Partner, McKinsey & Company
Director of Women’s Health, McKinsey Health Institute
9 October 2026, at Le Lyrique Restaurant, Geneva
What if closing the women’s health gap were one of the greatest untapped opportunities of our time?
Women live longer than men, yet spend significantly more of their lives in poor health.
For decades, women’s health has too often been reduced to reproductive health. But a growing body of research is revealing a much broader reality: from cardiovascular disease and migraines to autoimmune conditions, mental health and menopause, women can experience disease differently, respond differently to treatments, and face gaps in diagnosis and care.
The consequences reach far beyond health.
McKinsey Health Institute research estimates that closing the women’s health gap could potentially boost the global economy by $1 trillion every year by 2040, while giving millions of women more years of healthy, productive life.
For our last LeadHers Hot Topic, we were delighted to welcome Anouk Petersen, Partner at McKinsey & Company in Geneva and Director of Women’s Health at the McKinsey Health Institute.
A leading voice behind some of McKinsey’s most influential research on women’s health, Anouk has spent more than a decade working at the intersection of health, gender equality, public policy and economics.
Together, we explored some critical questions:
Why does the women’s health gap still exist?
Where are women still underdiagnosed, undertreated or underrepresented in medical research?
What would change if we treated women’s health as an economic and societal priority, not simply a medical one?
And what can governments, businesses, investors and women themselves do to accelerate change?
A timely and essential conversation about health, equality and economics, and why closing the women’s health gap could transform lives and economies.