Consult with me

I've spent over a decade leading newsrooms and edit desks at major national and global publications. I bring this experience to bear as editor for publications whose values and vision align with mine.

For instance, I served as guest editor for Early Childhood Matters, the annual journal of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, which has a decades-long legacy. I helped shape the editorial philosophy for the 2023 edition of the journal, identified and commissioned articles to experts around the world, edited the pieces, conducted interviews, and wrote the editor's note. Click here to read the journal and here to read my editor's note.

From decoding the biggest trends in mental health to exploring portfolio careers as a creator – I help folks think through complex questions over 1:1 video calls. Explore all my offerings and book a slot here.

Why me? Here are 6 reasons from callers.

If you are a leader who's serious about understanding and propagating the nuances of workplace mental health, I can help you create engaging multimedia content that doesn't exist anywhere else.

For instance, I worked with the insurance startup Plum for a one-of-a-kind series of authentic deep-dive videos on workplace mental health, minus all the BS around pool tables and 'bring your kids to work' days. Click here to see the videos or listen to the episodes turned into a podcast.

The assignment with Plum also included writing long-form articles, like this and this.

Great Manager Institute is an organisation that offers AI-powered leadership development and assessment programmes. I write analysis and commentary for them on the most disruptive themes for managers today. See here and here.

I am one of 13 experts in the Welcome to the Jungle Lab, a French platform specialising in the future of work. Explore my work for them here.

I work with academic institutions and nonprofits engaged with mental health promotion.

For instance, I am an advisor to the Keshav Desiraju Indian Mental Health Observatory (IMHO), and a jury member for the Project SIREN Awards, which recognises journalistic excellence on the theme of suicide prevention. Both IMHO and the SIREN awards are governed by the Centre of Mental Health Law and Policy, one of India's leading nonprofits engaged in mental health policy and implementation research and capacity building.

I'm also part of the advisory board of the Centre for Global Mental Health run by King's College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Some institutions I have worked with:

• Sangath, India
• The Knight Center for the Study of Journalism in the Americas
• Columbia University
• University of Bristol
• University of Amsterdam
• Vedica Scholars, India (developed and taught a module on reading skills)

I've spent over a decade leading newsrooms and edit desks at major national and global publications. I bring this experience to bear as editor for publications whose values and vision align with mine.

If you're on this page, you may already know that I am a lived experience expert, mental health storyteller, and retired business editor. You can head to this page for my detailed story, and this page to understand the 16 principles I follow in my work. Check out this 1-minute video on why my supporters value my approach to mental health.

Before shifting to mental health journalism to make sense of my own lifelong mental health challenges, I worked as a business editor and writer in giant corporations, tiny startups, and top mainstream media outlets for over 13 years.

• I spent a significant part of my journalism career understanding and writing about tech startups.
• I was the youngest managing editor of a magazine cofounded by a former dean of Harvard Business School, and the founding editor of India's first innovation magazine.
• I headed the desk at Fortune magazine's Indian edition and helped build ET Prime, the subscription-based platform owned by India's largest pink paper, The Economic Times.
• In 2016, I was the joint winner of the Prize for Economic Journalism in Asia awarded by IE Business School, Madrid.
• I am an advisor to Project SIREN, India's first-ever programme to monitor and evaluate the quality of media reporting on suicide. I am also part of various work groups on suicide prevention.
• In 2021, I was selected for the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program at the Newmark Business School, City University of New York.
• In 2022, I was invited to speak on the creator economy in Asia at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia. (Thanks to my friends at Splice Media, Singapore.)
• I am a past fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, where I researched mental health journalism in the global south.
• Today, Sanity by Tanmoy is a community of nearly 3,000 subscribers from the world. Over 10% of them are paying supporters from 40+ countries across six continents.

Please note that my consulting clients have no control on the stories I write for Sanity by Tanmoy, which remains 100% ad-free and funded by readers.

My interests

I am excited about the intersection of these four themes:

• Mental health advocacy with a lived experience lens.
• Business and technology.
• Culture of mental health in workplaces.
• Niche media entrepreneurship, AKA the creator economy.

I love helping people and organisations engage with these issues and start conversations that could seed real change. For instance:

• If you are a business leader, I believe it's time you got rid of the wasteful idea of employee 'happiness' and pivot your policies towards humanity instead.
• Investors and philanthropies: the mental health community needs you to support projects that respect and meaningfully embed lived experience.
• If you are a media professional or a newsroom leader, I'd love to talk to you about why mental health is not a 'soft' beat, and how following the principles relevant to mental health journalism can make all of your journalism much better and more valuable to your audience.
• If you are an independent media entrepreneur or are planning to become one, I'm happy to share with you what I have learnt from my journey so far, including insights on building reader relationships and staying ad-free.

Pro bono work

As a solo entrepreneur with limited sources of income, I am able to spend no more than 20% of my time on pro bono projects. Connect with me if you are:

• A journalism student.
• A student of any other discipline who needs mentoring on the mental health ecosystem, or on applying to courses and programmes related to the subject.
• A volunteer-run or non-profit organisation with budget constraints looking for expertise based on lived experience.
• An aspiring media entrepreneur.

Please note: I am not able to offer advice on dealing with mental health problems or recommend therapists/psychiatrists.

Lived experience expertise is real, game-changing expertise, but it is habitually disrespected and exploited. Many lived experience experts have uncertain income streams, but they are unfailingly generous with their time and wisdom. Whether or not you and I decide to work together, I urge you to please pay any lived experience expert for their (emotional) labour – even if it's for a panel discussion or a fireside chat in your organisation.

Let's talk.