Mental Health Wellbeing
What should professional advisors know about mental health and the role of philanthropy and why?
Mental health conditions are invisible, and like all invisible things, it is hard to recognise them or understand their impact on daily life; even though mental health affects millions of people. The very real struggles people face are often kept hidden, underestimated, and viewed with suspicion.
COVID-19 pandemic brought many changes in our lives. During the lockdown, where social distancing became mandatory, and people were forced to stay apart from their families and friends, the percentage of people who started struggling with their mental wellbeing has increased considerably, but the provisions already established are struggling to keep up with the demand. The NHS Confederation, which represents health and care leaders, recently announced in a report that mental services requited “intensive support and investment” in order to continue to help those who needed it. At the start of May, the mental health charity Mind found that almost a quarter of people who tried to access mental health support had failed to get any help.
During this important event, we will discuss with an international panel, the importance of investing in mental health services. We will explore what we, as a civil society, could do to address this important issue?
- What are our responsibilities towards those who struggle with mental health conditions?
- Why is it essential to invest in peoples ‘mental wellbeing?
- Could philanthropy and social impact investment unlock capital to provide the additional financial support needed by the sector?
- What is the professional advisors role in meeting the growing demand from their clients for support on their donor journey?
Chair Natasha Mueller, Founder and CEO, NM Impact Ltd
Panel Sir Ian Cheshire, Chairman, Barclays UK ; Elisha London, Founder and CEO, United for Global Mental Health; Elyse Cohen, Vice President Social Impact, Rare Beauty; Patrick Kern, Board Member and Chief Project Officer, Peter Möhrle Foundation
Speaker Bios
Natasha Mueller
Natasha is a next gen impact investor, philanthropist and mental health activist. She is a convener to the core and is passionate about leveraging her deep network to build and support a global ecosystem of local change-makers that, together, create sustainable solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.
NM Impact Ltd. was founded with the aim to inspire, motivate and connect like-minded Next Gens and to catalyze increased capital flows, whether philanthropically or through impactful investments, to social enterprises and sustainable businesses. Natasha’s sector involvement and proactive participation in investments focus on themes including food systems, clean tech, gender equality, affordable housing, as well as water, waste, and environmental sanitation. Ultimately, she looks at how she can use her energy and resources to catalyze a compassionate systems-change transformation that puts community and human connection at the heart of it.
Natasha also actively campaigns on mental health issues, has worked on several policy initiatives, and helps fundraise and create philanthropic solutions. She is a trustee for United for Global Mental Health and Philanthropy Impact, occupies seats on various advisory committees and boards including, the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth (CSP) at the University of Zurich, the Empower initiative at Harvard Medical School, and is a founding member of The Conduit social impact membership club.
Natasha holds a BA in Geography; an MSC in the Political Economy of Violence, Conflict, and Development from SOAS University, and is an Alumni of the Impact Investing for the Next Generation course at Harvard Kennedy School. Outside of her work, she was a competitive equestrian show jumper and is currently an avid weightlifter, sports enthusiast, and a contemporary art collector.
Elisha London
Elisha London is the CEO and Founder of United for Global Mental Health; an organization committed to ensuring everyone, everywhere has someone to turn to, who is trained to support them with their mental health. In 2013 Elisha suffered a trauma and was diagnosed with PTSD and depression. Following her recovery Elisha was appointed as Campaign Director for the Head Together Campaign.
Following her role with Heads Together Elisha dedicated her time to understand mental health around the world. Prior to her work with Heads Together Elisha was a leader in development campaigning, having founded Global Poverty Project (“Global Citizen”) in the UK. Using this experience and passion for mental health Elisha saw the huge gap that exists in addressing mental health around the world, especially in low and middle income countries, and has brought together the world’s leading experts on global mental health, resource mobilisation and campaigning to address it. She founded and launched United for Global Mental Health.
In a short space of time momentum for this initiative has grown and attracted strong interest in collaboration around advocacy, campaigning and resource mobilisation for global mental health.
On September 26 2018, United for Global Mental Health co-organised an event at the UN General Assembly, "Time to Act on Global Mental Health,” with the Governments of Canada, Ecuador, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Bahrain, the World Health Organisation, Nexus and the Born This Way Foundation. The UN Secretary General provided a video address in which he announced a new initiative, the United Nations Staff Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy, to care for the people who deliver the work of the UN. He said: “For too long mental health has been mostly an afterthought, despite its overwhelming impacts on individuals and communities…. I look forward to strengthening our shared work to promote mental health for everyone, everywhere.”
Previously Elisha has consulted for a range of multilateral, government and non-profit organisations including the UK Department for International Development and The World Bank. She holds an MBA from TRIUM (NYU New York, LSE London, HEC Paris), and an MSc in Development Management from the London School of Economics.
Sir Ian Cheshire
Sir Ian was appointed as a non-exec Director of Barclays PLC and Chairman of Barclays UK in April 2017. Other current appointments are non-executive director BT Group plc, Chairman Menhaden plc and chair of Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund. Previous appointments were Chairman of Debenhams, CEO of Kingfisher plc, B&Q, Chairman Maisons du monde, and Lead Non-Executive Director for the Government. He was Chairman of the British Retail Consortium, Chairman of the Prince of Wales Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, President of the Business Disability Forum President’s Group and chaired the Ecosystem Markets Task Force. Sir Ian retired as non-exec director of B&B plc in 2010. He has won a number of awards including Lifetime contributions to retailing and Fortune WEF award for leadership. Sir Ian was knighted in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to Business, Sustainability and the Environment and is a Chevalier of the Ordre National du Merite of France.
Patrick Kern
In his position as member of the board of the Peter Möhrle Foundation Patrick’s focus is on mental health engagement. He is on the advisory board of the Edmund Siemers Foundation and serves on the board of a crime prevention charity. Patrick started his social career with the founding of a catering company, for which he employed former prisoners and thus supported the prisoner’s reintegration into society. As sustainability manager at one of Europe's largest real estate companies he isresponsible for the portfolio to become climate neutral and taking care of the company’s social engagement worldwide.
Elyse Cohen
Elyse Cohen is the Vice President of Social Impact at Rare Beauty, a cosmetic brand founded by Selena Gomez. In this role, Elyse works side-by-side with Selena to ensure the brand is living out its purpose to support the mental health of its community, employees, and partners. She oversees the development and implementation of Rare Beauty’s social impact initiative, partnerships, and the Rare Impact Fund.
Prior to Rare Beauty, Elyse was the Senior Director for food, health, and wellness programs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation where she worked at the intersection of business, health, food, inclusion, and social impact— helping businesses harness their role in improving the health of consumers, employees, and communities around the world.
Elyse also served as the Deputy Director of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative—working directly with the First Lady to help America raise a healthier generation of kids and families. In this role, Elyse was a strategic leader and advisor, conceptualizing and directing the campaign’s priority initiatives, collaborating with c-suite executives in the private sector, government, and non-profit sectors, and ensuring unique and authentic positioning for the First Lady.
Prior to joining Michelle Obama’s senior staff, Elyse spent more than a decade developing social marketing and health communication campaigns. She is experienced in creating and communicating corporate social responsibility initiatives and public-private partnerships that leverage assets, generate change, and uniquely position brands as leaders in social impact.
Outside of work, Elyse is a people person, a proud aunt, and loves cooking, entertaining, and a fun workout class. She graduated from the University of Florida and received her Master’s degree in Public Health Communication and Marketing from the George Washington University. She serves on the boards of DC Greens and DC Central Kitchen helping to improve food access in the Nation’s Capital.
Terms and conditions
Prior registration is required. Following resistration, registrants will receive an email containing instructions for joining the webinar. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask live questions of the speakers during the web-event.
Please note we can only accept credit/debit cards as methods of payment for the web-event. Payment must be made by credit/debit card at time of booking. It is regretted that refunds of purchased of web-events are not permissible, nor bookings transferable to another participant/registrant name. All bookings are considered binding once the online registration form is submitted and booking completed.
Registration closed
