Chris Martin steps down from The Mix

by Tom Pinks (he/him)

Senior Content and Communications Manager

Thursday 23rd January 2025

Following the merger of digital youth support charity The Mix with Mental Health Innovations, Chris Martin has announced he will be stepping down as its CEO at the end of January to focus on supporting charities in the youth and mental health sectors with the adoption of new technologies.

Chris was appointed CEO of YouthNet in 2015 and led its merger with the Get Connected helpline to form The Mix in 2016. The Mix has since grown to become the UK’s leading support service online for under 25s reaching some three million young people every year with free and confidential help, with a particular focus on mental wellbeing. In 2024 alone, The Mix delivered 5,000 counselling sessions and offered over 1,000 opportunities for young people to take part in its work as volunteers and ambassadors.

The Mix has worked closely with Mental Health Innovations since its inception. The Charity helped to launch Shout in 2018, piloting the innovative service within The Mix to offer young people 24-hour crisis support via text. The two charities have gone on to scale virtual support for young people together over the years, notably during the Coronavirus lockdowns, when they launched combined online platforms for students and the community sector.

Under Chris’s leadership, The Mix merged with Mental Health Innovations in September 2024, to create a new ecosystem of mental health support focussing on early intervention. The Mix brand will continue to provide services to young people alongside Shout while Mental Health Innovations’ data science, technology and clinical expertise is informing the development of a series of exciting new Mix-branded products. These will be rolled out over the coming months and include self-paced learning modules, the growth of its chatbot and new, peer-led interventions.

Youth voice programmes were a key development of Chris’s leadership and The Mix’s Youth Advisory Board will continue to ensure representation of young people in the Charity and to co-create new products.

Andrew Harrison, the former Chair of Trustees at The Mix, will also join Mental Health Innovations, taking on the role of Chair of its combined board of trustees.

Chris Martin, CEO of The Mix said: “The Mix’s strategic merger with Mental Health Innovations represents the next incredible step in our mission and gives The Mix access to the skills and resources it needs to further harness the power of technology to support young people’s wellbeing. I step down with huge gratitude to all the staff, supporters and young people who have helped us get to this point and knowing that our life-changing work will be supercharged by the union of these two exceptional teams under Victoria’s leadership.”

Victoria Hornby, CEO of Mental Health Innovations said: “Chris and I have worked together for over a decade, and I will be forever grateful for his brave and innovative thinking, his unfailing commitment to young people and his appetite for trying new things. We will miss him enormously.”