Geoff McDonald (Importance of Wellbeing)
Geoff is a keynote speaker, mental health campaigner, business transformation consultant and former global vice president of HR at Unilever. After 25 years with Unilever, he left h...
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Who are you and what is your background?
I'm Jeff McDonald. I'm a South African, the father of two wonderful daughters, the husband of Debbie, and I've had a wonderful career over many, many years. Started my career as a teacher once upon a time, three years of teaching maths and biology to a-level students, and then spent 25 years working for Unilever all over the world, culminating in the global head of HR for all of our marketing communications and sustainability efforts around the Unilever world. I then left Unilever to go out into the world and be an advocate, a catalyst, a campaigner for breaking the stigma of mental ill health in workplaces.
How did you get into working in mental health and wellbeing?
I have my own story around mental health and wellbeing. Back in 2008, I got very, very ill with anxiety, fuel, depression. At that time, I was the global head of HR for Unilever's home care division around the Unilever world. And the only thing that saved my life during a period of what three months of work trying to recover from anxiety, fuel, depression, was my ability to talk about my illness and not be burdened by the stigma that associated with depression and anxiety. And it was probably too big emotions, that emotion of feeling loved and a sense of hope that kept me going in my darkest, darkest moments. And I was only able to feel those emotions because I'd been open and able to talk about my illness. I slowly recover. I go back into Unilever, and then in 20 12, 4 years after my crucible moment in life, I lose a very good friend to suicide. And the night he died, I kind of thought to myself, what is the difference between him and I? Here I am flourishing in many ways, four years after my crucible moment, and he's gone. And I came to a simple conclusion that stigma had just killed my friend. And so I co-led a piece of work in Unilever for about two years where we attempted to break the stigma of mental ill health. And we made some success with respect to that work. A guy called Tim M, who I worked with, who was head of HR in the uk. And after seeing some of that success, I then decided I'd leave Unilever and go out into the world fueled by a very deep sense of purpose. And that is to try and create workplaces, family groups, friendship groups all over the world where every single person feels that they genuinely have the choice to just put their hand up and ask for some help if they're struggling with a common form of mental ill health. And I've been on that journey for the last 10 years, helping organisations, individuals, family groups, friendship groups, just be more open about their mental and emotional struggles when they need to.
Who did you first speak to at work about your mental health struggle?
The chief medical officer and my line manager. I mean, I was so lucky working for Unilever at the time that I had a line manager who had a compassionate relationship to mental ill health. I was so lucky. His name was Keith Weed. He was the global head of Unilever's home care division around the Unilever world. I was his HR business partner, and I was just so fortunate that I had a boss, a line manager who had what I would call a compassionate relationship to mental ill health.