I used to believe our culture was strong because women told me they felt safe. Then a senior product lead walked into my office after a sprint review and told me she was fine. Her expression said otherwise. The work that used to land with crisp edges had softened at the corners. Decisions that once came fast now arrived slowly, as if wading through thick water. She was sleeping three hours a night. Client calls spiked her anxiety. She was forty eight, brilliant, and deep in perimenopause. I had built handbooks, rituals, and well worded town halls. I had not built a language for the season she was in. That gap between culture and support was real, and it was mine to close.
Founders often see patterns before they see people. I saw velocity drop and missed the reasons. I noticed skipped standups and missed the night sweats that soaked her sheets. I saw slow decisions and missed the heart palpitations that made focus feel impossible. We were preparing two pilots in a new market and polishing an investor update. She owned both streams and did not want to appear weak. I did not want to pry. Between pride and politeness, we built a silence that hurt everyone.
The cracks appeared first in planning. She padded timelines because brain fog made estimates feel like a gamble. To compensate, she joined every thread. Slack became both a safety net and a sinkhole. Then clients felt the strain. She avoided first calls because she feared an unpredictable hot flash. Soon trust began to erode. She was certain I was preparing to replace her. I was afraid she might resign in the middle of a rollout. Neither of us said these fears out loud. We both pretended to be professionals who could power through. That was not strength. That was denial dressed up as resilience.
Clarity came from an unexpected place. A founder I mentor mentioned that his wife’s clinic ran a menopause program that paired medical care with simple schedule adjustments. He asked why our company did not have something similar. My first instinct was to say we were too small. Then I remembered we paid for leadership coaching and a mental health hotline. We were not too small. We were too quiet. I called my product lead and asked a better question. What would make next month survivable for you. She did not ask for less responsibility. She asked for control. Fewer dawn meetings. Less on camera pressure. A predictable afternoon block where she could think without interruption. Permission to step away from a call for a minute if a hot flash hit. None of that lowered standards. All of it reduced friction.
That conversation reframed the issue for me. Menopause in the workplace is not a niche health topic that belongs in a dusty policy binder. It is a business continuity problem. It shapes retention, decision speed, client confidence, and the preservation of institutional memory. In Malaysia and Singapore, many senior women are the quiet glue inside mid market firms. In Saudi, rising participation is putting more women on leadership trajectories. If we do not design for this season, we risk losing women at the moment when their judgment is most valuable. The solution is not a pink campaign and a poster. The solution is a set of quiet, practical agreements that reduce friction without reducing standards.
The first lever is language. Most managers avoid the topic because they worry about saying the wrong thing. Give them a sentence that is respectful and usable. If you ever want adjustments to how we plan meetings, cameras, or travel, tell me what would help your best work. We can try options for two weeks and review. That sentence does not require anyone to disclose a diagnosis. It invites configuration instead of confession. It gives agency back to the person who is carrying the invisible load.
The second lever is the calendar. Poor sleep and brain fog can turn an early status call into a wall that people crash into, not climb over. Move high stakes conversations to mid morning or early afternoon when possible. Make cameras optional unless the meeting truly requires them. Protect one focus block each day that cannot be booked over. These patterns help everyone. They are especially valuable for employees in menopause. A founder’s job is to normalize these changes so they feel like the way the company works, not a special favor that must be petitioned for and justified.
Travel is the third lever, and it is often the cruel one. Red eye flights, cold hotel rooms, and hard bedding make night sweats and joint pain worse. Give senior women control over their itinerary. Permit direct flights even if the ticket costs more. Let them choose hotels where room temperature and bedding are easy to adjust. Build a rule that trips under two days default to virtual unless the relationship owner believes the room matters. That is not softness. That is arithmetic. If the person who holds the client history arrives exhausted and foggy, the meeting costs more than the money you saved on airfare.
Benefits also matter, but clarity matters even more. Many companies point to a healthcare package and conclude that the work is finished. Women often do not know whether their plan covers hormone therapy, counseling, or specialist visits. Ask your broker for a single page rider in plain language. Name a discreet point person who can explain it without turning support into spectacle. If you do not have an HR team, appoint the same operator who manages payroll and confidentiality. In Southeast Asia, after hours clinics serve women who juggle multigenerational care. In the Gulf, workplace clinics can partner with hospitals that run women’s health programs. The essential thing is not marketing. The essential thing is clarity.
Performance reviews will test everyone. The lazy response is to go easy or to go blind. Both choices backfire. Do not lower the bar. Redefine the bar. Shift from time based presence to outcome based ownership. Agree on the two or three outcomes that matter most this quarter. Write them down. Remove nonessential ceremonies that drain energy. Weekly reports that no one reads can become monthly dashboards. All hands that repeat updates can become asynchronous notes. The strongest signal you can send to a senior woman in menopause is that her value is measured by what she delivers, not by how closely her schedule resembles that of a younger colleague.
Cofounders often ask where to draw the line between compassion and unfairness. Draw it with boundaries. Accommodations change how work is done. They do not erase ownership of the work. If someone needs a month to stabilize medication or see a specialist, treat it like a planned reprioritization. Reassign what must move. Keep the person in the information loop so they do not return to a company that feels different in all the wrong ways. When capacity returns, reverse temporary changes quietly. The message is simple. We design for seasons. We do not label people.
There are also mistakes worth avoiding. Do not launch a public program before you have private trust. I once drafted a company wide memo with an FAQ that read well and would have done harm. It would have turned a private season into public spectacle. I deleted it. In its place I did manager training, clarified benefits, and adjusted calendars. Culture should be felt before it is announced. When culture becomes performance, people learn to hide.
For founders in Malaysia and Singapore, there is another reason to get this right. The senior talent market is tight. Many women in their late forties and early fifties are exactly the operators who stabilize shaky products, unblock messy sales motions, and coach newer managers. Retaining them saves a hiring cycle you cannot afford to lose. In Saudi, the women I mentor are taking on national scale projects. Some will reach perimenopause while carrying those mandates. If workplaces build silence, the ecosystem pays the price in stalled momentum. If workplaces build systems, the market compounds.
If I were doing this from the beginning, I would treat menopause like any other operational constraint worth planning for. I would add two quiet lines to onboarding that say we design work around seasons and energy and that employees can request configuration without disclosing medical details. I would train every manager on one sentence and one rule. Ask without diagnosing. Adjust without drama. I would sit with our broker to name women’s health support clearly. I would defend a calendar pattern that helps everyone and happens to help the people who need it most.
Maybe this feels like a tomorrow problem because fundraising is loud and delivery deadlines are louder. Do not wait. When you need this system, you will already be late. Start with one conversation that gives a woman on your team control over her next two weeks. Watch what happens to her confidence and to your throughput. The goal is not to earn a badge for progressive leadership. The goal is to keep good people through real life.
There is a sentence I wish I had used much earlier. If there is a season of health that is changing your energy or focus, tell me what would help your best work. We can try it and review. That line told my product lead she was not walking toward a performance cliff. It told me we had a plan. It built trust without turning her into a case study. Quiet systems keep teams together. In the years when those systems matter the most, they are the difference between a company that loses its center and a company that grows up.
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