AMY FAN ISN’T easily rattled. Case in point: When, on May 2, a leaked decision signaled that the country’s highest court planned to overturn the established right to abortion and fracture the groundwork for her entire industry’s existence, the co-founder of Twentyeight Health felt empathy but not shock. For years, she’d noted the changing tide of judicial appointments, and saw “a lot of signals that Roe v. Wade would be overturned.”
Her employees? Not so calm.
“Our team members are here because they care really deeply about reproductive health access. Like most Americans, they’ve never lived in a world without Roe v. Wade,” Fan says. Indeed, most Americans—62 percent, according to Pew Research—disagree with the court’s decision. “Going back in time five decades in terms of policy felt insane.”
So on that day, Fan focused, first, on supporting her team. She Slacked managers, asking them to gauge employees’ needs, and to give them flexibility if they needed the day off. Then, she turned their upcoming all-hands meeting into “a space to support one another.” Discussion wasn’t to be about work. It needn’t be solutions-oriented. But instead of grieving the blow to women’s bodily rights, the conversation among the small, all-virtual team turned to action. What could they do to help? “It made me feel like we are a united front,” says Christina Azimi, Twentyeight’s marketing director.
It was very much by design. Twentyeight Health was founded in 2018 in New
