GMHT Announces Inaugural World Mental Health Week Leadership Summit with Boys Town as Presenting Sponsor

Thursday, September 24th, 2026

The Global Mental Health Task Force (GMHT) is proud to announce its inaugural World Mental Health Week Leadership Summit, taking place October 8 at the United Nations Dining Room in New York City, with Boys Town serving as Presenting Sponsor.

Held in the lead-up to World Mental Health Day on October 10, the Summit will bring together leaders across mental health, healthcare, research, policy, investment, technology, philanthropy, business, and lived experience around the ideas, partnerships, and actions needed to move mental health forward.

Mental health is at an inflection point. Extraordinary work is advancing across sectors, yet too often these efforts remain siloed.

No single organization, sector, or solution can address the scale of the mental health crisis alone. It will take all of us.

“The mental health crisis demands more than conversation. This inaugural Summit is the first of what we hope will become an annual gathering focused on turning collaboration into meaningful action,” said Rachel Wilkins, Executive Director of the Global Mental Health Task Force. “We’re proud to begin that work with Boys Town as our Presenting Sponsor.”

The invitation-only Summit will convene a highly curated cross-section of senior leaders spanning diplomacy, global health, academic research, clinical innovation, Fortune 500 companies, family offices, investment funds, major healthcare institutions, nonprofit leadership, policy, and those with lived experience.

Programming will explore mental health across generations, innovation, brain health and longevity, investment, policy, and lived experience, alongside keynote conversations, expert panels, and curated opportunities for connection.

As a Presenting Sponsor and national leader in youth mental health and wellbeing, Boys Town brings more than a century of experience helping children and families thrive through integrated care, research, education and family support. Boys Town Chief Executive Officer Rod Kempkes will also join the Summit as a keynote speaker.

“The Leadership Summit gives us an opportunity to turn shared ideas into collective action and build a more hopeful future for mental health,” said Kempkes.

GMHT’s work is grounded in the belief that mental health is fundamental to human wellbeing and in its commitment to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being and SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals.

Our ambition is to build a coalition that does more than convene: creating the conditions for collaboration to become action, and for action to become measurable progress.

For more than a century, Boys Town has helped children and families heal, grow and thrive. Boys Town connects compassionate care, family support, education and research across homes, schools and communities. In 2025, Boys Town directly served more than 197,000 children and families nationwide. As Presenting Sponsor of the Global Mental Health Task Force’s World Mental Health Week Leadership Summit, Boys Town is helping bring leaders together to advance a more connected, accessible and human-centered future for mental health. 

Over the coming weeks, GMHT will announce additional speakers, leaders, and partners helping shape the inaugural Summit.

A New Chapter for the Global Mental Health Task Force

From convening to collective action

Monday, September 21st, 2026

For the past three years, the Global Mental Health Task Force has brought leaders together around a simple but urgent belief: the mental health crisis is too complex for any one organization, sector, or solution to address alone.

That belief remains at the center of GMHT. But our next chapter requires more.

Convening creates possibility. Coalition creates reach. The opportunity now is to turn both into collective action, shared accountability, and measurable progress.

Across mental health, extraordinary work is already happening in research, healthcare, technology, policy, investment, philanthropy, and lived experience. Yet too often, these efforts develop alongside one another rather than with one another. Capital can be disconnected from innovation. Innovation can be disconnected from lived experience. Research can struggle to move into implementation.

GMHT intends to help close those gaps.

Our work will increasingly focus on three interconnected pillars: innovation, investment, and lived experience, bringing together the people, ideas, resources, and perspectives required to move promising solutions forward responsibly and at scale.

This next phase is also rooted in our commitment to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being and SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals. Mental health progress is inseparable from stronger health systems, meaningful partnerships, equitable access, and the ability to translate shared ambition into action.

As GMHT sharpens its strategy, we are also strengthening the leadership responsible for delivering it.

Rachel Wilkins has been appointed Executive Director, leading GMHT’s strategy, partnerships, and programming. A longtime entrepreneur, media leader, and community builder, Rachel has spent her career creating platforms that connect people, ideas, and emerging technologies. She brings a track record of building cross-sector communities and translating ambitious ideas into programs, partnerships, and public engagement.

Rebecca Jones joins GMHT as Chief Fundraising Officer. A technology and healthcare executive with more than 25 years of experience leading growth and transformation, Rebecca brings deep expertise in AI, healthcare innovation, strategic partnerships, and capital development. Her role will focus on building the relationships and resources necessary to move GMHT’s ambitions from vision to scale.

Together, this leadership reflects the kind of organization we are building: one capable of connecting ideas with resources, innovation with implementation, and institutional leadership with human experience.

As we move forward, we also want to recognize Beth Haggerty for her leadership and service to GMHT.  Beth has played an important role in the organization’s development and in helping establish the foundation from which this next phase can grow. As she transitions from executive leadership to the Board, we are grateful that her knowledge, perspective, and commitment to the mission will remain part of GMHT’s future.

This is not simply a leadership transition. It is a recommitment to what GMHT can uniquely contribute. Over the coming months, we will be refining our strategic priorities, expanding our network of partners, developing clearer frameworks for outcomes and accountability, and identifying areas where collaboration can accelerate work that is already underway.

You will hear more from us throughout Q4, including new partnerships, programs, leadership announcements, and opportunities to participate in the work ahead.

We also want to hear from those already building solutions.

If you are working across mental health, healthcare, research, technology, investment, philanthropy, policy, innovation, or lived experience and believe there is an opportunity to collaborate, partner, or build alongside GMHT, we invite you to connect with us through our inquiry form.

The next chapter of mental health will not be built in silos. It will be built by connecting the people, capital, knowledge, and lived experience already capable of moving the field forward, and creating the conditions for them to act together.