Mitul Desai

Mitul Desai teaches us that you don't have to be a mental health professional to be a mental health advocate. A former Senior Advisor in the U.S. State Department under President Obama, Mitul and and Lily explore mental health on a systemic level and in the corporate world. They discuss how mental health has played an important role in both Mitul's personal and professional lives, delving into his experiences having a brother with schizophrenia and being a board member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

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Originally aired OCTOBER 26, 2020

Mitul Desai is Senior Advisor for Digital Innovation at Fountain House, a 70-year-old organization that pioneered a community-based mental illness recovery model now serving over 100,000 individuals around the world.  Mitul is also an active advisor and investor in the mental health tech space.  Prior to Fountain House, he spent five years at a global payments technology firm, leading cross-functional teams across product management, data services, and digital strategy.  From 2010-2013, Mitul served in the Obama Administration as a Senior Advisor at the U.S. State Department, where he designed and built public-private partnerships. He began his career in the health care industry, first as a patent attorney at leading law firms and the pharmaceutical firm Merck, and later as a Wall Street analyst at the investment bank Piper Sandler.  Mitul has a B.A. in chemistry and philosophy from Rutgers University and a J.D. from the Boston University School of Law.  He is a member of the Schizophrenia International Research Society and serves on the Boards of NAMI-NYC and Firefly, CUNY’s Public Health Innovation Accelerator.