Meet Helen Normoyle, co-founder of My Menopause Centre
Helen Normoyle is a co-founder of My Menopause Centre and is on a mission to raise awareness of menopause, to help empower women with the knowledge they need to embrace this new chapter and thrive. Helen is particularly passionate about supporting women in the workplace and helping employers understand the benefits of having a positive menopause policy.
Helen has held Chief Marketing Officer roles in a range of sectors with Boots, the BBC, DFS and Countrywide. She has also worked in broadcast and telecoms regulation at Ofcom and in the mobile technology sector with Motorola. She’s currently a non-executive director of AIB and Travelodge.
What was the lightbulb moment for you?
When I began my own menopause transition, the symptoms I started to experience came as a surprise and I felt very unprepared. Thankfully I had a very good friend who was also a registered menopause specialist and GP - Dr Clare Spencer. One afternoon, I found myself sitting on Clare’s sofa and peppering her with questions on all things menopause. Things I didn't understand and couldn’t find a ‘plain English’ explanation for them.
I left our conversation feeling very reassured but wondering why it was so challenging to find easy-to-understand, evidence-based information and advice on what I was going through - in fact something that all women will go through and something for which, I have subsequently learned, most will be unprepared for. Clare and I discussed this and so the idea for My Menopause Centre was born and Clare and I are co-founders as well as friends!
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?
When I started to really look into the menopause, I was dismayed at how many women were struggling with symptoms and shocked at the impact that this was having on all aspects of their lives - home, work, social and sex lives. Research by CIPD and Bupa showed that nearly one million women have had to leave their jobs due to their menopause symptoms, someting that will be contribbuting to the gender pay gap that we see as women hit their 40s and 50s
And in our own research with Britain Thinks, only 1 in 4 women said they felt prepared for the menopause , and over half said they underestimated the physical and emotional impact of the symptoms.
It showed me that my own experience was sadly all too typical, and I felt really strongly about helping others who, like me, were utterly unprepared. Because knowledge is empowering - the research I mentioned with Britain Thinks showed clearly that the more prepared a woman is for menopause, the better her experience of it will be.
Tell us about your journey into this market.
Clare and I put our heads together and combined her brilliant medical expertise and patient empathy and understanding with my knowledge and skills of customer insights, journeys, propositions and branding. And of course we both brough our first-hand experience of being menopausal women to bear!
We started with our purpose and our values and we thought long and hard about the way we wanted to show up. First and foremost, although we were launching an online private, paid for menopause clinic it was important to us that we were able to support all women through their menopause transition. That meant having a brilliant offering of free, evidence based information and advice on all things menopause.
So we started with creating awebsite that empowers all women with free, scientifically proven information and advice on the menopause and the range of holistic treatment options – everything from diet, fitness and therapy/CBT to HRT. We cover 38 symptoms in detail - what causes the symptom, how many women will typically experience it and their range of treatment options.
We then developed a free menopause questionnaire that takes around 4 minutes to complete and gives you a personalised assessment that helps you to understand if and where youare in the menopause transition. We created it because we knew from both Clare’s clinical experience and our research that this was a question that so many women have and it’s not always that straightforward to answer.
And then we created our online clinic, and with Clare as Clinical Director and my husband, Mike Warren-Smith as COO, set about getting CQC approval and recruiting brilliant menopause doctors who shared our vision for menpause care and our values.
Since we launched over a year ago we’ve been rated Outstanding by the CQC (we worked really hard for this - it’s awarded to only around 4% of clinics) and we’ve also delivered over 70 free events, either by ourselves or with partners.
Thinking about the future, do you have any strategic partnerships or upgrades in the pipeline?
Clare and I are particularly passionate about supporting women in the workplace and helping employers understand the benefits of having a menopause policy and an age-inclusive culture. We have some great partnerships to announce where we are hosting menopause workshops in large corporate workspaces.
We’re also really passionate about menopause being an inclusive conversation and so have more plans in train to support women from ethnic minority communities - watch this space!
What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?
Back yourself - if you don’t, why should anyone else.
Be clear with yourself on the risks you’re taking on, and think about what you can do to migitage each and do this before you launch your business (it’ll help you sleep better at night!) and review regularly
Know your customer, obsess about knowing your customer and knowing what problem you are solving for them
Tell your story well, with passion and conviction and engage people’s heart as well as their heads
‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?
I came across this quote over a decade ago and have memorised it:
“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”
Describe your business in three words.
Menopause. Empower. Reframe.
Why do you think your business has had such a positive impact across your industry?
Women are living ever more of their lives postmenopausal (up from 18 years in 1922 to 38 years - or 43% of their life - in 2022) and we’re finally rebelling against middle-aged invisibility - halleluja!
If we want to live in a more inclusive, diverse and fair society, if we want more inclusive and diverse workforces, if we want to close the gender and pension pay gap, if we want to see women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and so on on our screens and across our media, then we need to tackle the taboos around menopause and with that ageism and sexism.
So I think that the work we’re doing to reframe this stage of life and what it means to be a middle-aged woman is why what we are doing is starting to have a positive impact. But I'm under no illusion - despite all the progress that has been made by us and the many other brilliant people working in this area, we are at the foothills of our journey.
What’s the most important question entrepreneurs should be asking themselves?
Do I have the determination to make a difference, drive, hard work, and a willingness to go outside of my comfort zone?
Entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey. How are you combating that feeling whilst pushing forward?
I’m really lucky that my good friend and co-founder Dr Clare is with me on this journey, plus, my husband Michael is our chief operations officer - so it’s very much a friends and family affair behind the scenes. I very much see the wider My Menopause Centre team as one big family too - we all have a shared purpose and we all have each other’s backs. Plus, I’m fortunate to have a small circle of brilliant female friends of a similar age and I know that I can call any of them, any time, if I need a pep talk!
Do you prioritise self-care as an entrepreneur?
I am a big believer in the aeroplane metaphor that you have to put on your own oxygen mask first before helping others. If you don’t look after yourself, you don’t have a chance of making sure all your team are fine and happy too or to excel as an entrepreneur. So yes, it’s now a priority for me to eat well, sleep well and exercise regularly to make sure I’m in the right headspace to live my best life and be at my best in the business. I make sure that time outside of work with my husband and two boys is sacrosanct.
