Reimagine: A conversation with Russ Glass, CEO of Headspace Health

Long before becoming the CEO of Headspace Health, Russell Glass was in the midst of big professional and personal change – his company had been acquired by LinkedIn, and he had just had his youngest child. He began to use Headspace after hearing a talk from founder Andi Puddicombe. Just three weeks into his mediation practice, he was in a meeting when he noticed everything click – his typical anxious response was replaced by mindfulness tips he had learned. Russ has been meditating since, and credits it as the single biggest difference in his mental health.

I was so pleased to talk with Russell about prioritizing employee well-being, how leaders can empower more open and honest conversations about mental health, and how he takes care of his own mental health and restores his energy throughout the week.

CHRIS CAPOSSELA: You were the CEO of Ginger and recently you led the merger between Headspace and Ginger to create Headspace Health. What’s it been like to lead these two companies during this pandemic and all this uncertainty?

RUSS GLASS: Before the pandemic hit, there was this huge supply-demand imbalance with mental health support, and the pandemic became a perfect storm of mental health need – from people feeling isolated, to worrying about either themselves or family getting sick, to job uncertainty.

We felt this was the moment for Ginger and Headspace to come together to create the world’s first comprehensive platform for mental health access, from meditation and mindfulness and prevention all the way through to video-based and text-based mental health care.

There have been great elements to it, like the focus on our incredible shared mission. The difficult part is trying to do a merger in the middle of a pandemic. It takes time to build trust and to get to know each other.

CHRIS CAPOSSELA: You have reached organizations of all different sizes, including Microsoft, and companies are using your platform to prioritize and provide access to on-demand mental health care. What does it look like when an employer understands the importance of prioritizing employee well-being?

RUSS GLASS: Before the pandemic, companies were starting to think about mental health as something that was important, but it was still on the fringes. Now we’re supporting over 3,300 enterprises around the world and the acceleration of growth is driven by employees saying, “I might leave my job due to mental health issues.”

When you see demand like that, it flips from being a nice-to-have to a must-have.

Headspace is an incredible prevention platform. The example I always use is: we brush our teeth, not because we have a tooth problem today, but because we’re trying to prevent tooth problems, right? That’s what Headspace is really doing for mental health. And we have the Ginger platform that provides real-time behavioral health coaching, therapy, psychiatry for those who need more support.

CHRIS CAPOSSELA: Often people think about mental health support as something that comes through the HR department – but at Microsoft, it’s been super helpful to have our own CEO Satya talk about the importance of mental health broadly to employees.

RUSS GLASS: A lot of companies historically have said, “Hey HR, take care of this.” But HR alone can’t solve it.

I was at LinkedIn and saw firsthand how much Satya thought about the employee experience and mental health, even before it became much more common to do so.

That model is so important for other companies. Satya can talk about his mental health in a way that a lot of leaders still struggle with. When a leader like Satya can have those conversations, it creates an ability for others at the organization to have these conversations also.

One of the pieces of advice that I give leaders is that while it might be too hard to talk about your current mental health struggles, it can be easier to talk about struggles you’ve had in the past. Talk about moments in your career where you’ve had some anxiety, or you’ve felt like the stress was too much. And then talk about, what were the things you went through to help get better?

It’s a positive message, and it still creates the kind of normalization that allows others to have those conversations also.

CHRIS CAPOSSELA: How do you refuel and fill that tank up? What do you to get the energy and inspiration to come back and tackle the next big set of problems at work?

RUSS GLASS: When LinkedIn acquired my company, I had small children and I was really struggling. I wasn’t sleeping very well at night because I had a new baby. I had a little bit of an imposter syndrome coming into LinkedIn from a small company and not feeling confident that I knew what I was doing. I was starting to feel the pressure of stress leading to mild anxiety.

Jeff Weiner, the CEO then of LinkedIn, brought Andy Puddicombe, Headspace’s founder, to LinkedIn to talk about the power of mindfulness and meditation.

So, I downloaded Headspace. I started a mindfulness practice and about three weeks into that practice, I was in a meeting – and it clicked. Something that would have triggered my anxiety, didn’t trigger my anxiety, and I was able to have a mindful response to it. I’ve been meditating since, and it’s been the single biggest difference in my mental health of any single thing I’ve done.

Sleep is just as super important. I get at least seven hours a night. I do a lot of walking meetings every day.

And finally, I’m consistent about taking time for myself. I block all meetings starting around noon on Friday, and I either use that time to catch up on work, or if I’m able to I’ll go play golf or go on a hike – something that’s real self-care on Friday afternoons to go into the weekend feeling clear and focused on my family.

CHRIS CAPOSSELA: What have been some of the surprises of this healthcare world, and what are the most exciting things happening in the digital mental health space?

RUSS GLASS: When I joined Ginger in 2018, it was my first time in the healthcare space. There have been a few surprises.

In technology, you often can decide where you want to go, and the risks and uncertainties you face are within your technology base.

In health care, so much of the limitation to innovation is regulatory: state and federal laws can be conflicting, or don’t always make sense in today’s environment. It can be frustrating because you sometimes see solutions for people who need access to mental health care, and yet we’ve got some structural limitations that make it really difficult.

There’s no shortage of things I’m excited about. We have an opportunity to destigmatize mental health care because Headspace is a brand that people recognize and feel good about.

Taking that loved experience brings people into a much more scalable way of accessing and delivering mental health care – and they’re starting mental health care earlier. Providing that end-to-end platform really reduces the barriers to care.

The fact that we’re seeing a shift now to companies really thinking about mental health support and our solution being one that can help scale this – it’s an exciting time to be in this space.