It's now time to bring on our second speaker Jonny Jacobs. Jonny is the FD of Starbucks. And alongside his FD role, he is incredibly busy being a tireless advocate for mental health across several forums. Jonnny is a trustee of the Mental Health Foundation, the UK is leading mental health charity. He's a non executive director of mental health at work. He's one of my favourite things to be, which is a one year old ambassador. And he's also a goalkeeper of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Joining was unsurprisingly voted and recognised as the young Chartered Accountants of the year in 2017. And he plays a very key role in supporting arcades and their mental health initiatives. So, Jonny, a big welcome to the show, please let me know if I've left after anything from your very impressive bio, but we'd love to kind of kick off with you talking kind of through your journey as a mental health activist and advocates.

00:55

Thanks, Mandy. First of all, you're far too kind. And D, I just loved hearing your talk that it feels like this panel discussion is gonna get really interesting, so many great things that that you mentioned. And yeah, thank you very much. And where to start? Sometimes people asked me why isn't accountant talking about mental health or mental fitness. And I think it's probably best if I just start with a bit of a personal story. So for those that don't know me, can understand me a little bit more. And I guess why I'm involved in this space. And some of it comes back to my childhood, I grew up in really challenging environments. I grew up in a working class family and Glasgow, and I was surrounded by mental ill health. And at the age of 13, my life changed forever. Where many families opted in the country, my parents got divorced. But I ended up in a situation where I effectively was bringing myself up alone. And I got to the lowest of low place, and I couldn't talk to anybody. And I certainly feel a lot of shame. And it was nobody arrived to see let's talk. And why because of stigma. It wasn't something that you spoke about back then certainly not in a working class family in western Scotland. And in some respects, in some cases, it's not something that you talk about no. But looking back on it, there's no question that stigma stole my childhood. And there's no question that stigma means that I'm one phone call away from one of my friends. You know, we talk when my friends may have taken their own life. And stigma steals. And that's why webinars like this in conversation with us are so important. So we can try and break down the stigma. And for me, I think I found my purpose in business. A number of years ago, I was applied as a global stalking business that was like sold McVities biscuits or cookies for some of y'all Nicole, and Godiva chocolate. And we took a programme that they ended up having over 120, and most amazing ambassadors, mental health and wellbeing ambassadors, that became a gold standard programme that we signed the first ever social partnership with the McVities brand and mental health charity mind. And we reach millions of people up and down the country. And one of my big learnings, in terms of my own journey was language, you talk directly about the difference between mental health and mental fitness. And I'll just pick up on that for a second. Because I remember going around the exec team and saying, Are you know, should we do something on mental health? And the thing is, nobody's going to say no, no, no, we looked at mental health. But when you ask for money, you may get a very different, it may give a different answer. I remember some things I would say the words mental health, and I would literally feel the stigma just like land on the ground stigma. And then we look deep inside the mission and values of the organisation. And we we decided that instead, we call the programme positive means. And I remember going back around to seeing people and said, Oh, should we do positive minds and went yeah, that's a great idea. Let's do pause domains. Here's some money, and lying. We just been a key part of my journey in the story. And now at Starbucks, as many of you know that the global coffee company. I'm hugely privileged to be the sponsor of our well being programme across our Europe, Middle East and Africa region. And we are hundreds of ambassadors are also trying to make a difference. It's amazing. And a couple of weeks ago, and our UK stores 1000s of ambassadors wore the green mental health ribbon badge which was amazing. Really saying we want to beat the stigma. And a key part of what we're trying to do there is share stories and those that amazing seeing it says every time we share a story, we send the life ball hope and I really believe that our role could be to send more lifeboats and vulnerabilities are superpower maybe the rule of accountants out there is to send more lifeboats so they know more than ever. Our mental health assume Orson and the legacy that the articulated that incredibly well. So it's a real privilege for me to be working with iCast co leading the mental fitness and business strategy. And I do think there's a massive role of accountants here to win hearts and minds, not just across the profession, but also within the organisations that they serve and the organisations that part of. So hopefully media sharing that in terms of stigma, and language and stories, there are certainly three key parts of the journey of discovery that I've been on about mental health.

05:34

Thanks so much, Johnny. I mean, as your story so eloquently really tells us that childhood experiences can really shape your your adult mental health as well. So I guess a question I have for you is, what could we be doing better at an educational level to really reach young people who may be struggling?

05:53

Such an important point, because we have to drive awareness at a young age? You know, I look back. And it wasn't until about 10 years ago, I won't tell you how old I was Wonder, but 10 years ago, that I did my first step, our insights, personality profile, and I found out there was certain colours, and then they would tell you, you know, who you'd interact with? Well, and some of the challenges I look back on. And I thought, I know know why, when I was five years old, I did not get on with Adam in the playground. Like, because he just made me think about my personality, and like, who resonated with me and the challenges and anything but why don't we teach more about our personalities are more about our well being and our mental well being, and our psychology skills. And now we're seeing some governments lean into this in certain countries. And we're seeing charities also lean into this by providing education and mental health awareness, but not just mental ill health, just broader understanding of our own, who we are and when psyche is fundamentally important. And it wasn't until I was at One Young World, by the way, that when I was sat there in Bogota, and I was listening to these very well known people share their stories about mental health. And I'm guessing that many of the millennials in that room and Gen Z in that room, it was the first time we've heard it, too. But it's Gen Z and millennials, it's going to be a leaders of the future. So if they're not educated, know how they're going to make a difference. I think we have to get in early. And we have to educate early because ultimately, these will also be the leaders of the future.

07:27

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And you know, I think Dee Dee mentioned this earlier, as well, that we need to start looking at our mental health the same way we would our physical health. And I mentioned at the beginning of the webinar, you know why we believe mental health is still largely inaccessible being stigma costs, and, and people not really knowing how to enter the system in the same way they would for for physical ailment. So I'd love to hear from your perspective, what you see in business as well, and why people aren't getting the help that they potentially need.

07:55

Yeah, I think there's two things there. So So I think those are, let's address on to so so what, what's the barrier? And then how can we then help? The barrier comes back to I said, at the start of stigma. It's interesting. If you go into Google, and you Google the word finance, one of the first things that comes up as the ft. Sort of, you know, it'll sell in the UK, that's fair. So find out to get ft. If you Google the word stigma, you're the first thing that comes up when you Google the word stigma. And stigma, by the way, is a mark of disgrace. Plus definition, the first thing because it was mental health, there is so much stigma associated with mental health, that even Google tells you that mental health has a stigma, the first thing that comes up, it's a mark of disgrace. And that tells you what we have to teach. We've got to go over stigma. And I think talking about it, and sharing stories can normalise it. And I couldn't I do think the role of finance professionals have a huge role to play and sharing those stories are said in all those lifeboats and why are CFOs important? Why is the accounting and finance community important to break down those barriers? Well, we hold the purse strings and organisations we can open up investment. If we can understand it, we can hopefully help and start allocating more money into budgets. When you look at your health and safety budget, how much goes on health versus safety? Let's protect the budgets and let's also ensure that we invest we focus more and as the also said move up to be a strategic priority within your organisation.

09:31

I love that Johnny, I couldn't agree more. And I think we'll bring you onto our team to start pitching panda as well. But yeah, couldn't couldn't agree more. And I think the more that we share these kinds of stories and normalise it the better from from a policy perspective and a kind of a government government intervention perspective. Do you think that there's anything more that can be done to actually then protect the mentally ill?

09:55

Things a few things Yeah, I mean, across different countries will be different. views around mental and physical health. So I just talked to the UK for a second. Do we have parity between mental and physical health? And without getting too bogged down in the politics of all? No, the World Health Organisation says the cost of mental health is everything between one and two $2 trillion. And it's the next big pandemic. And in UK, mental ill health costs about three costs about three to 5% of GDP. Right. So it's massive. So from a policy perspective, how much should we be investing in things like national health services, but also in countries maybe with a resonant National Health Service? But there's other health provisions? Do you have parity between mental and physical health, recognising that mental ill health could be three to 5% of a country's GDP? So I think there's lots that you can do at a policy level. But also, what about corporate reporting and transparency? You know, we've had gender pay gap reporting in recent years and different countries. If you look at it through that lens, even UK, for example, there's been supplier frameworks where we're putting in place transparency to protect suppliers, or what we're doing in terms of corporate reporting around protecting the mental health of colleagues. And there's really something around looking at well being within that, that governments and policy organisations may do it in that space.

11:23

Thanks so much. Joining us again, so many more questions to ask you. And we're going to bring you back to the roundtable in a moment.