Nobody told us: The story of how Welleness began

Lucy and I share so many things – a passion for startups, a love of netball, a surname (my maiden name is Smith!), and our sense of humour. But most importantly we share an unwavering belief that women deserve better when it comes to money.

We've both experienced significant financial stress personally. Lucy contributed to a mortgage for 10 years, but when her relationship broke down she was left technically homeless. And I was the breadwinner in our family when I was made redundant on maternity leave with twins. But neither of us had ever sought financial help.

And the question we kept asking ourselves is why?

A broken system

We're being let down by an archaic, male-dominated industry, by an education system that never taught us what we actually need to know, by societal expectations and ingrained cultural taboos that keep women quiet. By a gender pay gap that isn't going away, by discrimination at work when we become mothers or enter midlife.

Our lives and careers aren't linear, and there are financial implications to that which we often don't truly understand. Our pension pots are smaller, our earning potential takes a hit. And in spite of all that, women's wealth is rising – but we're not managing it properly.

Financial advice feels inaccessible and unaffordable – yet another thing to worry about on top of an already overwhelming mental load.

The gap is real

The gender wealth gap isn't about competency. A lot of it comes down to a lack of confidence, a lack of education, and circumstances that were never in our control – gaps in employment that quietly eat into pensions, relationship breakdowns that leave women financially exposed, redundancies that happen on maternity leave.

We've been excluded from money conversations for so long that many of us don't even know what we're missing. Think about it – when did anyone last sit down with you and ask how your pension is looking? Whether you have the right protection in place if you can't work? Whether your income would cover your family if something happened to you?

Most women haven't had that conversation. Not because they don't care – but because nobody offered it in a way that felt accessible, affordable, or relevant to their actual lives.

McKinsey's New Face of Wealth report confirmed what we already knew from living it – 53% of women's assets are currently unmanaged. Not because women aren't capable. Because the system was never built for us.

Where it all began

But let's take it back to the beginning.

Lucy and I worked together at my very first job – and her second. It was a media company that published a mix of books and websites, two of which set the trajectory for both of our futures. Startups.co.uk and Growingbusiness.co.uk were the leading websites for people looking to start and run a business. Lucy oversaw the marketing and I eventually became Editor, but what we both gained more than anything was a love for startups.

Lucy went on to run her own business for over eight years, as well as holding CMO roles at three exciting scaleups. I spent my career leading brand and comms at a number of fintech startups. We went our separate ways – but the thread between us never really broke.

Most recently, Lucy found herself at a financial literacy business, working on training videos. And she just kept thinking: why did no one tell me any of this stuff sooner? And more importantly, why is no one talking specifically to women about this?

Simultaneously, having spent eight years working in fintech and insurtech, I was becoming increasingly frustrated by a financial system that consistently left me feeling on the outside. Motherhood had given me enormous clarity about what I valued, how I wanted to spend my time, and the kind of people I wanted to spend it with. That clarity gave me the courage to take the leap.

We reconnected, compared notes, and realised we were both asking the same question. So we decided to answer it.

What we're building

Welleness is on a mission to make financial advice affordable and accessible for working women.

We give you a proprietary financial health score across six pillars of your financial life – so for the first time you can see exactly where you stand and where the gaps are. From there, our AI agent Elle helps you build confidence and knowledge at your own pace, in plain English, without judgement. And when you're ready, we connect you with a regulated female financial adviser who actually gets it.

We're using AI to bring the cost of advice right down – because the reason it's been out of reach for most women is that the economics of traditional financial advice only ever made sense for the wealthy. We're changing that.

We launched Welleness in late November 2025 and we've already helped over 500 women understand their financial health. But we're just getting started. Women like us deserve better.

If you want to explore the product, you can take our free financial health score in less than 5 minutes.

The first step to closing your financial gaps is simply knowing that they're there. And once you've got a clear picture, we can help you take care of the rest.

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