Entrepreneur
Career, family and the motherhood penalty that lies ahead
As UK childcare costs account for 26 per cent of household income, fintech entrepreneur Mel Faxon explains why motherhood means that women can’t have it all.
Mel joins me from her London coworking space. “Being able to walk over to someone’s desk, especially when you’re in a start-up, makes such a huge difference. I can’t wait until we have an office” she candidly admits.
Faxon met Siran Cao, her now co-founder, in 2019. As two millennial women, they started looking at why we often refuse to think about our bodies and careers on the same track. A few coffee conversations later, they decided to make a change in the way we perceive the idea of starting a family and they created Mirza, a care now pay later product that aims to distribute the costs of childcare over time and close the gender pay gap.
“When we first started, we were looking at the causes of the motherhood penalty and the decline in earnings that a woman sees after she has a child,” Faxon says. “This is one of the biggest contributors to the gender pay gap and if you don’t have good parental or maternity leave, it can hurt your career acceleration down the line.”
Taking time out of the workforce after stepping into motherhood is something that women naturally do, mainly because they can’t afford the increasing costs of childcare. However, the long-term financial implications are a lot bigger than we might think, the entrepreneur adds.
“We wanted to tackle this issue by launching a product that helps women keep working and that distributes the [childcare] costs over time to when they have higher earning potential,” she explains. “We want to allow women to take this zero-interest financing mechanism through their employer without having to choose between family and career.”
Mirza was initially aimed for women, but the two co-founders soon realised parenthood shouldn’t be one-sided. “We wanted a family-focused financial planning product that helps parents understand what the parenthood penalty looks like and what taking unpaid leave looks like,” Faxon says.
“Once we realised that this is not just about women, we decided to shift [our idea] and make it much more gender neutral for both men and women.
“We constantly hear things like ‘I don’t want to have to choose between family and career’ or ‘women can have it all’. But right now, it’s unrealistic to think that women can have it all unless they have a lot of privilege and support.”
With one in three childcare centres shutting down in the US and over two million women dropping out of work during the pandemic, the need for a change seemed even more imperative.
“Covid has been a really good spotlight,” the co-founder adds. “This great resignation really highlights that people aren’t going to go back to work in places where they don’t get the support that they need and it also shows that care is the future of work. If we don’t support parents in their childcare needs, they are not going to be able to participate in the economy and help it grow.”
But why is financial planning so important in this process?
“Everything gets so disorganised when you have a child,” Faxon explains. “You don’t know where to go and you feel like you don’t have a balance between your career, what you were doing in the past and your current life.
“Financial planning helps people be a little bit more proactive. Having a child, then looking for childcare and realising what the expense is going to be, is very much a reactive approach that can mean that one of the parents would have to stay home.
“We want to help parents start these conversations ahead of time to help facilitate that dialogue around parental leave policies and statutory leaving,” she continues. “That would give them a sense of control and would help them navigate that with their employer.”
Mirza is purely tech-driven and is able to source some of the expenses that are coming up and taking your income into account, it will estimate the upcoming cost of care for the coming five to ten years. It is already available in the US, mainly because the data used was based on a US model.
“Both my co-founder and I are American. So, it felt a little bit more genuine for us to tackle those problems there,” Faxon says. “But our whole team is here, in London and we would love to expand it to the UK in a few years.”
Mirza’s five-year goal is to shape parental leave and have over two million families using the service. “Our vision is to become almost like a neobank of offering more tailored financial products for families ,” the co-founder adds.
“Women shouldn’t have to take that financial hit right when they have their first child and I hope we will change that.”
To find more about Mirza visit heymirza.com.
The Women’s Health Innovation Summit (WHIS), the event uniting the global women’s health ecosystem, has just announced 18 new speakers joining the agenda for its 2026 summit, taking place October 13–15 at Encore Boston Harbor.
The latest additions bring further depth across pharma, clinical research, health systems, venture, and policy, reinforcing WHIS’s role as the only platform where the full women’s health ecosystem convenes under one roof.
Newly confirmed speakers include:
- Kelle Moley, MD – VP, Women’s Health Early Phase Clinical Development, Cardiometabolic Research, Eli Lilly & Company
- Justine Levin-Allerhand – Executive Partner, Chief Corporate Development Officer & COO, Flagship Labs, Flagship Pioneering
- Sebnem Yildirimoglu, MD, PMP – Executive Director, Women’s Health Strategy, Premier Research
- Terri Stewart – Head of Global Healthcare & Government Affairs, EMD Serono
- Dr. Morag Grassie – Executive Director, Blavatnik Fund for Innovation, Yale
- Sandra Butler – Director, Design Impact, Mass General Brigham
- Zhenya Lindgardt – Chief Executive Officer, Sera Prognostics
- Sadie Morahan – Head of US Revenue, Withings Health Solutions
- Angela Drew, PhD – Vice President, Regulatory Strategy, Premier Research
- Dr. Stephanie Lahr – CMIO, Aqurio
- Michelle Andrews – Contributing Writer, KFF Health News
- Charlotte Williams – CEO, My Bump Hub
- Clint Dart, MS – Director, NIH Women’s Health Data Coordinating Center, Premier Research
- Cass Sanford – US Venture Advisor, FemTech Lab
- Megan Mukuria – Founder & CEO, ZanaAfrica
- Tiffany Inglis, MD, FACOG – Chief Medical Officer, Sera Prognostics
- Angelean Hendrix, PhD – Vice President, Pharmacometrics and MIDD, Premier Research
- Amanda Ducach – CEO & Co-founder, EmaEQ
“WHIS is where the women’s health industry comes together to take action,” said Poppy Howard-Wall, Event Director at WHIS.
“This latest wave of speakers reflects exactly the kind of cross-sector expertise our attendees expect – from global pharma and clinical research leadership to venture, health systems, and grassroots innovation.
“It’s this breadth that makes WHIS the room where things actually move forward.”
Bringing the Full Ecosystem Together
These additions join a growing 2026 agenda spanning four content tracks that reflect the full lifecycle of healthcare innovation, from early-stage research and development through to patient delivery, system transformation, and commercial scale.
Attendees can expect over 1,000 senior decision-makers, 120+ expert speakers, four dedicated stages, and more than 10 hours of curated 1:1 meetings.
Full speaker and agenda details are available at whisusa.com/speakers-2026.
About WHIS
The Women’s Health Innovation Summit is the only platform uniting the full women’s health ecosystem – providers, payers, employers, pharma leaders, investors, and innovators -to increase deal flow, expand reimbursement, improve access, and deliver better outcomes for women at every stage of life.
Medtech startup Peripear has won an Innovate UK award for developing a wearable designed to prevent perineal trauma during childbirth.
The Oxford-based company is developing a hands-free warm compress device for use on the perineum during the second stage of labour.
Peripear describes its product as the world’s first automated perineal thermotherapy wearable, designed to prevent perineal trauma during childbirth.
The device is intended to reduce severe tearing and episiotomies while improving maternal comfort.
Peripear has secured an Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award and a £74,974 grant.
The funding will support further product development ahead of the company’s planned first-in-human study.
Nina van Schaick, co-founder and chief operating officer of Peripear and midwife, said: “I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to see this gap.
“I was incredibly lucky to meet my co-founder, Eviatar Natan, right as my frustration about the lack of translation of evidence into practice had peaked.
“There was a proven mechanism that could reduce injuries occurring in up to 90 per cent of vaginal births, and it was being left out of clinical pathways simply because no standardised tool existed to deliver it.
“I’m a farmer’s granddaughter, and when I started practising over 14 years ago, I asked: where is the tool I need to implement this evidence? I looked around and realised we were still asking clinicians to improvise.
“Peripear is what happens when the person who has lived the problem, both personally and professionally, meets the person who can help her build the solution.”
Entrepreneur
Applications close August 18 for Women’s Health Innovation Summit 2026 Innovation Showcase
The Women’s Health Innovation Summit (WHIS) has reminded startups that applications for its 2026 Innovation Showcase close on Tuesday, August 18.
The Showcase gives early and growth-stage companies the opportunity to pitch live on stage to the most influential audience in women’s health, at a summit that convenes more than 1,000 senior decision-makers from across the ecosystem, including payers, providers, pharma, and investors.
Now in its eighth year, WHIS takes place October 13–15, 2026 at Encore Boston Harbor.
The event has built a reputation as the leading platform uniting the full women’s health ecosystem, from health systems and health plans to pharmaceutical leaders and the investors funding the next wave of innovation in the space.
A Direct Line to Funding, Partnerships and Adoption
Companies selected for the Innovation Showcase will present directly to an audience with the capital, clinical expertise and commercial relationships to move deals forward.
Past participants have gone on to secure investor introductions, commercial partnerships and clinical collaborations that started as presentations on the WHIS stage and turned into signed agreements.
Applications Reviewed by an Expert Selection Committee
Submissions are being reviewed by a selection committee of leading investors and industry operators, including:
- Parambir Bhangu, Executive Director, External Innovation & Emerging Science, Organon
- Elizabeth Bailey, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Foreground Capital
- Karla Loken, Founder, Loken and Associates
- Mané Mikayelyan, Associate Partner, DeciBio
- Anna Valcheva, Founder, Managing Director & CEO, Astra Ventures
- Azin Radsan van Alebeek, Co-founder & General Partner, Emmeline Ventures
WHIS is where the women’s health ecosystem comes together to get deals done,” said Poppy Howard-Wall, Event Director of WHIS.
How to Apply
Early and growth-stage companies across digital health, therapeutics, diagnostics, med device and consumer health are encouraged to apply before the August 18 deadline.
Full details and the application form are available at whisusa.com/attend/start-ups.
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