Nuances in Corporate Governance

09/08/2026

CORPORATE WOMAN ROUND TABLE WITH LMN Part 2!

PERIMENOPAUSE IN THE WORKPLACE- Is it an invitation to a conversation on performance/competence?

When a consistently high-performing woman suddenly finds herself struggling with tasks that used to be effortless. Brain fog interruptions, fatigue, mood fluctuations, all make a routine activity feel like an emotional obstacle course. This isn’t a decline in competence or commitment — it’s the physiological reality of perimenopause, often during the peak years of their careers.

The instinct in many workplaces is to quietly manage this as a “personal issue” — or worse, as a performance problem.

When symptoms substantially affect someone’s ability at work, it becomes a workplace accommodation and legal issue. The employers who get ahead of this avoid risk and retain institutional knowledge, leadership pipeline strength, and loyalty that’s hard to buy back once lost.

A few facts 👌

• United Kingdom’s Equality Act 2010 provides that where symptoms have a long-term, substantial impact on daily activities, they can meet the legal threshold for disability — triggering an employer’s duty to make reasonable adjustments. UK has formal guidance for employers, and the government has appointed a Menopause Employment Champion to help translate this into everyday practice — flexible hours, temperature control, remote work options, and adjusted duties are all common outcomes.

• Japan, has a long-standing precedent for physiological accommodation dating back to Article 68 of the 1947 Labour Standards Law. As Japan’s workforce ages, conversation and employer policy have increasingly extended this logic toward broader menopause support, including flexible scheduling and health consultation access.

• In Zambia: The Persons with Disabilities Act (Chapter 65) defines “reasonable accommodation” as necessary modification and adjustment that doesn’t impose undue burden, needed to ensure equal enjoyment of rights — including in employment, where any contract purporting to deny these rights is void. The Employment Code Act, 2019 prohibits workplace discrimination and requires equal treatment and recognises the concept of flexibility in the workplace , while the Gender Equity and Equality Act reinforces the principle that physiological realities shouldn’t limit a woman’s professional standing. Together, these provide a real, developing, foundation for accommodation conversations.

Permission to work from home, by policy, on high-symptom days, team centric adjustment of deadlines during flare periods are great starts!

Importantly also , stakeholder sensitization is necessary for common understanding.

These are neither extraordinary asks nor cries for charity — A woman who’s spent years becoming excellent at her job doesn’t stop because of perimenopause; she just needs a accomodations to thrive!

Perimenopause is not imagination or failure. Ask for what you need to keep doing what you’re good at.

08/08/2026

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02/08/2026

CORPORATE WOMAN ROUND TABLE WITH LMN Part 1

The Great Reconnection: An Experience with Perimenopause Symptoms

There’s a season in many women’s professional and personal lives that isn’t talked about enough: perimenopause.

The hormonal shifts don’t just bring physical symptoms — they bring mood swings that feel like weather systems moving through the day, and a lethargy that can make even the most engaged, high-performing among us feel like we’re running on empty.

Here’s the part that catches so many of us off guard: it doesn’t just change how we feel. It changes how we show up — in meetings, in friendships, in partnerships, in the relationships we’ve spent years building.

Colleagues who once got quick, energized replies now get delayed ones. Friends who used to plan spontaneous catch-ups now hear “I just don’t have it in me tonight.” It’s not that the commitment faded — it’s that the body renegotiated the terms, and no one handed out a translation guide.

Some relationships don’t survive that renegotiation. People who only knew the “before” version of us can struggle to understand the “during.” That’s a real loss worth naming, not minimizing.

But many relationships don’t just survive — they evolve. The colleagues and friends who ask “is this a lower-energy day?” instead of taking silence personally. The people who stay curious instead of taking it personally. Those relationships often come out the other side stronger, built on a more honest understanding of who we actually are at that point in our lives.

A few things that have helped:
• Name it out loud. Telling people close to you “I’m navigating perimenopause, and some days my energy or mood will surprise even me” removes so much guesswork.

• Give language, not just apologies. Try: “That was the hormones talking, not how I actually feel.”

• Protect low-energy days in advance rather than cancelling last minute.

• Notice who leans in with patience — invest your limited energy there.

• Talk to a doctor. These symptoms are physiological and often treatable.

To anyone navigating this at work or at home: you are not “too much,” and you are not “off your game.” You’re going through a significant physiological transition, and it makes complete sense that your relationships and rhythms are shifting too.

Give yourself grace — and give the people around you the chance to rise to the occasion.
The great reconnection isn’t just about mending relationships with others. It’s about reconnecting with yourself, on new terms.

Diana Mutinta Simujika
Lucia Mwale

26/07/2026

CORPORATE WOMAN ROUND TABLE WITH LMN

Happy to announce that over the next four weeks, I will invite both corporate women and men to a series of articles on a subject that I have noticed is spoken about but not as prominently as I would like.

As you know, I have been clear on the fact that I do not describe myself as a feminist… I believe in gender equality that recognizes the various aspects of difference between the genders. I also believe that there is strength in our God given attributes that may be unique to our respective genders.

The topic I will discuss over this period is the rather “latent developments” that go side by side with learning, growth and blossoming as women go up the corporate ladder. Mostly when women are at their peak, there are social, economic and biological peaks that they are hitting alongside their corporate progression. One of the peaks is perimenopause and menopause. That’s the talk for the table with LMN for the next four weeks.

Let’s talk statistics, health, wellbeing, policy and legal frameworks that are available or indeed absent, and how we can make the world better in this realm!

See you next week..

26/07/2026

26/07/2026

Let’s have a little fun with style!

27/06/2026

Join us!!!

26/06/2026

HERE IS THE LINKEDIN link for the 2026 Let’s Share Annual Speak at 11am CAT!

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26/06/2026

FINAL COUNTDOWN!!!