Defying Gravity: Interview with Karina Vazirova
Building FemTech Lab, Breaking Silence, and Becoming Whole
When the world stood still in 2020, Karina Vazirova was deep in the technology sector, building products for banks and law firms. It was a career defined by precision, structure, and intellect. Yet in the quiet of lockdown, something inside her began to shift.
“I had been working in tech for seven years,” she tells me. “It was stimulating and challenging, but something felt missing. I was looking for meaning.”
That search led her to a virtual conference on women’s health. The event was filled with investors, scientists, and founders imagining new futures for women’s wellbeing.
“I had a full-body response,” she says. “After years in male analytical environments, hearing these smart, wise, collaborative women talk about the future of women’s health felt so fresh. I knew instantly that this was where I wanted to be.”
That moment became the beginning of FemTech Lab, a London-based accelerator and global community supporting innovation in women’s health.
“I had a full-body response... This was the space I wanted to pour my creative energy into.”
The Permission to Be an Imposter
Karina never set out to build an accelerator. She also had no background in health. “I came from law and technology. My co-founder came from media and fintech. We were complete outsiders,” she says. “But not knowing everything gave us freedom.”
Instead of seeing their lack of experience as a weakness, they treated it as an opportunity to see things differently. “We could look at the industry as a whole, compare it to fintech, energy, and law, and start noticing patterns. That gave us permission to be a bit disruptive.”
They built the kind of platform they wished had existed — one that would bring together founders, investors, and experts to grow the sector collaboratively. “We didn’t have to follow the rules. And because we didn’t, people really resonated with it.”
Launching during COVID added another layer of challenge. “Everything was digital. No events, no rooms, no in-person energy,” she recalls. “Entrepreneurship felt like defying gravity. You’re constantly being pulled down and somehow learning how to expand before you contract. Some days you levitate. Other days, gravity wins.”
“Entrepreneurship felt like defying gravity. You’re constantly being pulled down and somehow learning how to rise again.”
Survival, Cash Flow, and Purpose
“They say every successful company goes bankrupt a few times on the way,” Karina says with a quiet laugh. “It always comes down to cash flow. How much is in the bank, how much is going out, and what you’ve promised.”
She remembers one particularly intense moment: their Decoding the Future of Women conference during London Tech Week. “Six hundred people attended. Every detail was intentional, even the food was designed around the menstrual cycle. Outwardly, it looked flawless. But behind the scenes, we were wondering, will it all work out? Can we make payroll?”
That tension between purpose and practicality was constant. “You start questioning whether something meaningful can also be sustainable. Those moments send you to dark places,” she admits. “But every time I saw how much our work mattered, I knew we had to keep going.”
“You start questioning whether something meaningful can also be sustainable.”
Fertility, Silence, and the Messiness of Choice
Working in women’s health has stripped away many of Karina’s inhibitions. “I can talk about vibrators, sex tech, vaginal microbiomes, menstrual blood, all of it,” she says. “I find it fascinating. But these are still taboos. Algorithms block them. Viagra ads are fine, but when you talk about women’s biology, it’s flagged.”
The most personal subject for her is fertility. “That’s something I still grapple with. The more I learn, the more complex it feels. There’s pressure around timing, around motherhood, around identity. It’s not shameful, it’s just confusing.”
She pauses.
“When I think about it intellectually, I can talk about cycles, biology, and science. But when I think about it personally, it becomes messy. It’s one of those things that we all carry quietly.”
Community as Consequence
“We didn’t set out to build a community,” Karina says. “We set out to solve a problem. But when you build something meaningful, people gather around it.”
That community became one of her greatest rewards. “The people who came to FemTech Lab were people who shared this mindset of optimism and potential. They didn’t want to dwell on what was missing. They wanted to build the future together.”
Still, community leadership brought its own challenges. “I’ve always been a bit of a people pleaser,” she admits. “I wanted everyone to be happy. But that’s impossible. You can’t lead like that. You have to accept that some people will disagree with you, and that’s okay. The goal isn’t to make everyone happy. The goal is to stay true to your purpose.”
“You can’t lead by trying to please everyone. The goal isn’t harmony. It’s integrity.”
An Untold Origin
When I ask if there’s a story behind FemTech Lab that she hasn’t shared publicly, she hesitates for a moment. Then she begins.
“My co-founder and I are both Russian. I was born in 1990, when the Soviet Union was collapsing. It was a turbulent, chaotic time. My parents lost everything. My mother rebuilt our lives from scratch while raising two kids. She became a freelance accountant before freelancing even existed. She did everything.”
Karina’s mother became her model of strength. “That story is so common for women in Eastern Europe. Women carried everything while the world was falling apart. My mother is my origin story. She’s the definition of resilience and femininity. FemTech Lab is, in many ways, an extension of her strength.”
“My mother is my origin story. She’s the definition of resilience and femininity.”
Identity and Integration
“Before I started FemTech Lab, I wanted to do something meaningful,” Karina says. “Everything I had done before was ambitious and challenging, but it wasn’t meaningful. I wanted purpose.”
“And then I built FemTech Lab, and that part of me became real. I don’t feel like everything I do now has to be purpose-driven, because I am. The same goes for creativity. It used to be something I had to reach for. Now it’s just there.”
She smiles. “If FemTech Lab disappeared tomorrow, I’d still be me. Still creative, still curious, still in love with women and their stories. The company doesn’t define me anymore. It’s part of me, but I’ve integrated it.”
“I don’t need to chase purpose anymore. I am purpose-driven because I am.”
Learning to Lead with Care
“I’m still learning to be vulnerable,” she admits. “I’ve always been structured and rational. But this work has softened me.”
Her biggest teachers have been the founders she mentors. “They build with so much empathy. They care deeply about their users. Watching them made me realize that the same care they have for their customers, I need to have for them.”
She mentions a book that shaped her thinking, Setting the Table, by restaurateur Danny Meyer. “It says you can serve incredible food, but if the service is bad, the experience breaks. That’s true in business too. You can build the best product in the world, but if you don’t care for the people around it, it loses meaning.”
Karina reflects for a moment. “Before FemTech Lab, I lived in cerebral worlds. Law, tech, strategy. This work made me more human. It taught me to lead not just with my head, but with my heart. I think that’s still transforming me.”
“This work taught me to lead not just with my head, but with my heart.”
“Founding a company is defying gravity,” she told me earlier. And perhaps that is the essence of her story.
The constant pull between intellect and emotion. Between structure and softness. Between the world as it is, and the one women like her are quietly building, with an unapologetic force.
