Women's Health Summit Corporate Roundtable
The Business Case for Women's Health
The Pre-Summit Corporate Roundtable was held at The Portman Ritz-Carlton Shanghai on 13 November 2025.
The purpose was clear, i.e., to start an open, evidence-based dialogue about the business impact of women's health.
Directors of the Board of the Chambers, Lucy Lei, Sophia Slingerland, and Nishta Mehda, and Chair of People & Culture, Fabrizio Ulivi, explained why health is a communal purpose, why we need to address women’s health in companies to improve overall business, and why the chambers are supporting FemCourage.
Jin Wang
Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company and leader of McKinsey's Life Sciences in Greater China, opened the session with data that set the tone for the day. She presented research showing how chronic stress, mental fatigue, and unaddressed health needs affect productivity and retention in measurable ways. The conversation quickly moved beyond awareness to accountability.
Laimei Yeung
A neuroscientist and founder of FemCourage, introduced the mission and vision of her company, founded in memory of her late sister, Yong Yong. She explained that women's health is a strategic investment in a company's "neuro-capital" because the female brain responds differently to stress, sleep, and hormonal changes than the male brain does. When leaders support their needs, they strengthen the thinking, creativity, and connection that drive performance. She then showed how neuroscience can guide the creation of healthier, more effective workplaces.
Dr Agnieszka Bielewicz
Head Physician and Menopause advocate at ParkwayHealth, continued to build the connection between biology and business. She explained how hormonal changes influence energy and focus and how overlooking these factors creates invisible barriers for women in leadership.
Wang Feng
Director of the Organization and Personnel Department of Ping An Health Insurance Co., Ltd.and member of the Communist Party Committee of Pingan, continued the discussion, showing that prevention saves resources and stabilizes teams. Her examples demonstrated how companies that track health indicators over time make better operational decisions, and how solutions can be created for people who are physically present at work but whose hearts aren't there.
Yanfang Cai
Yanfang Cai, who has led large teams at Didi, Alibaba, and XPeng, spoke about workplace culture. She described how silence around personal health often becomes a professional risk for women. Her point landed: inclusion depends on language and leadership, not policies alone.
Three themes that shaped the discussion
After the presentations, participants gathered in small groups to translate ideas into practice. Three clear priorities emerged.
The first group, led by Chen Chunlan, Former-Dupont Sales Academy Trainer (30 years) and Laimei Yeung, summarized their findings in:
1. Our team’s health is your company’s most valuable asset—protecting it from burnout and turnover isn’t wellness, it’s a direct investment in your bottom line.
2. A stressed brain cannot perform; by applying simple neuroscience to help employees regulate their emotions and calm their nervous systems, you unlock better focus, smarter decisions, and true resilience.
3. This foundation of individual well-being is what allows teams to build psychological safety—where vulnerability, active listening, and a focus on learning become the drivers of high performance.
The second workgroup was led by Dr Sigrid Winkler, Founder/ CEO of City Cowbodys, and Yanfang Cai was design.
Programmes created without employee input often fail to engage. Participants agreed that listening sessions and tailored metrics are essential. Attendance rates are not proof of success. Impact shows in lower attrition, steadier focus, and stronger morale.
The third workgroup, led by Nishtha Mehta, Facilitator and innovative Leaders Coach PCC/ICF, and Dr Agnieshka Bielewisz, focused on talent, health, and resilience,using Nishtha Mehta's Flip It coaching model.
Participants noted the lost productive days linked to unspoken women’s health challenges and discussed simple actions that help teams feel supported, such as listening sessions and predictable breaks. They also explored how policy reviews, insurance coverage, and visible role models strengthen confidence and engagement across the organization.
While the three group themes are critical, psychological safety is the foundational barrier. A company cannot hope to design a truly engaging and effective health programme if its employees do not first feel safe enough to be honest about their needs and challenges because of hierarchy, ‘face’, 996 culture, and collectivism vs individual wellbeing.
The current state for many companies in China is at this first, crucial hurdle: fostering a leadership style and company culture where “calm leadership” and “respect for recovery time” become the norm, thereby creating the conditions where thoughtful, bottom-up programme design can later flourish.
Insights that will guide the Women's Health Summit in March 2026
As the discussion closed, participants began sketching how to move from theory to structure with frameworks to track both human and business outcomes. There was a collective sense that collaboration, not competition, would accelerate results.
What happens next
This Roundtable now feeds directly into the Women’s Health Summit 2026. The conversation has moved from ideas to application as companies test their internal strategies, health experts contribute data, and chambers of commerce keep the dialogue active through working groups.
By March, these threads will come together into a shared blueprint for healthier, higher-performing teams.
Closing thought
The day’s message was straightforward: health is wealth; it is part of sound management and long-term strategy, not a side project. When leaders treat health as a measurable asset, companies gain clarity, employees gain trust, and the organization gains strength that lasts.
Primary Strategic Alliance Partner
Main Organizer
Premier Event Partners
Core Event Partners
About Laimei Yeung and FemCourage
Laimei has been a trailblazer and community builder since arriving in Shanghai in 2005. She has been an award-winning F&B / Lifestyle Entrepreneur (Bella Napoli Restaurant) and early builder of BenCham in Shanghai. With three Master’s degrees in Linguistics, Business, and Neuroscience from King’s College, Laimei combines her diverse expertise to empower others.
She is a Cognitive Neuroscientist, certified Hypnotherapist/IFS Therapist and specializes in anxiety, addiction, and neurohealth. In 2024, she founded Femcourage to focus on optimizing brain health for adolescents and women through social confidence, community engagement and innovative technology. FemCourage is a movement in memory of Yong Yong, 勇勇, Laimei’s late sister.
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