Speaker's Profile

Ken Zimmerman is the CEO of Fountain House, a national mental health nonprofit that empowers people living with serious mental illness through direct services, practice innovation, and policy change.Prior to Fountain House, Ken founded and co-directed the Mental Health Strategic Impact Initiative (S2i), a think-and-do tank that uses a social justice lens to catalyze change in mental health policy and practice. He was previously the Director of U.S. Programs for the Open Society Foundations and led initiatives involving over $100 million in grant-making to advance equality, democracy, and justice. He has also served in senior policy positions in the Obama and Clinton administrations. Following the death of his son Jared in 2016 due to his mental illness, Ken focused on the nation’s broken approach to mental health, specifically calling on, and aiding, mainstream philanthropy to take advantage of the immense opportunities to transform mental health that now exist.