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She Built It® Podcast
Welcome to the She Built It® podcast. Join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it - a life and business that they love. We dive into the topic of “how” they built it and talk about everything from having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively, build teams, implement growth strategies, and infuse tech innovation. Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let’s dive in.
She Built It® Podcast
Why Women’s Healthcare Is Still Broken, and How Lori Casselman Is Building the Platform to Fix It
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On She Built It®, Lori Casselman, a 20-year healthcare executive turned founder, shares what it took to build June Health, Canada’s first virtual clinic providing complete care across every stage of women’s health.
Lori talks about the opportunity she sees for AI to close the gender health equity gap, the leadership lessons that come with scaling a startup in healthcare, and the culture principles she fiercely protects inside a fully virtual team. She’s candid about the hardest parts of building, including the moment you realize a team member who helped you get here may not be the right person to get you to the next stage, and honest about what keeps her grounded through the pressure of a very big mission. This conversation is for any founder building something that matters at the intersection of people, technology, and purpose.
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She Built It® CEO, Melanie Barr Instagram
The big ambitious goal is to make a dent in closing that gender health equity gap. And so that lights me up when I see that we're hitting milestones and we're adding incredible new people to our team and we're expanding these care journeys, meaning we can touch more lives and solve more health challenges for women. That's very fulfilling.
SPEAKER_01I'm Melanie Barr. Welcome back to the Sheeple Fit Podcast, your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave. I'm here to talk about everything from having the courage to make life and career leads to the details of how to lead effectively, create successful teams, implement strategies for growth, and infuse tech innovation. I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges. I live in the city now, but I grew up in a town of a thousand people. I've navigated major life leads, a senior-level corporate career, worked in professional sports, and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business, technology, family, and making meaningful connections with you and the She Built It community. I also love a good workout and dose of self-care. Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy. So turn up the audio, open your favorite notes app, grab your favorite drink, and here we go. Welcome to She Built It. I'm your host, Melanie Barr. Building in healthcare requires more than a strong idea. It requires operational discipline, trust, clinical credibility, technology compliance, and a business model that can scale without losing the human experience. Today's guest is building at the intersection of all of it. Lori Castleman is the founder and CEO of June Health, a virtual women's health platform designed to deliver comprehensive expert care across every life stage through one connected experience. June brings together clinical care, mental health support, nutrition, fitness, family, and caregiver support, care navigation, prescriptions, and supplements. But what makes the business especially interesting is the infrastructure behind it. A platform model built around personalization, access, expert care, and coordinated support. Lori brings more than 20 years of experience across corporate health strategy, insurance, digital health, and emerging health technologies. She's held leadership roles, giving her a clear view of how healthcare, employers, benefits, technology, and consumer expectations are changing. She built June Health not only to improve women's care, but to build the smarter, more scalable model for how that care is delivered. Thank you for joining us, Lori. Where do you see the biggest opportunity for AI to improve women's health outcomes and care experiences?
SPEAKER_00One of the really key areas for us is optimizing the practitioners and really being able to take this incredible expertise, the clinical practitioners, so women's health experts, like OBGYN practitioners, nurse practitioners who have done fertility training, menopause certification. We want to be able to support those practitioners to be able to see more patients. It's about driving efficiency within their work environment, taking all of those administrative tasks off the table for them. So that's one key area for us. The second key area is leveraging the tools that are available to allow our developers to code and build more efficiently and more productively. We have big vision. There's a lot of innovation happening within our business. And again, I think there's incredible tools at the disposal of product designers and developers. And so that's another key area for us and all really in the spirit of driving better engagement for our members, better utilization, better care, and ultimately better health outcomes.
SPEAKER_01And I just keep thinking for the practitioners, if you have all that data, and as a consumer, when you show up, you can get to the heart of health quicker and be much more efficient.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. There's pattern matching, for example, in some of the algorithms that we built into the onboarding process for our members where we ask a series of questions to really understand what they are struggling with, some of their demographic information. And then you can really start to surface intuitively, leveraging AI. Are you also experiencing any of these symptoms? Because there's really patterns that you're able to tap into. And I think it serves a couple of really interesting purposes. It helps a member feel like they're not alone, first of all. And these symptoms that they're experiencing, as much as they feel very personal and everyone is unique, there's patterns here. You may be experiencing some of the following, or other women at your stage with this symptom may also feel this type of symptom. And there's interesting opportunities for us to ensure that the member is feeling heard and then leverage that data to create efficiency in their care journey and in understanding their skills and matching them to the right practitioner at the right time.
SPEAKER_01What is your biggest growth challenge right now as you scale June health? And how are you thinking about solving it?
SPEAKER_00Our biggest growth challenge is that we want to do so much. We have a really big vision for the company. There are many, many, many different aspects of women's health care and supporting women conveniently and effectively that we want to build and staging and sequencing what we build when, and also being somewhat patient with the stage that we're at, the resources we have at our disposal while still moving as quickly as we possibly can, doing as much as we can and striving for that vision of closing the gender health equity gap.
SPEAKER_01And you're solving complex problems. So I can see how that growth is not always easy to map moving forward.
SPEAKER_00It's not always easy. And I would say one of the key things that's really underlying many challenges, especially in a business at our stage where we're three years in, the talent that you have on your team and around you is critically important, right? You have to surround yourself with really smart, really motivated driven people who are also passionate about the problems that you're solving who have complementary skill sets. The reality is sometimes this talent or team members that are appropriate at a certain stage are not always those same talented team members that are appropriate at your next stage. There's also an element in growing and really thinking about those growth challenges and those growth ambitions. It just comes down to, okay, who's doing the work? And have you surrounded yourself with the right people to kind of lock arms and dig in and do that work together? That iterates, it evolves over time.
SPEAKER_01And how are you protecting and building a strong company culture inside a virtual health platform?
SPEAKER_00Culture is everything. I'm a huge believer in if you create a great environment that people want to be part of and allow them to thrive, magic happens. We have a lot of norms and processes within our culture that we really do stay very true to, things like a regular cadence of bringing the team together. It's one hour once a week. But even if you're really pulling from people to bring that agenda together, and perhaps one week you're feeling like the agenda isn't as deep as it is another week, I think you have to be really committed to just that connection, especially when you're a virtual team, which we are. We have employees all over the country. And so, in many cases, people that have been on our team for a number of years now have never met anyone else in person. And so those norms and connection points are really important. And then surrounding yourself with really talented people and then getting out of their way. For myself as a leader, I think about this a lot, especially given I'm a founder and obviously I care very deeply about the business and many aspects of the business. This is the hardest following this rule has ever been because you want to have eyes on and touching everything. But at the same time, you have to flex that trust muscle. It has to be part of your culture. And you really do have to find great people and let them do what they're great at and what you hired them in the first place to do. And you can't be great at everything. So know your strengths and lean into those strengths and let other people do the same thing. Last thing I'll say on this question is just celebrate the wins. We don't do that enough because everything feels hard. And so that's a key culture thing too, is just really take a moment, whether it's in those weekly meetings or just in messaging to the team. Even if the wins are small, you need to celebrate them. So true.
SPEAKER_01And it's interesting because I think I used to be better at celebrating the wins, but now as things are moving so quickly, thank you for bringing that up because we get lost. Yeah. Even more so today.
SPEAKER_00A little personal story here. I saw my brother on the weekend and he was saying, You've done so much in the last couple of years. Like you're and you've just hit some key milestones. Are you feeling proud of yourself? I had to pause for a minute because to a large extent, no, I haven't been taking a beat to just sort of feel that pride because I'm constantly thinking about the next thing that we need to do. But it's such an important reminder. Celebrate the journey.
SPEAKER_01And thank you for bringing that up. We used to talk about it a lot on this podcast. And you bringing it up made me stop and think, we're moving so fast that we're not really doing that so much anymore. And as a founder, one of the hardest parts is saying, Am I the bottleneck? Am I stopping the growth from moving forward?
SPEAKER_00It's a hard sort of mirror to put up against yourself. But I do think it's also great to check in with your team, especially some of the folks that have been with you for a long time or some of the leaders that you spend the most time with on a day-to-day basis and get that feedback. Give me the difficult feedback. Am I getting in the way? Am I slowing things down?
SPEAKER_01What is one honest lesson about leading people in healthcare in a startup environment that you wish more founders talked about?
SPEAKER_00It goes back to that point I just talked about with sometimes the people that you have surrounded yourself with to get you to a certain point are not necessarily the same people that you need to achieve the next set of milestones or objectives. There is a lot of loyalty and trust that goes into building something together. And so it can be really hard to hit that point where you know it's not working. And I think too many founders let that drag for the reasons that I touched on. Loyalty, there's experience, there's having been in the trenches together. It's tough to call that out. The bottom line is when you know it and you know it in your gut and in your heart, you just need to deal with it. Because everyone around you, right, whether that's your investors, your advisors, even your clients, everyone around you feels it when you are not dealing with it. And so as hard as it is, it's one of those things where you just have to push yourself to rip the band-aid off and deal with the problem once you know in your heart that change needs to happen. Yeah, and trusting your instincts. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01What lights you up the most about what you do and makes you excited to continue building June health every day?
SPEAKER_00I feel like we're doing something really important. We hear that, we hear it from our practitioners and our members. And I've been fortunate that throughout my entire career, I've really worked in a space where I feel like the work that you're doing, as much as it may seem somewhat removed on a day-to-day basis, the heart of the why is improving people's lives. And so I think that is the heart of our why at June Health. I really do believe, and we see it every day, that we are impacting women's lives. And the big ambitious goal is to make a dent in closing that gender health equity gap. And so that lights me up. When I see that we're hitting milestones and we're adding incredible new people to our team and we're expanding these care journeys, meaning we can touch more lives and solve more health challenges for women. That's very fulfilling. Those are the things I think about on the long walks at the end of a very stressful day. It's that member testimonial or that story you heard from a practitioner where, you know, even if there were a few tough ones in any particular day and challenges that you're needing to solve, you have to anchor to some of those positives to know that you are making a difference. And that definitely lights me up. I feel passionate about the work that we do.
SPEAKER_01And it's great that not only can you love building the business, but have the passion and the mission behind it.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. I mean, the other piece is I work with an incredible team. That lights me up too. When you see someone else getting as excited about your vision for the business that you'd been thinking about for many years, and they're now on that journey with you building, and they're as excited about that vision now as you were many years ago. That's super fulfilling and exciting too. I love those moments where you have a conversation, sometimes even with our investors or advisors, where our clients, you know, and our clients are often companies. We sell June as an employee benefit as well into companies. And when you get on those calls and they're just as excited about what you're building and the impact it could have as you are, that's super fulfilling.
SPEAKER_01So true. And I've loved building a global team. And I love it when my team challenges me and says, Hey, have you thought about this? And surrounding yourself with innovative people has been so much fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. It's tell me something I don't know, or how would you think about this? But it's very differently than how you think about it. And then that combination of different perspectives just elevates the solution that you're building.
SPEAKER_01And it took a while for me to think, I want this. I want someone to challenge me. I want someone to come to me with innovative ideas. Yes. All the time, especially in how fast we're moving. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And I will also say one of my big principles of leadership is if I don't know, I can't fix it. And so I really do ultimately encourage the people around me and the people that I'm working with to find a moment or a constructive way or a channel to share feedback about what's happening in the organization, on their team, with me, et cetera. So that we're eyes wide open, right? And it just becomes a data point that we can work to solve for.
SPEAKER_01So true. I have a potential client that I might be working with, and I keep sharing information with her, whether she becomes a client or not. I want her to know the information because I, as a leader, would want to know that information.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely right. And sometimes those can be tough conversations, whether you're on the delivering end or sort of the receiving end. But ultimately it's all in the spirit of evolving and improving.
SPEAKER_01What is one way that you protect and cultivate your joy with your work and your life today?
SPEAKER_00Ultimately, I'm probably not doing it as well as I would like to in this early sort of zero to one stage. For me, it's all about family and relationships, really about spending time with my kids and my husband, my extended family as well. Getting outside, I really do try and protect at least 45 minutes to an hour a day to hike or be outside, even if it's just walking the dog and taking him on a little extra walk. Just time and nature. And my dad taught me really early on in my life when you're going through a stressful time, go back to the basics, which is topwood, carry water philosophy. Sometimes you just need to get out and garden or do some sort of hard work and just turn your brain off a little bit and turn on the physical side. And I would say that definitely can bring me joy as well. And the last thing is traveling. We travel as a family quite a bit. And I definitely love seeing new places and expanding our horizons.
SPEAKER_01It's amazing the perspective that you have when you get outside. And then having a dog is great because it forces you to get out and take those moments even when you might not decide to do it.
SPEAKER_00It's a calming thing to just spend time with an animal, slow down and walk a dog. And sometimes you need that at the end of a very busy day. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for everything you're doing to improve women's health. Can you please share with us how and where we can find you?
SPEAKER_00We are June Health, so you can find us on Instagram, LinkedIn. Our website is junehealth.care. Connect with us on LinkedIn. You can also find me on LinkedIn at Lori Castleman.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for joining us today. I'd love to hear from you. Reach out to me at hello at shebuilt it.com on our She Built It website or at She Built It on social. Thank you to my editor, Rich Draffolino, who always makes us sound good. Until next time, let nothing stop you from experiencing effectively business that you crave.