabinet Office.

Outside of work, Haley loves dog walking, strength training, reading books, socialising and travelling with her friends, family and partner.

Dr Krystal Wilkinson is Reader (Associate Professor) in Human Resource Management, based at the Business School’s Centre for Decent Work and Productivity at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on the work-life interface, women’s health and wellbeing at work. 

Recent research projects have focused on solo-living staff; complex fertility journeys (including employees going through fertility treatment, experiencing pregnancy loss and involuntary childlessness); mental health in pregnancy and post-birth; and women’s health more broadly and employment.   She has published in leading academic journals, featured in various media outlets and trade press (including the BBC, the Wall Street Journal and People Management magazine), and is co-editor of the forthcoming book: Work-Life Inclusion: Broadening perspectives across the life-course.  

Krystal is passionate about knowledge exchange and is working with various stakeholders to raise awareness and create resources, including the CIPD, national charities and employers.  Prior to studying for her PhD at Leeds University, Krystal held operational Human Resource Management roles in different industries, including construction, retail and hospitality. She is a Chartered Member of the CIPD and was a member of the CIPD National Examinations team for 15 years. 

Julianne is the Clinical Director and Founder of the Parenthood In Mind practice and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She is a passionate and highly experienced perinatal psychologist who has worked for over 23 years in the NHS and private practice with parents and parents-to-be and their babies (and bumps) who have needed support with a wide variety of perinatal mental health issues during and after pregnancy, miscarriage, stillbirth and reproductive loss, attachment issues, re-emergence of childhood issues and couples issues. From 2003 to 2009, she was part of an NHS multidisciplinary strategic health team that successfully established Sure Start services in East London.  From 2009 to 2015, she held multiple clinical lead roles in Perinatal Mental Health in the NHS, and currently works as a consultant to specialist teams across the UK in Maternal Mental Health, Neonatal Care and Perinatal Trauma and Loss.

Julianne is a member of the Birth Trauma Association and specialises in working therapeutically with birth and fertility trauma, PTSD and tokophobia (fear of giving birth) as they impact the mother, couple relationship and parent-infant attachment. In addition, she is also affiliated with BICA (British Infertility Counselling Association) and offers tailored psychological interventions for individuals and couples (including same sex couples) who are trying to conceive or pregnant and parenting following ART (IVF, ICSI, donor conception, surrogacy) or adoption. She also writes and lectures on these issues, and contributes regularly to press articles in The Telegraph, Daily Mail and Guardian on parenting and parental mental health. She has appeared on BBC4 Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 5 and Channel 5 to offer expert opinion on mothering after bereavement, infertility and donor conception, and postnatal depression. She also works in partnership with organisations such as Fertility Matters at Work and Fertifa affecting changes in the workplace in areas of fertility, mental health, pregnancy, birth and parenting.

She has over 20 years’ experience teaching and training psychologists and health professionals on issues of parental mental health, attachment, early years and positive mental health for babies and young children.

Sarah joined the charity, Fertility Network UK, in March 2023. She has become part of the Fertility in the Workplace initiative following her own lived experience of infertility at work. Sarah was a full-time accountant and found it difficult to balance working life along with her gruelling journey of IVF. Sarah ended up leaving her job whilst going through treatment, which was a huge decision given the large IVF bills her and her partner were having to pay. Sarah is very passionate about her role, and often shares her own experiences to help support others and to highlight the importance of supporting colleagues going through fertility struggles.

After years of invasive investigations, operations, and 4 rounds of IVF, Sarah and her partner are fortunate to have a daughter. She is now looking forward to seeing how the charity can have further impact on fertility in the workplace and help the millions of men and women who are forced down this path.

Sarah also volunteers for Age UK and a local charity that hosts community lunches on Christmas Day and other key events, such as the Coronation, to support those who would normally spend key events alone.

Sam Grierson is a leader in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment at the University of Warwick, where she has worked since 2019. She is currently pursuing her Doctoral Research in Education.

As co-Chair of the University of Warwick Gender Task Force, Sam actively addresses inequalities and disparities within higher education, focusing on creating more equitable environments for both students and staff. Her profound commitment to equity and diversity drives her efforts to foster an inclusive culture across the institution.

The Gender Task Force is a cross-institutional group made up of academic, professional services, and estates colleagues from all levels of the university. Sam believes that academic excellence is a collective achievement shared by all members of the University of Warwick community—students and staff alike. She is confident that academic excellence can be achieved equitably, and that the incremental gains from diversity and inclusion initiatives are essential for maintaining the health and well-being of the university’s workforce and student body.

In addition to her role in the Gender Task Force, Sam is an Associate Professor and Fellow of the Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA), where she also serves on the WIHEA Advisory Group. Her expertise lies in Inclusive Education, with a particular focus on Inclusive Assessments. Sam co-leads the WIHEA Inclusive Assessment and Inclusive SEM Assessment learning circles, advocating for greater diversity in learning spaces. She emphasizes the importance of assessment literacy, ensuring that inclusion and equitable access are central to curriculum design.

Vicky has lived experience of two menstrual health conditions having been diagnosed in 2017 aged 29 with severe endometriosis along with adenomyosis.

Following her own diagnosis, Vicky founded Endometriosis UK Dundee Support Group in 2019 and has been Support Group Leader up until earlier this year when Vicky has taken a break from her voluntary role.

During this time, Vicky has been continuing to grow her career in HR and has experience of working across sectors. Whilst working in a local authority, Vicky developed and was involved in the implementation of a Periods and Menopause Policy. A template of this policy is now used as an example of best practice on a joint website of Scottish Government and social enterprise, Hey Girls. In her current role, Vicky works in a team focusing on wellness advisory and has recently delivered a menstrual health in the workplace session to her colleagues.

As Head of People & Culture at Vorboss, Joana uses her ongoing development to build and maintain company culture while prioritising employee wellbeing. She has a post-graduate degree in HR management, is a certified Mental Health First Aider, and is currently pursuing her CIPD Level 7. Joana has a certification in Data Analytics for people professionals, ensuring that Vorboss is able to efficiently use data insights to deliver effective HR strategies, even as the company rapidly grows.

Professor Maggie O’Carroll co-founded The Women’s Organisation in 1996, which is now the UK’s leading agency for women’s economic development. Through research, policy influence, and innovative services, the organisation operates internationally to provide business innovation, development, and growth services to a range of public, private and civil society organisations.

O’Carroll is actively involved in shaping women’s economic development and wider economic development policy on a local, national, and international basis. Through her leadership, The Women’s Organisation have become a key player in the national workplace wellness programme, producing information, resources, and training programmes to help SMEs implement changes in the workplace that support female employees’ reproductive health.

O’Carroll’s work has been recognised across the UK, with multiple business accolades including ‘Entrepreneurs Champion of the Year’ and ‘Social Leader of the Year’. In 2024 she became co-chair of the True North Advisory Council.