NewsMedical interviewed Rhiannon White, the new CEO of Clue, a globally recognized menstrual health app empowering over 10 million users across 190+ countries.
With a career spanning top tech companies and a passion for femtech innovation, Rhiannon discusses her journey, Clue’s mission to close gaps in women's healthcare, and how the platform is advancing understanding of under-researched conditions like PCOS. Our conversation explores the intersection of technology, science, and reproductive health, and the exciting future she envisions for Clue and femtech as a whole.
Congratulations on your new role as CEO of Clue, Rhiannon. To start, could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us more about Clue’s mission? Additionally, what drew you to Clue, and what inspired you to take on this leadership role?
Thank you so much! It’s truly an honor to lead the incredible team at Clue and to be able to work on a product that has such an important mission and vision for the future of female health. It’s hard not to be inspired by the power and potential data has when it’s used for good to help close the gaps in research and healthcare for women and people with cycles.
I joined Clue in 2022 as Chief Product Officer, and one of my favorite parts of the job has been (and remains) speaking directly to the Clue community through weekly user interviews. Staying close to our users ensures we’re constantly building and innovating features that matter and that add real value and transformative insight right in people’s hands every day.
Before joining Clue, I worked in a wide range of industries, including companies like Shazam, Vend, and the BBC. But most importantly, I’m the proud mom of three completely wild and wonderful children.
Our mission at Clue remains the same as it was when it was first founded: to empower women and people with cycles to take charge of their health with no myths, no taboos, and no barriers.
Clue combines health science and data science to turn what is otherwise an invisible experience into something that can be both visible and actionable. Professionally what drew me to Clue was its unique combination of scientific integrity, absolute commitment to data privacy, and genuine desire to advance research in female health. But there was a big personal mission behind why I joined Clue as well. When I was in my mid-30s, my husband and I went through some tough fertility struggles. It was then that I realized how many deeply anchored assumptions and misconceptions I had about fertility. I was a healthy, educated adult with a career and a long marriage – and to be honest, I did not really understand how to get pregnant. As specialists meticulously analyzed my cycle and health data, I couldn't help but wonder: What if I had known earlier how critical tracking and understanding one's reproductive health was to understanding fertility? What could I have done differently?
Really understanding the data and insights was liberating for me. The data empowered us to start our family. We were lucky enough to conceive our first child with the help of fertility treatments, and then our second and third children were conceived without intervention.
One of the main reasons I came to Clue is that the company has so much promise to help people achieve their health goals, whether it’s to start a family, understand if something they’re experiencing is something they should see a doctor about, or understand and manage their experiences on a daily basis.
I see a huge opportunity to make a real difference in how we understand and support menstrual health globally. As we say at Clue, “It’s not in your head; it’s in your data,” and every day, we hear from our community about the ways having and keeping a cycle health record fundamentally improves their healthcare outcomes.
Image Credit: Trismegist san/Shutterstock.com
Clue has a unique advantage when it comes to using data to drive female health research. Can you explain how Clue is leveraging its extensive dataset to close the knowledge gap around conditions like PCOS?
When a user tracks their cycle in Clue and opts in to share their de-identified data for research, that data becomes something powerful: it can help answer questions to better understand menstrual and reproductive health for women and people with cycles everywhere. It goes without saying, but women and people with periods have historically been underrepresented in health research, and Clue cycle data (already over 15 billion unique data points) presents a unique opportunity to change this.
In 2023 we launched our Health Record feature with the intention of building the largest dataset linking menstrual cycle data with confirmed diagnoses of the most commonly under-researched and under-diagnosed female health conditions. Already over a million Clue members have contributed their data for this purpose, and that dataset continues to grow daily.
Through our collaborations with researchers at Stanford University, Johns Hopkins University, Berkeley, and many other notable research partners, we're analyzing patterns in cycle data that can help identify condition markers. This data helps fill crucial gaps in research around conditions like PCOS, especially around how symptoms manifest in diverse and aging populations.
Moving forward, research will be even more important at Clue, so you will see more studies from us to help women and people with cycles better understand their bodies and to provide more personalized healthcare support.
PCOS affects millions of individuals worldwide, yet it remains under-researched and misunderstood. How is Clue's scientific collaboration helping to shed light on the complexities of PCOS, and what specific insights have you gained so far?
We know that PCOS affects around 10% of people with cycles worldwide, but up to 70% of affected women are undiagnosed. For those who do get a diagnosis, it is quite common that it takes more than 2 years and more than 3 doctors to get a diagnosis. In Clue, we are collecting big-scale data on the different PCOS symptoms of our users who opted to participate in our research. This dataset unlocks opportunities for collaborative research, for example, on how PCOS symptoms may show up together, how they vary across populations, or which factors impact symptom severity.
PCOS can look and feel very different from person to person. Some of the most common symptoms of PCOS include irregular periods, hair growth on the face and body, acne, infertility, and weight gain. And not everybody with PCOS experiences the same symptoms, which makes a diagnosis more difficult.
Using the Clue dataset for research can help us better understand those varying experiences, which is crucial for improving diagnosis and treatment.
Interestingly, we’ve already seen that Clue users with a confirmed PCOS diagnosis use the 'Feelings' tracking category most often. Yet another reason for more research is to understand better how our bodies and minds are intricately linked.
Over the summer, we launched a collaboration with Headspace to empower people to take control of their mental health as they navigate various stages of their cycle. By combining Clue's leading cycle tracking insights and predictions with Headspace's expert mental health resources, we can support our members as they navigate changes throughout their cycle and manage stress and feelings of everyday anxiety associated with managing health conditions or big life changes like trying to conceive, pregnancy, and perimenopause.
Many individuals experience frustration when trying to get a PCOS diagnosis or access treatment. How is Clue contributing to improving this journey through its research or tools within the app?
We're tackling the diagnosis challenge in several ways. First, our app helps users track and document their symptoms, creating a detailed cycle health record they can show to their doctors. We hear from many users that they show their Clue app data to their healthcare providers during their appointments to back up their experiences with clear data.
We’ve also developed comprehensive educational content specifically about PCOS, to help users understand potential symptoms and know what topics to discuss with their healthcare providers. Additionally, our tracking features are designed to flag atypical cycle patterns or changes, encouraging users to seek professional medical advice when appropriate.
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The overlap between reproductive health conditions like PCOS and other metabolic or hormonal disorders can be complex. How does Clue’s data-driven approach help researchers and clinicians better understand these connections?
That’s right, PCOS is often associated with type 2 diabetes, infertility, cardiovascular disease, obesity, sleep apnea (disrupted breathing in sleep), non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and depression. Getting a diagnosis and treatment early is important because it can help reduce these risks significantly.
Our comprehensive tracking options allow users to monitor multiple health markers simultaneously, helping them and their healthcare providers identify potential connections that may otherwise be missed. Along with PCOS diagnoses, users can also keep a record of other health conditions they may have. This allows us to look at the bigger picture and identify how those conditions and their symptoms may be linked.
For example, users can track their menstrual cycle alongside mood changes, skin issues, and energy levels, providing a more complete picture of how these factors might interact and if a condition like PCOS may be the issue.
Clue is not just a tool for tracking menstrual cycles but also a platform for empowering women to understand their health. How do you envision Clue evolving its role as both a consumer app and a research tool, particularly for those with conditions like PCOS?
Clue has already evolved to be much more than just a period tracker. Our goal is to be a comprehensive health companion through all changes and choices, from the first period to the last. While maintaining our category-leading cycle tracking, we're expanding and developing more sophisticated tracking features and support to help members navigate specific life stages and better manage issues and conditions.
Additionally, we’re constantly working on new research and making the findings as actionable and accessible as possible to our member community, healthcare providers, and decision-makers to help develop a broader scientific understanding of these conditions.
With your experience in leading transformative companies, how do you plan to navigate the intersection between consumer health technology and rigorous scientific research as Clue continues to expand its role in femtech?
We will always maintain the highest standards in both areas. Trust is fundamental to everything we do at Clue, and building evidence-based solutions is key to solving real user challenges. Ensuring our app remains user-friendly, trusted and accessible while upholding the most rigorous scientific standards in our research and medical-grade standards in our product development is non-negotiable for us. It's crucial that our scientific insights translate into practical features and content for our users.
Looking ahead, what are some upcoming milestones or research areas Clue is excited about, especially in relation to PCOS and other under-researched conditions in women’s health?
I’m particularly excited about several initiatives we have underway with researchers from top universities and research institutes that dig into understudied conditions like PCOS, endometriosis, PMDD and improve our understanding of and early symptom diagnostics for perimenopause.
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Where can readers find more information?
Visit HelloClue.com for more information about the Clue app and to explore our menstrual health encyclopedia, which also contains the latest Clue research.
About Rhiannon White
Rhiannon White is an accomplished product leader known for her deep empathy and expertise in crafting exceptional software products and the teams that build them. As Chief Product Officer at Clue, she leads the development of a medical-grade reproductive health app that provides people with cycles personalized insights from their first period to their last. Her career spans a variety of industries and business models, including notable roles at Shazam, Vend, the BBC, and more.
Having worked in London, Silicon Valley, Auckland, and Berlin, Rhiannon brings a global perspective to understanding diverse customer needs. Outside of her professional achievements, she is the proud parent of three spirited and delightful children.
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