Meet: Helene Strandkvist 🚀

Suddenly she stood there by my side. We were at the DI Gasell gala, and I was a lost mingler.

As often, I didn’t know so many there - and this mingle was HUGE.

We started chatting, and I am so glad I’ve got to know Helene Strandkvist and had her as a constant inspiration in my feed.

I wanted to get to know her better, and hope you want to do it too! Read more about her story below 😄

Tell me, who's Helene, what are you doing now, and where are you going?
My name is Helene. I am the founder and CEO of MeWe&You, a ML/AI powered app helping professional women manage menopause currently under development here in Sweden. A couple of years ago I retrained as a nutrition & health coach and functional medicine therapist. Now I work in FemTech. Most of the time though I am an ordinary woman, wife, mother, rabbit lover and life-long learner struggling in menopause and midlife myself. Like so many other women out there today. We are almost a billion.

I am also trying to find myself and be my own best friend. It’s hard. Half of the time I don’t know what I am doing and where I am going. 

What I find inspiring with you is that you've pivoted your career, based on self-lived experiences. How has that been?
It has been a long and at times lonely journey. I have been an entrepreneur for more than 20 years, working in the luxury fashion, beauty, lifestyle and e-commerce industry. I got in very early. This was a time when you had to build your own platform from scratch and ranked highest on Google when you were the first. Those were the days. It was exciting and rewarding. I worked the globe and had famous clients.

Then came the perimenopause. I was only 37 when it first started. Only then I couldn’t figure out what was happening to me neither could my doctor. After more than a decade of severe symptoms coupled with stress I collapsed at work. I was paralyzed and had to leave my C-suite position. When I returned to life, I felt a calling to do something about this. Something that potentially could help a lot of other women in menopause struggling to be understood and find the best way to manage symptoms. And I came up with an idea how technology can be part of the solution. 

What are your tips to women being hormonally affected, that also affects their career?
Talk about it. There’s no way around it. We have to break the stigma in order to normalize our experience. Let your boss and colleagues know what is happening to you right now. How you are struggling and what you think could help. I guarantee they would like to help. Employers know that happy and healthy employees are good for business. By speaking up you are also helping other women. Paving the way for the next generation. You will be proud having the courage to do this.

What drives you?
I want to help other women. I want to show them that they have more control over their menopause health and wellbeing than they think. The experience can be positive and transforming if they are open to it. Despite what women are going through in menopause I want them to feel hope. 

If you could have one "request" to companies and business leaders, any one, what would it be?
Support women in menopause because it will benefit everyone. 

We are the fastest growing demographic in the workplace today and in 2030 we will account for 75% of the female workforce. Think about that! What would happen if your skilled female employees and leaders in this age group would quit your business today? How much would that cost you? Would your business survive this loss? 

Be the interviewer for one question; what would you like to answer and what would your answer be?
What would you tell your younger self today? I would answer: Take time to get to know yourself and try to figure out what you want to do now. It will get increasingly hard to know this as you get older. Life gets complicated in your 30s and 40s. You will start listening more to others than yourself and your thoughts can be clouded by obligations and demands. You will also most likely doubt yourself, because it is what we women are conditioned to do when we are lost.

Not that it is ever too late to change. You will get a second chance in your 50s. That is also good to know. 

Who would you like me to meet next?
Surprise me. I think we learn the most from listening to people with unique views that are different or even opposed from our own. I would also go so far as saying there is no innovation without inclusion. This is very evident in FemTech. I predict that we will see great solutions in this area in the coming years where women individually or collectively will be the innovators. Propelled by AI, better data and more research & new science. Investors not on this train now will lose the opportunity.