Newly elected to the board of directors for Women in Nutraceuticals (WIN), Ewa Hudson, director of insights at Lumina Intelligence, described the role as an honor and a responsibility, as well as one that builds on her long-standing mission to improve consumer outcomes through better evidence and stronger representation.
With a perspective rooted in more than two decades of market intelligence, Hudson said she has a personal drive to build a better future.
“It gives me hope that we can have a better future for ourselves and for our children, that we will have solutions that will help us live longer, live better, extend our healthspan and I personally think this is really, really important and gratifying,” she said.
Reflecting on her career, Hudson emphasized a passion for “building” in the form of data, teams or the industry itself. “Building the industry, helping it grow and flourish…it’s really rewarding for me,” she said. “I sometimes think maybe I should have been an engineer.”
A central theme of the conversation was the gap between scientific innovation and real-world consumer behavior. Hudson said that while research often focuses on granular mechanisms, success in the market comes down to being aligned with how people actually live. For companies, that means creating products that fit seamlessly into daily routines and deliver measurable, consistent results.
With women historically underrepresented in clinical trials, Hudson noted that this has led to gaps in understanding female biology, impacting everything from hormonal health to the microbiome. While emerging technologies offer new opportunities, she said that there is still significant work needed to close these gaps.
“Only now do we really have the tools that will allow us to make it happen,” she said. “We have AI, we have genomic sequencing, we have other technologies that will help us understand how actually the female body is built, the biology behind it [and]...how it responds to different nutrients. We need to get to the bottom of this.”
In addition to research, Hudson hopes to increase representation in the teams interpreting data and developing products. Through her work with WIN, she aims to expand global engagement, particularly in Europe and Asia, while advancing more inclusive, evidence-based approaches to innovation.
