Emma Ross
Half the workforce lives inside a body the workplace was never designed for. Policies, benefits, manager conversations and performance systems still treat female physiology as an edge case, and the cost shows up in attrition, absence, and a quiet tax on senior women. The gap is no longer one of awareness. It is one of translation: turning what the science now knows into what line managers, HR systems and leadership teams actually do.
Dr Emma Ross is a sport and exercise physiologist who helps organisations build policies, cultures and manager capability around women’s health and high performance.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Emma Ross
- She brings the operating knowledge of the person who ran physiology for Team GB across Olympic and Paralympic cycles, applied directly to corporate workforces rather than borrowed as metaphor.
- She co-founded The Well HQ, the consultancy that has delivered women’s health programmes inside Sport England, England Netball, the Lawn Tennis Association, Vitality, News UK and Barclays; her frameworks are already in production in serious organisations.
- The Female Body Bible gave her a mainstream platform and a Sunday Times bestseller, which means her language is already familiar to employees and journalists before she walks into the room.
- She closes the knowing-doing gap leaders struggle with most: turning evidence on menstrual health, menopause, pelvic health and breast health into specific policy, benefits and manager scripts.
- Her authority is independent and scientific. The Cardiff Metropolitan honorary doctorate and her Fellowship of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Science signal that the content is peer-respected, not opinion.
Biography highlights
- Head of Physiology, English Institute of Sport, 2013 to 2021, across Rio and Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic cycles.
- Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, The Well HQ.
- Co-author, The Female Body Bible, Sunday Times bestseller, 2023.
- Changemaker, The Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards, 2021.
- Honorary Doctorate, Cardiff Metropolitan University, 2025.
- Honorary Research Fellow, University of Brighton; Honorary Lecturer, University of Kent; Fellow of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Science.
Biography
Women make up roughly half of most workforces and a larger share of many consumer markets. Until recently, almost no corporate policy, product design or leadership development programme was built on evidence about how female bodies actually work. Emma Ross is one of the people rewriting that.
As Head of Physiology at the English Institute of Sport from 2013, she supported Team GB athletes and coaches across the Rio and Tokyo cycles. Inside that system she saw how much of the playbook for elite performance had been written for men, and what happened when women were given training, recovery, nutrition and medical support designed around their physiology instead.
In 2021 she co-founded The Well HQ with Baz Moffat and Dr Bella Smith. The consultancy has built education and policy programmes for Sport England, England Netball, the Lawn Tennis Association and the Open University, and has moved into corporate workforces with Vitality, News UK and Barclays. The Female Body Bible, co-authored in 2023, landed as an instant Sunday Times bestseller and took the argument into the mainstream.
Her credibility is underwritten by a PhD from Brunel, more than thirty peer-reviewed publications, a Fellowship of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Science, and an Honorary Doctorate from Cardiff Metropolitan University awarded in 2025. The practical value for a boardroom is simpler: she can tell a CHRO, in specific terms, what to change on Monday about benefits, line-manager training, menopause policy, return-to-work protocols and the data the organisation is not yet collecting.
Key speaking topics
- Women’s health in the workplace
- Female physiology and high performance
- Menstrual health, menopause and pelvic health at work
- Policy and manager capability for women’s health
- Culture change in male-default organisations
- Lessons from elite sport for corporate performance systems
- Evidence-based wellbeing for women
Ideal for
- CHROs, Chief People Officers and Heads of Reward designing benefits, menopause and family-health policy.
- DEI and ERG leads moving from awareness events to operational change.
- Executive teams in organisations with large female workforces or female consumer bases.
- Leadership programmes for senior women and their managers.
Audience outcomes
- A clear read on where your current policies and manager behaviours fail women, and what to change first.
- Specific, evidence-based actions on menstrual health, menopause, pelvic and breast health that can be taken into HR and benefits.
- Language that line managers and male leaders can use without fear of saying the wrong thing.
- A framework for translating women’s health from a wellbeing initiative into an organisational performance lever.
- Confidence that the content is backed by elite sport science and peer-reviewed evidence, not opinion.
Talks
A talk on why equitable systems require recognition of meaningful biological and experiential differences between men and women at work.
Key takeaways:
- Where gender-neutral policy quietly disadvantages women.
- The difference between equal treatment and equitable design.
- Where to start if your organisation wants to close the gap in practice.
How leaders close the gender, data and knowing-doing gaps that keep women’s health stuck as an awareness topic.
Key takeaways:
- Why most women’s health initiatives stall at communications.
- The data leaders are not collecting and need to.
- A leadership model for moving from intent to operational change.
How female physiology shapes performance, communication and day-to-day working life, and what organisations can do about it.
Key takeaways:
- The physiological realities that shape how women show up at work.
- How hormonal health intersects with performance and energy.
- Practical adjustments that reduce the tax on women at every career stage.
A bio-psycho-social approach to wellbeing, drawn from elite sport and applied to corporate performance.
Key takeaways:
- What elite sport knows about recovery, load and sustainable performance.
- How to apply it inside a workforce without medicalising the culture.
- Habits that senior leaders can model credibly.