Her Ascent

Menopause is inevitable. Your career decline is not. With Fiona McKay.

How to have a NOPAUSE™ leadership career through menopause.

Thirteen years ago, Fiona McKay was a CEO at the top of her game when she needed life-saving surgery that forced her into surgically induced menopause when her peers and colleagues were dealing with maternity. Shortly following this, two of her advisers sat her down in a board meeting and told her she couldn't go into pitches "forgetting people's names and having hot sweats".

Fiona is CEO of Lightbulb Leadership Solutions and founder of The Menopause Maze. After her own surgical menopause, she spent the lockdown years interviewing C-suite women on both sides of the Atlantic. She wanted to understand what it takes to stay in the room, keep growing your career and your company while going through menopause. What she found was that women need a professional prescription for their leadership life, just as they get a physical prescription from their doctors.

In this conversation, Fiona explains what perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause actually mean. She also explains why a single blood test means so many women in their late thirties and early forties are told they're too young for their symptoms to be perimenopause, and are sent away. She talks about why so many senior women stop putting themselves forward in their leadership careers without realising why.

Lauren shares her own experience of surgical menopause, and Fiona answers Danielle's question that many listeners will share: how do you prepare for something you haven't been through yet?

For employers, Fiona makes the commercial case. This isn't an HR issue or a wellbeing issue; it's a business and board issue.

For everyone, she shares how she ruthlessly deletes what no longer deserves her time, and why her answer to a man who asked how to help his wife was simply "put the bins out".

Take the NOPAUSE Professional Prescription™

Find out where menopause may be affecting your performance and career, and what to do about it:

https://www.themenopausemaze.com/the-professional-prescription-for-leadership-careers

Find Fiona

• The Menopause Maze: https://www.themenopausemaze.com
• Keynote speaking: https://www.themenopausemaze.com/menopause-keynote-speaker
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fionamckay/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themenopausecareercoach
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themenopausecareercoach
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@themenopausecareercoach
• Email: [email protected]
• Fiona McKay personal brand website: www.fiona-mckay.com

Kim started in retail management at 17, moved into luxury retail at Harrods, then walked away from it entirely to build a property business from scratch with no money or contacts, and has since become a holistic property mentor and intuitive coach, working with the person behind the business as much as the business itself.

In this episode, Danielle and Lauren talk to Kim about what it cost her to be the person who always had the answer, at Harrods, in her business, and in motherhood, long before she was able to let any of it go. She's honest about the panic attacks that came out of nowhere, the police van that picked her up off a London street, and the six-figure property disaster that hit at the same time her son spent months in and out of hospital.

It's a conversation about what happens when your body starts telling you what you won't say out loud, hair loss, eczema, exhaustion, and about the very deliberate work it took to go from needing to hold everything to trusting that letting go might be the thing that actually lets it grow.

Topics covered:

• A career that moved from retail management at 17, to running departments at Harrods, to building a property business from nothing
• Memorising every detail, from a Cadbury's Creme Egg barcode to every property address, and where that need to know everything came from
• The panic attacks that started on the Underground, then in her own office, then on a London street where a police van eventually picked her up
• Being put on medication and going through depression without knowing, at the time, what either of those things meant
• Learning to be more selfish, and why she now manages her diary around energy instead of time
• Becoming a medical mum when her son was born with complex medical needs, and stepping back from the business she'd built with her husband
• The property flip that flooded and cost six figures, at the same time her son spent months in hospital
• The hair loss and eczema that showed up before she understood how much stress she was actually carrying
• Discovering that letting go of the business didn't break it, and asking whether she'd been in the way all along
• What intuitive coaching actually is, and learning to trust her gut over her plan

"You've got to let go in order to grow."

If you've ever needed permission to put something down, this one's for you.

Tina Yerkes, PhD spent three decades as the only woman in almost every room she walked into, from solo field assignments as a research scientist to boardrooms as an executive. She joins Danielle and Lauren to talk through what that felt like and what she's decided to do about it.

What's covered:

• Tina's path from public school science teacher to PhD researcher to executive, including a remote Alaska fieldwork assignment where she had to pick a partner capable of saving her life if things went wrong, and by her own account picked the wrong man for the job
• Being introduced as "Ms. Yerkes" in a room of colleagues who all knew she held a PhD, and the small corrections she's had to keep making ever since
• The executive coach who told her she needed to act more like a man
• The stage moment, mid-career, where she announced to a room of friends and colleagues that she was writing a book
• Her closing message to any woman who recognises herself in these stories: it is not a you problem

Tina's book, Change the System, Not the Women, will be available from Amazon from 29th September.

Kathryn's career has moved through science, a law degree, commercial and contract management, business management, programme management, risk, security and strategy, picking up a new profession every few years without ever really planning to, and now leads two major programmes worth £5-6 billion.

In this episode, Danielle and Lauren talk to Kathryn about what it actually feels like to lead through uncertainty when there isn't a right answer, just a judgment call you have to be ready to defend. She's honest about the advice she was once given to be louder and more alpha male to get ahead, and why she turned it down, the reward she refused to accept after leading a difficult restructure, and the two periods in her career and life that nearly broke her.

It's a conversation about leading with a moral compass instead of a script, why breadth can matter as much as depth, and what changes when you stop trying to do everything yourself and start helping other people do it better.

Topics covered:

• A career built on saying yes to whatever came along
• Why breadth across different professions can matter as much as depth in one
• The car conversation with her boss six months into her first job, and thirty years of "guessing" her answers since
• Leading a major site closure after the Japanese tsunami
• Straight-talking bosses, and getting your own way without having to shout to get it
• Career as "snakes and ladders": sliding down, climbing back up, and not getting too grumpy at the bottom
• What leadership changed in her: from doing the task well herself to helping her team do it better
• Great Auntie Bertha, the no-nonsense schoolteacher who lived to 102 and never let anyone tell her what to do

"Don't ever believe that people get more grown up and more sensible as they get more senior. Sometimes they get worse."

If you've ever been told to be louder to get taken seriously, this one's for you.

A note before you listen: this episode includes discussion of suicide, self-harm and disordered eating. Support links are at the bottom of these notes.

Emma-Jayne arrived in Cumbria eighteen years ago with two children under four, everything she owned in a Ford Fiesta with one working door, and two weeks of somewhere to stay. Inside those two weeks she had a job and a house. She went on to build a permanent recruitment division from nothing, set up a nuclear division for a second firm, founded her own senior appointments business, and then took a senior role inside the nuclear organisation she had spent years publicly holding to account, ending up as the person its chief executive turned to for a second opinion. She now works in strategy and growth, and runs her own purpose and culture consultancy alongside it.

In this episode, Danielle and Lauren talk to Emma-Jayne about what it takes to keep performing at work when your life outside it has come apart. She's honest about the message she read on her husband's phone one Father's Day, the choice she made between full-time work and benefits and why her own childhood made that decision for her, and the years she spent being judged for the way she speaks: first for not being posh enough, then for being too posh.

It's a conversation about purpose as something you work out, about what changed the day she told a man to his face that his tone wasn't acceptable, and about the period when she was holding a senior role together while her youngest child was in crisis and the services meant to help weren't helping. She and her child turned that experience into a campaign, and, five years on, into crisis packs that now sit in hospitals and GP surgeries.

Topics covered:

• The message on a phone on Father's Day, and the drive north with two small children and everything that fit in the car
• Two weeks on her parents' floor to find work and a home, and the nan who lent her the deposit
• Growing up as one of the council house kids, and why that settled the choice between full-time work and benefits
• Being judged for how she speaks, first for not being posh enough and then for being too posh
• The joke about a hired dress that got her investigated by HR
• The blog that made her known across an entire supply chain, and the section her readers actually turned up for
• Walking into her first board meeting and feeling like she'd wandered into the staff room at school
• Being told she was only good for pouring the tea, and the change in how she spoke in meetings that ended it
• The man who got in her face after a presentation, and the sentence she says changed her life
• Rebuilding the culture of a large organisation from the bottom up, with a strapline she wasn't allowed to print
• Her child's mental health crisis, the video she posted from a hospital waiting room, and the campaign that came out of it
• What purpose looks like when you apply it to your own life rather than someone else's

"You're never alone, even when you think you are."

If you've ever sat in a meeting knowing your phone could ring any minute and you'd have to drop everything, this one's for you.

Support

If anything in this episode is close to home, help is available.

Crisis packs These are the packs Emma-Jayne describes, produced by Every Life Matters. Free to download wherever you live.

Parent and carer: https://www.every-life-matters.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ELM063-Suicide-Crisis-Pack-PARENT-CARER.pdf

Young person: https://www.every-life-matters.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ELM063-Suicide-Crisis-Pack-Young-Person.pdf

Adult: https://www.every-life-matters.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ELM062-Suicide-Crisis-Pack-ADULT.pdf

If you need to talk now

Samaritans, free day or night on 116 123: https://www.samaritans.org/

Shout, free 24/7 text support, text SHOUT to 85258: https://giveusashout.org/

Papyrus, for anyone under 35 or worried about a young person: https://www.papyrus-uk.org/

Further support

Mind, contacts for suicidal thoughts: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/suicidal-thoughts-and-suicide-prevention/useful-contacts/

The Mix, support for under 25s: https://www.themix.org.uk/ Suicide Prevention UK: https://spuk.org.uk/

In Cumbria

Every Life Matters: https://www.every-life-matters.org.uk/ Always Another Way: https://alwaysanotherway.org.uk/

Emma started out in hospitality, moved through facilities management and construction, ran worker welfare for one of the biggest events on the planet, and now works in compliance and reputational risk, picking up an entirely new skill set every time she jumped.

In this episode, Danielle and Lauren talk to Emma about where her confidence actually came from, and what happens when that confidence lands you in trouble. She's honest about speaking her mind to someone several levels above her, the letter she eventually wrote to resign and the reply that came back: brutal, and in her own words, an absolute class act.

It's a conversation about the gap between confidence and authority, why being right doesn't always mean being safe, and the very deliberate habits, boundaries, reflection, knowing when to walk away from a conversation, that let her keep going anyway.

Topics covered:

• A career built on saying yes to whatever came next, not on a five-year plan
• Growing up with a mother who modelled confidence long before Emma needed her own
• Calling out bad behaviour early in her career, and where that instinct came from
• Speaking her mind to someone far more senior, and what it actually cost her
• The resignation letter she eventually wrote, and the reply that came back
• Recognising when you can't have a conversation yet, and choosing to walk away instead
• The internal audit accusation that knocked her confidence, even though she'd done nothing wrong
• The moment she knew she'd made it: choosing the office next to the CEO's, and watching a coat rack appear the second she asked for one
• Why visibility and asking questions build more credibility than talking about yourself ever will
• What leadership has changed in her, for the good and the bad

"You always have to embrace the opportunity you're given."

If you've ever said the right thing at the wrong moment and spent years living with it, this one's for you.

Debs didn't plan her career. She followed her curiosity through the dot-com boom, into fintech, telco, travel and banking, building what she calls a properly "squiggly" path, and ended up leading a global technology team without ever quite noticing the moment it happened.

In this episode, Debs talks with Lauren and Danielle about what actually changes when you step into senior leadership, and how little of it matches what you'd expect. She talks about the year it took her to stop trying to fix the code herself, why she had to give up planning for every eventuality once the pace outran it, and the moment an HR director warned an exec to "watch out for her, she's ambitious" like it was a bad thing.

It's a conversation about letting go of being the best doer in the room, learning to trust your own judgement when there's no time to prepare for everything, and working out who you become once people start turning to you for the answers.

Topics covered:

• Following passion over a plan, and building a genuinely squiggly career
• The moment leadership finds you, and why there's no finish line to cross
• Letting go of being the doer, and the sporting analogy that reframes it completely
• Why overpreparing stopped working once the pace outran it
• Managing up, and what changes when your senior leadership actually has your back
• Growing into confidence as a naturally shy, reserved person
• The HR director who called her ambition a warning sign, and what that taught her
• Finding her people through a non-exec board role, and why an outside network matters
• Becoming a parent, and learning to be kinder to herself
• What changed in her that nobody warned her about

"I've always been quite ambitious, not for power or fame, just to do cool stuff."

If you've ever had your ambition handed back to you as something to watch out for, this one's for you.

Meet your hosts. In this first episode, Lauren and Danielle sit down behind the mic to introduce themselves, share their stories, and explain why they started Her Ascent.

Although they come from very different backgrounds, neither of them planned a career in risk management. They talk about the unexpected turns that led them there, the people who backed them along the way, and the lessons they've learned through the highs, the setbacks and everything in between.

This episode is honest, unfiltered and, at times, a little chaotic — which is exactly what Her Ascent is all about. No polished career stories or pretending to have all the answers. Just real conversations about work, ambition, confidence and figuring things out as you go.

Whether you're just starting out, stepping into leadership, or wondering what comes next, we hope you'll find something here that resonates.

In this episode:

Lauren's journey from Wythenshawe to Associate Director

Danielle's path from boarding school to Saudi Arabia

How the two met on a National Highways project — and never stopped talking

Why they created Her Ascent, and what's coming in Season 1.

We'd love to hear from you.

Follow the conversation on LinkedIn at Her Ascent and on Instagram @_her_ascent.

Got a story to share, a guest to recommend, or a topic you'd like us to cover? We'd love to hear from you.

Interested in sponsoring the podcast or collaborating with Her Ascent? Get in touch at [email protected].

If you enjoyed this episode, follow Her Ascent on your favourite podcast app so you never miss a conversation.