Jannine Versi, Elektra Health, on smashing the menopause taboo

The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health

In this episode, Sandy interviews Jannine Versi, COO & Co-Founder of Elektra Health. Elektra Health is on a mission to smash the menopause taboo by empowering 50M women in the US today navigating menopause with a full-stack digital solution. Elektra has been featured in Forbes, Pitchbook, the Financial Times and Crunchbase, and was selected as a "recommended platform" by both Katie Couric and Maria Shriver. Prior to Elektra Health, Jannine held positions at Google, The White House in the Obama Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Cityblock Health. Jannine earned her BA from University of Pennsylvania and her MBA from Harvard Business School, and was a Fulbright Scholar in India. In this episode, we discussed: -- What exactly perimenopause and menopause are, the immense household purchasing and healthcare decision-making power of women going through menopause today (Gen X), and why the space is highly underfunded relative to the growing “femtech” category -- Healthcare system FFS incentive inertia, and chronic confusion around and lack of training for menopause care across OB-GYN providers, bleeding into a lack of high-quality, evidence-based, curated content for menopausal women as they enter the second half of their lives: the very problem Elektra is trying to solve -- The high economic cost of menopause symptoms: $2,100+ PPPY, on par with uncontrolled hypertension, with even further downstream costs from untreated menopause symptoms, implications which include dementia, heart disease, osteoporosis, anxiety, depression, and potential ER visits -- Elektra’s early success in building a full-stack, digital solution including a telemedicine clinic with a distinctive NPS of 91, a cult-like following for its 1:1 and 1:many on-demand and live offerings, and a product and business model roadmap expanding from DTC to B2B2C as progressive payers invest in female retention solutions -- Three tokens of advice to female founders on battling imposter syndrome and staying grounded throughout the exuberant and tumultuous entrepreneurial journey