This Chief People Officer Just Became The Ad Industry’s Therapist

When a toxic Wall Street workplace left James Kinney with debilitating anxiety and agoraphobia, he could only access mental health treatment if he continued to accept the environment that triggered his condition. “I was essentially trapped in my apartment in Brooklyn and terrified to catch the subway,” said Kinney, who is the global chief people officer at Media.Monks. “15 years later now that I have the tools to cope, I don’t want anyone else to have the experience that I had.” After being forced to manage his symptoms the “old school way,” which consisted of taking walks, reading books and practicing yoga, Kinney is presenting the advertising industry with coping skills and wellness education that doesn't depend on an insurance plan or a therapist office’s waitlist. The Advertising Alliance for Mental Health (AMH), which Kinney developed alongside a board of like-minded industry advisors, sheds light on the pressure across the advertising space to constantly contribute creative ideas and answer demands from clients. Kinney, who remembers his HR lead telling him to “take a nap and then get back to work” when he opened up about his mental health, is working to combat the industry’s continued glorification of a hustle culture that deprioritizes wellness and self care. According to Kinney, mental health needs don’t elicit the same level of urgency as physical ailments. While a broken arm is immediately placed in a cast, symptoms of depression and anxiety are not efficiently treated. To combat this inaccessibility while acknowledging the specific needs of business professionals, Kinney’s platform includes free anxiety management courses, group coaching calls from mental health professionals and an anonymous community forum. He is launching the platform alongside his “Beat Burnout Challenge,” a six-week podcast-style course that is designed to build community among AMH members. How do we have meetings? How are our organizations designed? Is toxicity in our DNA or is it not? Is creativity really celebrated, or our deadlines really celebrated? These are the questions that we really have to ask ourselves—James Kinney, global chief people officer, Media.Monks Advocacy on and off the clock After spending years caring for his mental health, Kinney deployed his knowledge in leadership roles across several leading agencies. He built Giant Spoon’s first diversity program, after joining as the company’s director of people, and became what he describes as the “head coach” for employees dealing with challenging life changes, from the death of a parent, to breakups, anxiety, generational challenges and others. Since then, Kinney held roles as chief talent officer at the creative agency Mother, and global chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer and North America chief people officer at Ogilvy, before accepting his current position at Media.Monks. While maintaining his full-time role, Kinney quietly worked on AMH for the past year. He produced all of AMH’s foundational content by himself, and he’s funding the entire mission, he told Adweek. “I really think that when you make something a transactional process, or when commerce is involved, it changes the relationship of what should occur,” he said. “With something this special to me, monetization wasn't something that I was interested in.” https://open.spotify.com/artist/2Y2CI7G6BSVMyEcCeXEHdd Building transparency through community Kinney has no plans to formally hire staff. Instead, he sees the AMH as a community-driven and volunteer-led initiative, which could lead to location-based chapters and in-person meetups. “Maybe there's a New York chapter, a Los Angeles chapter, etcetera. So, I can see people volunteering to help spread the word and spread the message, which I think is the most important thing,” he said. Kinney’s advisory board, consisting of industry leaders across the ecosystem includes Walter T. Geer, chief experience design officer at VMLY&R, Amber Justis, evp and head of creative at Wunderman Thompson California and Nancy Luong, digital program manager at Salesforce. “That pressure cooker environment really bonded us, because we saw in each other that we could, if we partnered up, share some of that burden together and be that conduit of support for the people that weren't getting it,” Justis said, who met Kinney in a previous role. The board will advise Kinney on how to advance the platform, which courses to launch next, how to best consider representation when working with mental health coaches and how to ensure the platform maintains an intersectional approach to mental health.The community-focused forum will help fill a gap for creatives with mental health concerns. Often, companies encourage employees to contact employee assistance programs (EAPs) to get help with those concerns. The trouble, according to Kinney, is that those programs are meant to help employees after they’ve already recognized a problem, instead of providing them support and mental health tools on a regular basis. He hopes that his service can be a continuous resource in an industry of employers who offer “quick fixes”—like additional time off or short-term counseling—that fail to soothe discontent in organization with deep-seeded cultural strains. “How do we have meetings? How are our organizations designed? Is toxicity in our DNA or is it not? Is creativity really celebrated, or our deadlines really celebrated? These are the questions that we really have to ask ourselves,” Kinney said. By introducing a library of external resources and creating an open forum, Kinney hopes to spark internal conversations that span beyond the boilerplate EAP registration sheet from HR. “My hope it's a paradigm shift for how we see our industry. I want other people to see CFOs and CEOs also talk about their mental health and be a part of the platform,” said Kinney.