The author of 'Simple Mental Health' struggled silently for nearly two decades before a five-minute conversation with his boss changed his life — and shaped his understanding of what leaders owe their teams.
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By Sarah Rauzin, Director of Health Strategy and Insights, Health Action Alliance
When asked to make the business case for mental health, Adam Nemer — former Chief Financial Officer of Kaiser Permanente — offers a refreshing scoff. For Nemer, the case isn't about the numbers; it's about the people.
Nemer's journey into mental health advocacy began with profound personal loss. At 29, while being groomed to run his family business, Nemer found his father's body after he died by suicide. The stigma surrounding mental illness was so strong that Nemer didn't get the help he needed; he attended just a few therapy sessions before moving on with his MBA, marriage, and what he calls a "Forrest Gump-like lucky executive career."
On the outside, Nemer had it all. He quickly rose through the ranks to become CFO of a multi-billion-dollar health care system. On the inside? "I was one hot mess," he recalled. "I moved through life for 17 years like I was running up flights of stairs while breathing through a straw."
Seventeen years into his undiagnosed struggle with severe depression and anxiety, Nemer found his mother's body after she passed away due to illness. The event triggered a complete emotional collapse, he recalled. He showed up to work disheveled, half-shaved, and mean to everyone, but he had no idea anything was wrong.
Then his boss, David, called him into his office on a Monday morning, supposedly to discuss a new project. Instead, he handed Nemer a business card for the company's employee assistance program.
His boss later revealed he had attended a mental health first aid class at his church the day before. With each sign and symptom he learned about during the class, David thought, “That’s Adam, that’s Adam, that’s Adam,” and realized, “Nemer’s in a lot of trouble.” The training taught him how to approach someone in a caring and nonjudgmental manner, and David decided to have a conversation with Nemer.
"A senior leader at an 80-billion-dollar company becomes mental health literate, and in the next day, in a five-minute conversation, helps get me on the road where I can change my life," Nemer reflected. "It's all about leaders opening up the conversation."
According to Nemer, if you want to be an effective leader, talking about mental health is part of your job.
"You have an obligation to the performance of your organization," Nemer said. "Your job is to help people perform at their best. And your job is to help people live happy and healthy lives. Because when you become a leader, you're accountable for more than that bottom line."
Specifically, leaders set the tone for their company’s culture. Research shows that leaders who are open and vulnerable create psychological safety for everyone else to show up as themselves.
"The topic of mental health stops at the most senior level in the organization who will talk about it," Nemer explained. "When a leader talks about something, it makes it OK for everyone else to talk about something. That's a leader's job."
While the human impact is his focus, Nemer acknowledges the data is compelling:
To businesses that claim mental health training is out of reach, Nemer, a former CFO, offered this counterpoint: "What other idea will increase productivity by two days a week for a quarter of your workforce and improve retention and recruiting?"
He noted that small businesses in America already spend nearly $1,200 per employee on training annually, adding, "This training isn't that expensive; you can do this for $200 to $300 per employee. This is not like teaching someone how to do open-heart surgery."
💡According to a recent HAA Insights Panel, mental health is the only issue that tops containing health care costs on employer priorities for the next 12 months (Feb., 2026).
Beyond providing formal training, Nemer shared several simple management tactics that cost nothing.
Walking one-on-ones: Take meetings outside. "When you walk with people, you end up talking about their lives," Nemer said. “And people love it!” His regional president even kept walking shoes under her desk specifically for their quarterly meetings.
Genuine check-ins: Ask "How are you feeling?" and really mean it. Create space for authentic responses instead of reflexive "fine" answers.
Two-word check-ins: Start meetings by having everyone describe how they're feeling in two words. This simple practice allows leaders to follow up privately with anyone who seems to be struggling.
"These are just tools you can deploy that will create psychological safety," Nemer emphasized. "You're already speaking with people, you're already meeting with them. These don't take extra time or money."
Nemer said the most astute question he receives at almost every speaking engagement is, "When is it helping a colleague improve their mental health, and when is it performance management?"
It's a nuanced distinction, he acknowledged.
"When you help somebody, and you're giving them opportunities to help themselves, over time, they either choose to take advantage of the help or not," Nemer explained. "After a while, you'll find the zone where you're giving every opportunity, doing your best to help them help themselves. But if they can't or aren't able or unwilling — for whatever reason, after all this time — to take advantage of these opportunities to get better, then it can become a performance conversation."
It's the hardest part of the work, he admitted. "All I want to do is help support people's mental well-being. But at the end of the day, you still have to run a business."
From his unique vantage point as a CFO who worked on both the insurance and care delivery sides at Kaiser, Nemer identified a problem that many people misunderstand: "There's this perception that we don't have enough therapy and therapists out there right now to care for us, but it's not the problem," he argued. "We mostly have enough therapists across the country. But so few of them take insurance."
He pointed out that a therapist in private practice might charge $150 per hour. With an insurance contract, they make $70 to $80 per hour. "If you're a therapist, what are you going to do?" Nemer asked. Meanwhile, insurance companies can't simply raise reimbursement rates to $150 without going out of business, he said.
Nemer said he doesn’t have the perfect answer to this problem, but argued that employers have a role to play. "The biggest thing business leaders can do is create environments at work where people aren't leaving every day wanting to go see a therapist." According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 35% of Americans say their workplaces have a negative impact on their mental health. "Can you imagine if more than a third of us said work hurt our physical health every day? We wouldn't let that happen," Nemer said.
Nemer's advocacy is deeply personal. He acknowledged experiencing "remarkable guilt" because his own mental illness prevented him from being there for his mother as her condition progressed. "I think every time I give a talk or do something here, I'm helping her (spirit) heal. I do this because I owe this to them."
Of his father, he said simply: "I just wish he were here. I wish my kids got to know him."
He emphasized how critical it is that people check in regularly — for months, even years — after someone experiences a suicide loss. When his friend's wife died by suicide six months ago, Nemer and his sisters texted him every other day, "Hey, brother. How you doing?"
"I wish I had known then: If you find your dad after suicide, you're going to need to see a therapist for a long time," he said. "It's a journey. It's a life. And if that's the case, that it's OK."
Nemer's message to business leaders is clear and unflinching: Supporting employees' mental health is your job. Not because the ROI is extraordinary (though it is). Not because it's good PR (though it helps). But leadership means creating environments where people can show up whole, get the help they need, and thrive.
"You can choose to be a mental health-informed leader or not," Nemer said. "You choose to be the leader you want to be."
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Adam Nemer is the author of Simple Mental Health: The ROI of Vulnerability - Unleashing Performance While Transforming Lives. Adam is a keynote speaker, leadership consultant, and former CFO of Kaiser Permanente. Learn more at simplementalhealth.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.
Simple Mental Health Leadership Consulting and the Health Action Alliance are both proud members of Stop Stigma Together, a national coalition uniting organizations across disciplines to end the stigma surrounding mental health and substance use disorders.
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