Phil Schermer
Phillip Schermer is the Founder and CEO of Project Healthy Minds, a millennial/Gen Z-driven non-profit startup focused on tackling one of the defining issues of our generation: the growing mental health crisis. Project Healthy Minds is building the world’s first digital mental health marketplace to democratize access to life-changing services, partnering with public figures to de-stigmatize mental health, and creating the first national standards for businesses to better support employee mental health.
Project Healthy Minds has been spotlighted in numerous national media outlets such as Axios, NBC’s The TODAY Show, The Hollywood Reporter, PEOPLE Magazine, CNN Business, Variety, The Atlantic, WWD, AdAge, Yahoo!, and Morning Brew, among others.
Phillip has been a featured speaker at leading public health conferences, industry summits, and universities, including the National Academy of Sciences Annual Colloquium, Milken Institute, Billboard Music Summit, Kennedy Forum, the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Duke Fuqua School of Business, Jewish Funders Network, NICSA (leading investment management industry trade association), PRWeek’s “PRDecoded” conference, and more. Phil also sits on a National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative, and is an advisor to stigma researchers at Columbia University and Yale University.
Prior to his current role, Phil worked at BlackRock -- as the Chief of Staff to the Vice Chairman and then as Chief of Staff to the Global Chief Marketing Officer.
During his time as Chief of Staff to the CMO, Phil focused on a range of initiatives relating to the future of stakeholder capitalism and purpose-driven business, digital product development and fintech investments, and various strategic growth priorities for BlackRock.
As Chief of Staff to the Vice Chairman, Phil worked on BlackRock's long-term growth strategy and evolving the firm’s advisory capabilities. In that role, he was part of a working group that created a new business unit that is now one of the fastest-growing businesses at BlackRock. During this time, he also invented a consumer technology product that won the firm’s global hackathon and became the technology basis of a joint venture with Microsoft.
Before joining BlackRock, Phil worked in the Obama White House as an intern for the National Economic Council, for Warner Brothers Entertainment on the movie set of The Dark Knight Rises, for Summit Entertainment on the movie set of Perks of Being a Wallflower, and for Live Nation on U2’s 360 tour.
While in college, Phil founded MUSIC Matters, a student-run non-profit at the University of Michigan that built one of the first social impact lifestyle festivals in the US. Today, Phil serves on the MUSIC Matters Board of Advisors.
Phil graduated from the University of Michigan’s Honors Program with a B.A. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE).
