It provides a range of mental health services, including counselling, support and education, as well as funding research. The bulk of its funds come from governments.įormer Victorian premier Jeff Kennett founded Beyond Blue in 2000. In financial year 2022, Beyond Blue pulled in about $27 million in donations, about a third of its $93 million revenue. It’s terrible,” she notes.Īlmost a decade on from that nadir, Harman looks trim, is sharply dressed and has the self-assurance that is characteristic of a seasoned chief executive and fundraiser. “When you Google me, you still get my fat photos. I quickly discover that her frankness isn’t reserved for public speaking. Amid the suit-and-tie lunch circuit of forgettable addresses and corporate platitudes, her honesty was invigorating. In a short speech, she described how a relationship breakdown in her first months after taking the Beyond Blue job, in June 2014, triggered a slide into depression, near-alcoholism and weight gain of almost 20 kilos. Harman came on to my radar in 2018, when she electrified a room at an event in Melbourne. What’s worse, is that the plain-talking public health expert has been on my dream interview list for five years. I’m three minutes late after hitting three dead-ends trying to find the place.

The Melbourne-based Harman picked the corporate staple in a rabbit’s warren of alleyways because it was an old haunt, which she still misses after a decade of living interstate. It’s a humid day and the Beyond Blue chief executive has arrived at midday on the knocker at Mr Wong, an upscale dumpling house behind a heavy door in a lane off Sydney’s Bridge Street.

Beyond blue