Menopause is burning up senior-level women’s careers. 4 things companies can do to keep them from burning out

Kacy Fleming was presenting in a boardroom when the burning started. It began at her thighs and rose up through her torso as the legal counsel in the room pushed back on her points. She whipped off her blazer even though all she was wearing underneath was a threadbare James Perse tank top. “I felt totally unprofessional and I didn’t even care because I was so hot,” she says. “I thought it was because I was pissed because so often in corporate environments our emotions are so bottled up they come out through our body.” Over the next few years, the changes kept coming. Her personality morphed from anxious overachiever to apathetic. Fleming wanted to walk out on her job. Fleming wanted to walk out on her life. “I wanted to disappear,” she says. It would take three years before Fleming, then the head of global well-being for the pharmaceutical company Takeda, realized she was in the throes of perimenopause and found treatment. “I was responsible for the well-being of 50,000 people, and I had no idea what was happening to me. I didn’t even know the word perimenopause until I was in it, despite 22 years in healthcare,” she says. “But it almost took my career, my marriage and my life away from me.” Fleming eventually left Takeda. Today she is the founder of The Fuchsia Tent, a company dedicated to helping organizations retain female leaders. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/05\/p-1-91541720-corporate-america-is-crushing-senior-level-mothers.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/05\/p-1-91541720-corporate-america-is-crushing-senior-level-mothers.jpg","eyebrow":"Subscriber Exclusive","headline":"\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/91541720\/corporate-america-is-crushing-senior-level-mothers\u0022\u003ECorporate America is crushing senior-level mothers. Here’s how they’re coping\u003C