Adrian Thomas

Adrian spent most of his early career in the hospitality sector in senior management and operations roles looking after prestigious contracts across the city of London such as Goldman Sachs, Ernst & Young and several of the top 20 global law firms where the clientele expected 5 star service.

While doing this work Adrian regularly witnessed how the intense demands on individuals negatively impacted their mental health and the service levels they in turn delivered. This alongside having his own lived experiences of poor mental health, led to him setting up the charity Different Minds in 2017, with the aim of supporting organisations, particularly those in the charity sector, as well as individuals, to develop their skills around mental health and to reduce stigma and discrimination in the workplace.

In 2018 Adrian moved to delivering the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training full time and is approved to deliver all Adult courses and Youth MHFA 2-day & 1 Day courses. He is passionate about the topic has trained over a 1000 people over 100 courses across all MHFA Adult and Youth programmes. Working with organisations from Education, Public Sector, Manufacturing, Business and Industry, Hospitality, Aviation, Hotels, Media, Charity sector and Construction.

Alongside supporting the learning around MHFA and delivering Stress Awareness training, Adrian delivers ‘Lived Experience’ talks for organisations on his own journey with mental ill health, discussing openly his journey with early life poor mental health, lifelong depression, anxiety and the highs and lows he has been through.

Adrian advocates that both self-care and a strong understanding of the risk factors for poor mental health are key to thriving in all areas of life and work. This in tandem with education around mental health is essential to reducing stigma and discrimination, and this ethos carries into his personal life where he manages his own mental wellness through running, and has now completed 75 marathons/ ultra-marathons including the challenge of running 52 of them in 52 weeks.