Lucy Perez is on mission to close women’s health gap

BOSTON – Lucy Perez is on a mission. The senior partner at McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm, will receive a Pinnacle Award in Boston Friday. Each year, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce honors select women who impact their communities through leadership, entrepreneurship, management and more. 

Perez has spent the last year working on an extensive report that highlights inequity in women’s health care, dubbed the women’s health gap, and presents solutions as well. 

“Women’s health is a topic that just hasn’t been given enough attention” she says. “Every woman knows a story that’s either her story, a mother, a friend, her daughter that has frankly faced a health care challenge and hasn’t been listened to, her pain has been minimized.” 

Perez recently presented the findings of the study at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

“A lot of the burden women face is conditions that impact men and women, and they impact women differently and disproportionately,” she notes. 

The study was massive. Forty organizations coalesced, with a team of 50 at McKinsey grinding through data to unearth identifiable disparities and how to address them. 

“The exciting news is that it is addressable. If we address it, we can unlock a trillion dollars in annual economic contribution to global GDP,” she says. 

Some of the key findings include:

• While women live longer than men, they spend 25% more of their lives in debilitating health.
• 56% of the women’s health burden is due to health conditions that are more prevalent and/or manifest differently in women.  
• Investments in treating women’s health different and separate from men’s health could result in a massive boost to the global GDP, amounting to one trillion dollars by 2040.  

“People just went crazy for the work. Everyone was just coming up wanting to know how they could get involved. Really exciting,” says Megan Greenfield. She is a partner at McKinsey who works regularly with Lucy. She’s quick to praise her vision, empowerment of others, and passion for improving women’s health and community uplift. 

“She’s really about being a changemaker, so it’s not about having an elegant solution but how do we make an impact on the frontline,” she said. 

Those frontlines intersect here in Boston. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Lucy connects with local organizations as well. Eneida Roman, President and CEO of Amplify Latin-X nominated Lucy for the award. 

“We care about so many similar things, some of them being not just women’s issues but issues around Latinas, which are the fastest growing demographic in the nation,” she says. 

It is a lot of work, but Lucy is passionately driven to always do more. After all, she’s on a mission. 

“I am looking forward to continuing to expand the circle of collaborators on this topic with whom we can drive positive change!” she said.