Blurring the Lines with Sara Lindsey at Headspace

This week I spoke with Sara Lindsey at Headspace . Sara previously worked at 爱德曼 and Veritas Collaborative, LLC before joining Headspace whose mission is to provide every person access to lifelong mental health support.

Tell me about your career journey up until this point.

Mental health has been a red thread throughout my career. My first job was an in-house marketing role at a specialty healthcare system for people with eating disorders, which was super meaningful work. After a few years in marketing, my scope grew to include communications — which I had absolutely zero experience in. Fortunately, the company brought on an incredible and highly respected fractional communications advisor named Esther Campi , who is still one of my closest mentors to this day. She taught me PR 101: how to pitch a reporter, what makes something newsworthy, how to write an op-ed that will actually get placed, best practices for prepping spokespeople, and so much more. She saw potential in me, told me I had strong gut PR instincts, and pushed me to consider a career in communications. Over a decade later, I’m so glad she did!

With Esther’s guidance, I quickly stepped into my stride and started landing amazing media results. I’ll never forget my first big media hit — I landed a feature story on the company in the front page of Richmond Times Dispatch the week we expanded and opened a new eating disorders clinic in Virginia. That article alone led to over a dozen inquiries from families seeking services — and ultimately, resulted in two long-term patient admissions. That was the first time I witnessed the real impact communications can have — both for a business and for people seeking life-saving care. I was hooked.?

From there, I went on to join 爱德曼 , one of the world’s most recognized PR firms, as a vice president working with all types of companies across the health and wellness sector, including a number in the mental health space. That experience gave me a massive network of the world’s top communicators and exposure to incredible, award-winning brand marketing campaigns.?

Today I lead external communications for Headspace and get to tell stories that help people love and trust Headspace, engage with our products & services and see the impact we have on the world.?

Your current role includes leading B2B, B2C and corporate communications. At a high-level, can you share how these areas of PR differ?

Corporate communications is all about building trust and credibility in the company through strategic media relations, critical reputation management work, and executive thought leadership. For our team at Headspace, that means ensuring we have really crisp messaging on hot topics like data privacy and security, AI and how we're using it within our products and services today, and the scientific and clinical rigor behind our offerings. We’re also responsible for equipping our executives with the messaging and media skills they need to tell our story in a way that will break through the noise — in the media, at the world’s top health and tech conferences, and across their LinkedIn channels.?

For B2B communications, the focus is much different. We spend a lot of time working with customers and partners to pitch case studies and prove our impact through the voice of our enterprise and health plan clients.?

Then on the B2C side, that's when my team gets to flex our creative muscles and work on fun, integrated marketing campaigns that help reduce the stigma around mental health and get people to think about investing in their wellbeing in new ways, throughout all of life’s ups and downs.?

Headspace is encouraging employers to prioritize mental health this election cycle. Can you share more about this initiative and how it came to fruition??

We knew there would be an extreme amount of election stress and anxiety leading up to the 2024 election cycle, particularly in the United States. In 2020, 68% of Americans attributed a rise in anxiety to the election. And from our own 2024 Workforce State of Mind we learned that one in four people in the U.S. said election stress is impacting their mental health at work, with Gen Z feeling it the most. So, we sat down as a cross-functional marketing and comms team and came to the conclusion that Headspace really had an opportunity and moral obligation to show up for people in this cultural moment — not just in the U.S., but also in other international markets going through elections, like the UK.?

It was complicated to come up with a campaign that would resonate in multiple markets, especially since the timing of each country’s elections were different, but I'm really proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish and all we have in the works. My colleague Grace Firmin-Guion organized an amazing initiative in partnership with an organization called My Life My Say . They hosted a “democracy cafe” in London — a modern reinvigoration of the 17th century coffeehouse tradition where members of society come together to discuss local issues. I thought it was so clever, and it was incredible to see the participation from gen z londoners who showed up with lots of bold thinking on how the government can play a key role in improving British mental health.?

In the U.S, we launched an election season survival guide , refreshed our “Politics without Panic” content collection, and teamed up with Michelle Obama's nonpartisan initiative, When We All Vote , to encourage people to prioritize their mental health during the chaotic election season and, importantly, exercise their right to vote. We have lots more in the works, including a workplace guide to help business leaders understand the role they can play in supporting workers who are stressed about the election and fostering healthy, productive conversations about politics at work.?

Last year a study from Gallup showed evidence that Gen Z’s mental health struggles are different from previous generations. Specifically, Gen Z are much more likely to report experiencing anxiety, loneliness and stress. How does this impact the stories you tell at Headspace to reach the different generations??

It’s been really incredible to see how much Gen Z has shifted the dialogue on mental health. Gen Z'ers are much more open to talking about their mental health, and it's become part of the cultural zeitgeist and vernacular, which is such a step forward from previous generations. At Headspace, we have a ton of data on the generational differences as it relates to mental health and wellbeing, so we do a lot of storytelling with reporters to unpack the nuances and provide guidance for how to break down intergenerational barriers — at work and in personal circles as well.

We talk a lot about Gen Z and Millennials. Are you thinking about Gen Alpha yet? Will your communication strategy differ for them?

Headspace is free for all teens ages 13 to 18, so we work to educate people about our app as a free resource for youth who want to develop mindfulness practice. It's a little early for us to be developing a tailored communications strategy specifically for Gen Alpha, but I am excited to see how they continue to shift the mental health conversation. Our hope is that we can help to build the next generation’s mental health and mindfulness skills early on in their lives so they have more resilience through life's ups and downs.?

According to the Muck Rack State of PR 2024 report AI now ranks as a higher priority than media relations. Does AI play a role in your day-to-day life, and how can communicators leverage AI to tell impactful stories?

We use Jasper AI and ChatGPT as a communications team for things like ideating on alt article headlines, developing a first draft of a speaker abstract for a conference, and other types of content development. I think AI can be hugely beneficial to communicators and ultimately free up more of our time for strategic media relations work that only a human can do — today, at least.

One of my main goals for 2024 is to figure out how AI might be able to reduce the administrative burden of some of the manual measurement and reporting work we do as a comms team to synthesize coverage trends.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to work in communications?

Start at an agency. Get exposed to all facets of communications, media relations, brand marketing, and the many different ways in which you could develop a career path in this industry. The possibilities are endless! My advice is get exposed to all those different potential career pathways early on and raise your hand to work on as many projects as you can. Then figure out what energizes you the most and go pursue that.?

Rapid Fire Questions:?

What’s your favorite song right now? Red Wine Supernova by Chappell Roan has been on repeat?

What’s the last podcast you listened to? Mastering Healthcare PR with Christina Farr

Who’s one person in this industry that inspires you, that everyone should go follow? Sarah Kissko Hersh

If you could meet one person for coffee, who would it be? Meryl Streep

What brand do you love following on social media? Bobbie

What is one word you would use to describe 2024? Chaos