Actress and founder of Respin, Halle Berry, spoke at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit: A New Era of Leadership. During her fireside chat at the Main Stage, Real Talk About Women’s Health, Halle spoke to the audience about her new venture, Respin, and the work she’s doing to break the stigma around menopause, plus her own personal journey and what fueled her passion for this long-ignored area of women’s health. She was interviewed by Michal Lev-Ram, Editorial Director of Fortune and Co-chair of Fortune MPW Summit.

A misdiagnosis of herpes—which turned out to be the common symptoms of menopause after she had been in perimenopause—led Berry on a journey to raise money in Silicon Valley to launch a community platform for her midlife women’s wellness business, Respin.

“I realized that my own doctor didn’t really understand what was happening with my menopausal body," Berry commented. “It was really hard to get people, largely men, at some of these venture capital companies to believe that menopause was a real thing.”

She also rallied the halls of Congress to support a bill aimed at directing $275 million for research on effective therapies and medicines.

Image credit: Fortune