When Kate Kirkman was struggling with perimenopause, her husband Brent went looking for an app to help her track her HRT. After 25 years in IT building data loyalty programmes, he knew to read the privacy policies, and he didn’t like what he found. So they built their own app.

That app became Talia, a private symptom and HRT tracker. In this episode, Kate and Emma talk about what happens to the sensitive health data women put into menopause apps, why “free” is never really free, and how to check whether the apps on your phone deserve your trust.

• How two friends had to tell Kate she wasn’t herself before she recognised perimenopause
• Why menopause awareness only lands once you realise it applies to you
• How the frustration of forgetting patches and progesterone led to Talia
• Independent testing of 10 menopause apps, all of which shared data with third parties, often as soon as the app was opened and before any sign-up
• What SDKs (software development kits) are and how they quietly send data back to their own servers
• Data brokers, profiling, targeted advertising and surveillance pricing
• Why where your data is stored matters, including apps whose servers sit outside UK/EU GDPR protections
• Research from Royal Holloway on how health app data could affect employment and health insurance
• Forced consent, blanket consent, and data kept for up to seven years after you ask for it to be deleted
• Why privacy policies and app “badges” don’t guarantee what really happens to your data
• How tracking symptoms helped Kate move from patches to gel to spray, and why better data means better GP appointments
• Talia’s talks with the NHS, its hope for a real-world evidence study, and its choice to stay bootstrapped and avoid investors and ad spend
• How user feedback shapes the app, including a body map for rotating patch sites
• Location tracking and real-time ad auctions

• Nothing is free. If you’re not paying for an app, ask who is, and what the trade-off is.
• Opening an app can be enough to share data with third parties before you’ve signed up.
• Knowing you use a menopause app is enough for data brokers to start drawing conclusions about you.
• A privacy policy is a promise, not a regulation. It can change at any time, for example after new investment.
• Check your apps. Peak Privacy’s site lets you see whether an app you use has been scanned and whether to trust it.
• Review location permissions. Many apps track where you are in the background, even when you’re not using them.

Kate asks listeners to picture this: you’re telling your GP about your most personal symptoms, and behind a screen sit people from an advertising company and an analytics firm, taking notes. That’s the reality of many health apps.

Find Talia at talia-app.com

Find the Peak Privacy checker at stemp.li

Middling Along is back after a longer-than-usual summer break, and we're returning with two guests who've spent nearly 15 years asking one question: what happens when men become part of the conversation on gender fairness at work, instead of standing outside it?

Brad Johnson is Professor Emeritus of Leadership, Ethics and Law at the US Naval Academy. David Smith is co-director of the Gender and Work Initiative at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Their new book, Fair Share: How Men and Women Can Create a More Equitable Workplace Together, is their third together, following Athena Rising and Good Guys. It moves on from individual allyship to the harder question of how to fix the systems that keep producing the same inequities.

This conversation is refreshingly blunt about what isn't working, and practical about what to do instead.

In this episode:

• Why the workplace is broken for men too. Workplaces built for our grandfathers still assume women are natural carers and men are natural breadwinners. That fails dual-career families, drives men towards burnout, and leaves women carrying the load at home.

• The surprising brain benefit of hands-on fathering. Engaged caregiving is linked to greater neuroplasticity and lower dementia risk in dads.

• Stop treating gender fairness as a "women's issue." If all the progress in your organisation depends on an unfunded women's network and one person in HR, leadership doesn't own it.

• Beyond the cupcakes-and-balloons International Women's Day panel. What leaders who mean it actually do: they stay in the room, share their personal "why", commit to measurable actions, and are open about the targets they miss.

• "Fix the system, not the women." The story of a leadership award winner sent on her fifth women's leadership course, only to return to a workplace that hadn't changed at all.

• Caring beyond childcare. Why new eldercare and caregiver leave policies go unused, and how coaching before, during and after leave changes that. Plus the leadership skills carers develop, and why returners are an untapped talent pool.

• The DEI retreat. Some organisations rebranded, a minority walked away entirely, and some are rediscovering their courage.

• A striking statistic. In the US, the share of men out of the workforce to provide eldercare tripled last year.

• Takeaways for home and work. A domestic audit with your partner that covers the mental load, not just the tasks. Role modelling from every level of management. And a challenge to men: be willing to downshift your career for a season so your partner can step up.

If you're a sandwich carer, a manager trying to get beyond the performative, or you want someone in your life to hear this, this is the episode to share.

Links

• Brad and David's work: workplaceallies.com

• Fair Share, Good Guys and Athena Rising: https://workplaceallies.com/books/home

• Brad Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wbradjohnson/ and David Smith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgsmithphd/ on LinkedIn

• Leah Ruppanner's MissPerceived podcast: https://www.leahruppanner.com/podcast

In this episode I chat to Kelly Keating: executive coach, master's student, and founder of new festival kid on the block, Wild and Wiser, a festival for women redefining success in midlife.

Kelly spent almost 30 years in corporate life before leaving at 47 to build a portfolio career around coaching, creativity, and connection. In this conversation, Kelly shares the story behind her reinvention, what finally pushed her to go all in, and why she decided to put on a festival.

Key topics covered

• Kelly's squiggly career path from a grammar school girl labelled as "naughty" to account director, RNLI transformation lead, flexible working champion in financial services, and startup, before going all in on coaching
• discovering a love of facilitation and bringing people together to improve systems using lean methodology
• Flexible working advocacy and championing job sharing long before COVID, training hundreds of managers on job design
• Her "fluid career": Kelly references the concept from Colin Newland: blending multiple strands of interest rather than following a linear path
• The pivot point when her father died unexpectedly at 70, which became the catalyst: "What am I waiting for? Life isn't a practice run."
• Why put on a festival? The convergence of Kelly's love of festivals, her wedding venue in Wareham Forest, the "Aspiring Women" network she'd built over 15 years, and a desire to amplify brilliant female voices
• The Wild and Wiser ethos: by women, for women; embracing nature, intuition, and the wisdom you've always had

About Wild and Wiser Festival

• Dates: 19–20 September 2026
• Location: Wareham Forest, Dorset (glamping, camping, and day tickets available

Links & resources

• Wild and Wiser festival: wildandwiser.co.uk
• Instagram: @wildandwiser
• Use Emma's code WWWKD10_EMMAT at checkout for a 10% discount on a weekend ticket