In this episode, we host Joshua Haynes, Founder and Managing Partner at Masawa Fund. Joshua shares stories from the time when he struggled to empathize with his mother. He also shares his own journey through mental illness.

Guest Bio:

Joshua Haynes is Founder + Managing Partner at Masawa, the mental wellness impact fund. After a long journey learning to approach his own issues of depression, anxiety, and addiction stemming from a rough childhood and being raised on welfare by a single mother, Joshua founded Masawa to help address mental illness, a silent epidemic that is the leading cause of disability worldwide and will cost $16T by 2030. Joshua believes that after society is more mentally well by focusing on the internal first, it can overcome the seemingly intractable problems like climate change, poverty, and injustice.

Over the past 20 years, Joshua has focused on the intersection of innovation, technology, and social impact. He has worked for both the US and Swedish governments, managing a portfolio of $190 million in innovative social impact grant funding in emerging and frontier market countries targeting poverty alleviation, civil society, human rights, and technology. Joshua holds degrees from Boston University and The Fletcher School, Tufts University. He has worked in 37 countries, speaks 7 languages well (pretends in many more), and lives in Berlin with his husband and two children.

Joshua can be reached at:

https://masawa.fund

@masawafund, @joshuahaynes (instagram + twitter)

Music License:

Where The Light Goes: License #67783979559

In Peace And Harmony: License #67783979559