Debbie Wosskow, OBE

I'm extremely proud to present Part 3 of FemHealth Focus: Current realities and future horizons. In this report we explore how UK businesses, clinicians, investors, innovators and policymakers can work with the NHS to improve outcomes for women—and why the cost of inaction is too high to ignore. Featuring forewords from Professor Dame Lesley Regan DBE MD DSc FRCOG , Women’s Health Ambassador at the Department of Health and Social Care and Kate Lancaster, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists | RCOG, Part 3 sets out a bold vision for change. 🎙️ If you'd like to discuss the report in more detail either privately or publicly (we love a podcast!) let me know. Despite long waiting lists and budget pressures, the NHS offers: ☑️ Universal access ☑️ Rich datasets ☑️ A platform for innovation However: 🚧 Fragmentation and siloed services are stalling progress 🏥 Women’s health hubs are a promising model, yet only a third of Integrated Care Boards currently offer the full range of core services 💡Femtech and digital innovation are critical to scaling solutions but need sustainable funding and joined-up thinking  💷 The cost of inaction is high:  ➡️£11bn in gynaecological-related absenteeism and  ➡️£1.5bn from menopause-related workforce exits annually 💡 Whether you're an innovator, investor, delivering care, or shaping policy this report is for you. (Link in the comments) A big thank you to our contributors: Professor Dame Lesley Regan DBE MD DSc FRCOG I Kate Lancaster I Katherine Church I Nicola Fay I Paul Holmes I Dr Nikita Kanani MBE I Rebecca Lewis I Louise Newson I Vivan Pinto I Ruby Raut I Emma Ross I Aamena Salar I Dr Sujitha Selvarajah I Stasa Stankovic I Michelle Tempest I Devika Wood, MPH I Ambra Zhang And to our Mills & Reeve team: Gayle Curry I Sophie Burton-Jones I Steph Caird I Jill Mason I Mia Church I Tania Richards I Navina Badhan I Fay Colegate and many more behind the scenes Not forgetting the fabulous Maria Davies for coming along on this journey with us and doing the hard work of writing the report! #WomensHealth #HealthTech #GenderHealthGap #FemTech #FemHealth

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“The UK has the best talent in the world, but we sometimes lack ambition”   Grateful for Neil Buchanan @ Lodestar Space (‘bodyguards for satellites’) inspiring and educating our emerging founders spinning out from UK Atomic Energy Authority (thank you) > If you’re pre-idea and pre-cofounder you’ll benefit from doing the Entrepreneurs First programme (if you can get on). The speed of learning and environment truly accelerate founders > Unlocking early adopter demand: LinkedIn outreach, speak to people with common interests, build networks, keep the cadence of outreach, running a customer discovery process (‘mom test’ - Rob Fitzpatrick ) > Sizing the opportunity: top down look for $10BNs to $100BNs market problems and then look bottom up with an eye to the future. Bottom up is always the sobering one and should be your north star - never lie to your team, investors and worst of all: yourself.  > Engaging VCs often: reduce the risk as much as possible (team, market, tech) show how you’re hiring to fit a few key gaps can be fine > Founders need to be confident to be selective with the investors they partner with. Being mindful if you’re taking investment from a key player in an industry (is it for their ultimate M&A activity, is it going to impact your sales). Ideally you’re ambitious and don’t want an early exit but also investment from a defence prime if you’re dual use can unlock channels > Building for dual use or defence? Prioritise USA GTM in the short term. > Finding non-dilutive sources of cash: run a process to identify relevant organisations, keep an open mind / keep it wide to keep options open. Keeping burn low you can achieve a lot prior to dilutive capital > Don’t get distracted by the shiny numbers of a big raise - it's needed for strong talent acquisition & credibility boosting but the best talent will resonate with the high impact mission & tech dev to get there - the rest of your time for focus on where it needs to be: customers and sales > Geopolitics impacting decisions on which markets to target, hiring decisions, who to have on the cap table ▪️If you’re an investor / founder and you’d like to do a lunchtime Q&A to educate and inspire our emerging founders please DM

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Unlocking capital for UK founders is one of the most important challenges if Britain is to remain the best place in the world to start and scale a business. This week, we were joined by Callum Anderson MP (Labour MP for Buckingham and Bletchley, and PPS to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology) for a dinner on how to ensure our capital markets better serve the needs of scaling businesses. Among the things we discussed were: – How to mobilise more domestic institutional capital into UK scale-ups; – How to improve the path to public markets so more firms can grow here, not abroad; – How to ensure smarter, more efficient regulation that supports growth rather than stifling it. It’s clear there’s no single lever that will close the UK’s growth gap – but getting capital flowing more effectively is one of the most powerful steps we can take. A big thank you to our partner OakNorth for supporting this important conversation. 👉 Callum has written an article on the topic (link in the comments). 👉 If you’re a founder, investor, expert who’d like to contribute to these discussions, request a place at a future event by signing up for my Friday newsletter (link in the comments). Adi Edekar, Anand Sambasivan, Ben Greenstone, Brendan O'Toole, Catherine Fredette, Eamonn Ives, Fiona Melville, Francesco Corazza, Kyle Frank, Margot Blanc, Oliver Wylie, Paul Domjan, Peter King, Philippa Keith, Prakriti Garg, Sam Bell, Wenyan Sharp

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I believe the UK has a real opportunity to lead a new, ethical model for growth with digital labour. In a recent piece for The Guardian, I shared my thoughts on how people and agentic AI can work together. Our goal is to augment human capabilities, not replace humans. We’re achieving this by automating routine tasks and freeing up teams to concentrate on strategic, high-impact work. We're already seeing the results firsthand. Our AI agents have now handled over 1 million customer conversations, showing how digital labour can alleviate routine queries and let our teams focus on the complex challenges that drive real value. I hope you'll read the full article to explore how we can build a more dynamic, hybrid workforce for the future: https://lnkd.in/eVDB_sYt

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I’m on my way to Zurich to talk agentic with the board of one of our long standing Consumer Products clients and I’m reading a piece in The Times by Kathryn Parsons MBE, founder of Decoded and co-chair of GBx about whether it’s time to hire a Head of AI. She is on-track, especially in my world of FMCG, luxury, and retail. This role isn’t about hiding behind buzz words and hopping on the hype train; it’s about a seat at board, translating AI ambition into tangible business value. The IBM Institute for Business Value’s 2025 CEO Study has framed the urgency: • Only 25% of AI initiatives delivered on expectations in the past three years • Just 16% have scaled enterprise-wide • Yet 61% of CEOs are already deploying AI agents • Investment in AI is set to more than double in the near term • 31% of AI leaders now report directly to the CEO, up from 17% in 2023 That’s a real gap between ambition and impact - one that’s costly in an industry that’s desperate to save money right now to fuel growth. Take Nestlé: in collaboration with IBM Research, they’ve developed a regenerative AI tool - leveraging a custom chemical language model and regression transformer - to accelerate the discovery of sustainable, high-barrier packaging materials that protect products while improving recyclability and reducing development time. And L'Oréal? They’re co-creating a first-of-its-kind AI foundation model with IBM to support sustainable cosmetic formulation - helping its 4,000 R&I scientists source eco-friendly ingredients, cut waste, and deliver faster product innovation aligned with their “L’Oréal for the Future” vision. These aren’t POCs or pilots - they’re real, scalable AI programmes building measurable business and ESG value. So what? Moving AI from POC to profit requires someone with both industry sensibility and technical fluency. That’s exactly what a Head of AI should bring - a strategic custodian who unifies vision, governance, and commercial delivery. #ItsAGreatTimeToBeAnIBMer Not just a consulting company #ConsumerProducts #Luxury #Retail 🔗 The Times article: https://lnkd.in/evQVzQEn 🔗 IBM IBV CEO Study: https://lnkd.in/emszmZwW

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As I head back to my desk in London, I’ve noticed a few founders (often in their first year or so) have been musing/seeking advice on holidays. Here’s the nuggets I’ve collated over the last 5 years, some obvious, some less so. Also, this is through the lens of a company that is shipping SAAS. Some businesses (European enterprise SAAS) will be very similar, others (e.g. B2C Christmas decoration e-commerce) will be wildly different: 1. Holidays are good. Probably necessary. Founding a category defining company is a 10 year+ game. If you work 18/7/365 you will almost certainly burn out. There’s probably some age dependence. I’d guess a typical 22 year old coming out of investment banking could last 2-3 years like this (not long enough); someone in mid 30’s likely a year-18 months (definitely not long enough) 2. Too much holiday is bad. Your business almost certainly performs hugely worse without you. If you’re taking 10 weeks fully off a year, your business is likely dead 3. I see two principal purposes: 1. Rest (to recharge your batteries and keep the intensity going long term) 2. Spend time with loved ones (compared to a more chilled job, many founders unthinkingly lose the relationships most important to them) 4. Rest is deeply personal. Different people recharge batteries in different ways. Nailing what effective rest is for you is similarly important to other aspects of maximising the impact of how you spend your time. It’s taken me a while to crack this formula. For me: 4 days intense partying with close friends, and then a week of complete isolation and quiet with my girlfriend seems optimal (I’ve iterated this over 5 years). For me a week of road biking would be the definition of hell and probably expedite burnout (but I know this is perfection for others) 5. Timing is vital. Practically no one buys shipping software in early August. So the impact on the business of me being “off” is an order of magnitude + smaller then. Many of the shipping SAAS CEO’s I respect most were “off” at the same time. 6. Don’t expect to be off 100%. I don’t think a founder can ever be off 100%. Something will come up. It’s less stressful to accept this upfront. And make sure those you are travelling with understand. That said I think cutting workload by 70-90% is totally possible. 7. What to cut when you’re “off”: -Internal meetings, the lack of which are not blocking team members that are “on” -Internal admin, the lack of which are not blocking team members that are “on” -External admin, which will not have meaningful business consequences -New business outreach 8. Things not to cut when you’re off: -Responding to client/prospect queries/requests -Excom meetings -Any work that has a major net positive impact on the cash position of the business -Running team responses to serious issues -Answering questions from team, where the lack of an answer would block them Now time to get back to my desk!! #shipsandshipping #maritime #founder #vc #seriesA

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