Female Founders: Carter Barnhart of Charlie Health On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Compassion: if you don’t have compassion for both your clients and your team, you’re not going to build a sustainable network of support for your company. If you don’t care about other people in a substantive way, why should they care about you and your company?
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Carter Barnhart.
Carter serves as Co-founder and CEO of Charlie Health, a virtual IOP mental health program that provides services to high-acuity adolescents and young adults (ages 12–27) with mental health primary diagnoses including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and other mood disorders. Prior to Charlie Health, Carter worked at Newport Healthcare for 11 years serving as Chief of Staff to Newport’s founder and CEO. In 2018, when Carlyle hired a new CEO, Carter was promoted to Chief Experience Officer. Carter was the youngest-ever female member of a Carlyle portfolio company C-suite.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
My journey into behavioral healthcare started as a patient. When I was a teenager, I really struggled with my mental health. My family tried just about everything to help, but I couldn’t find any relief from my symptoms on my own or in more traditional talk therapies. By age 17, I was admitted to Newport Academy, a teen residential treatment program, as one of their first patients. Newport was the first place I found community, connection, and ultimately, healing. Two years after I left Newport, I reached out to their founder and CEO to ask if I could join their team as an intern. Over the next decade, I worked side-by-side with him, helping to grow Newport from 10 employees to over 2,000.
My passion for mental healthcare stems from my personal experiences. I wouldn’t be who or where I am today without receiving high-quality, compassionate care. Doing this work is more than just work. I can’t imagine doing anything else, and I’m honored to be able to serve kids who are experiencing many of the same mental health issues that I did.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Both the most interesting and one of the most rewarding aspects of my leadership at Charlie Health is that I get to do it alongside my co-founder and life partner, Justin Weiss. It’s a unique experience to navigate both business and personal life together, and I’m incredibly grateful to have his energy and expertise behind Charlie Health. We’ve shared the same vision from the beginning: to save millions of lives through providing high-quality, accessible mental health treatment programs. And while it’s sometimes challenging to work with someone you also are in a relationship with (we’re definitely a yin/yang type duo), it’s also forged a sense of resiliency and compassion between the two of us that actually benefits the growth of our business. We work well together and both have a personal connection to expanding access to teens and families who need it. It’s definitely one of the more unique chapters to the story of Charlie Health.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I committed a huge Zoom mistake that still makes me cringe a bit to this day. On a Monday morning, I logged into a meeting to introduce myself in one of our virtual group therapy sessions with 6 of our adolescent patients, and my background was still set from a virtual birthday party I went to over the weekend. It was a zoomed in, blurry, and very silly picture of me and my friend sticking out our tongues as teenagers. Too much makeup, embarrassing outfits, the whole thing. Everyone laughed at me, of course, but it also was a cool moment to connect with our patients. Despite me feeling silly for forgetting something as basic as my Zoom background, I hope it showed them that I’m just as human as they are and that therapy, treatment, and recovery can be full of funny moments too.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Without a doubt, Jamison Monroe Jr, Newport Academy’s Founder and my first boss. He provided me with a foundational education in how compassionate, evidence-based care should be delivered. He also taught me when to talk and when to shut up, which is incredibly important! He pushed me and gave me the flexibility to fail then learn from my mistakes.
My experience working for him has allowed me to think more critically about how to best serve our patients — how do we build a company and provide healthcare in a way that’s cemented in the best, most cutting-edge clinical practices? Without Jamison’s guidance, I simply wouldn’t have that context to lean on.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
Fear — fear of failure and fear of rejection. We constantly hear that most companies fail in the first few years and this narrative causes people to question if they should even try. I believe that it’s my duty as a female founder to inspire, mentor, coach, advise, and most importantly empower other people to take risks. And then offer unconditional support if they do fail, which is really just an opportunity to learn and grow.
I am lucky to have a tribe that I know supports me. I’ve had that mentorship and really benefited from people who refused to let me be afraid. So I really view it as a privilege to be a female founder. I hope that young girls now who see more and more female-founded companies like Charlie Health will feel inspired to start their own companies.
I think it is important to also note that there is a clear and disproportionate lack of women of color, trans women, and non-binary founders. We have to advocate for those who are still left out of the progress of female founders, which includes making sure our definition of “female” champions inclusivity. Pinning our success on a narrow definition of who a female founder is or who they look like is completely counterproductive to the mission of diversifying business for the better. The more perspectives and critical conversations we can engage in as founders, the better. Diverse and inclusive hiring and promotional opportunities are a must. You can’t just pluck a resume from a pile for the sake of diversity then do nothing to foster and help that person grow into their fullest potential. At Charlie Health, we treat a lot of LGBTQ+ kids and it’s critical that our team reflects the diversity of our patients to provide the most informed care. So for anyone in a leadership position, I encourage you to be thoughtful about how you think about inclusivity and how to put it into action.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
Talk! No conversation about mental health awareness is too small. Whether it’s Simone Biles or a middle schooler being vulnerable with their best friend about what’s going on, we have to continue to normalize transparent, honest conversations. We all face mental health challenges at some point, but when we build a network of people we trust around us, it reminds us that we’re not alone. And as more people feel comfortable talking about what they’re living with, more people will feel comfortable reaching out for help. Talking about my experience with mental health still isn’t always easy, but if I’m able to help even one person find the courage to seek support, it’s worth it. I want to be a role model to show that yes, you can have experienced trauma and depression and anxiety and substance abuse and make it to the other side and live an amazing, fulfilling life. But the first step is asking for help and then letting people in to provide it.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
To my point above, I think it’s important to acknowledge that the basis of developing more women founders in general needs to be tethered to a commitment to diversity. More diverse founders allow for more innovative solutions to problems. Widening the pool of people who are committed to solving those problems will only make our world a better place. Think of it this way: if, for example, we completely lacked any female-founders, we’d never address the issues that women specifically face, or at least approach the solution in a way that uniquely targets the experience of women. So if you have an idea: go for it! You can’t change if you’re not willing to grow. Which, by the way, is another skill I’ve found women to be great at — embracing change.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
I’d like to change the whole narrative around success.
Everyone struggles. No matter how accomplished you may seem, what you look like, what you’ve done before, where you live — everyone struggles. And you are never alone in that struggle. In fact, chances are, there are other people in the exact same position as you right now who want to talk about what they’re feeling overwhelmed by or think they can’t handle. As founders, we all make mistakes. Lots of them. Founders are often glorified and defined by a single adjective–innovative, trailblazing, inspirational. In reality, everyone is fallible and it’s important to normalize it.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
Of course anyone can be a founder! I don’t think there’s a special formula of traits or degrees or anything that would constitute a perfect person for the job. It’s really about commitment, passion, and vision. If you have a great idea that you care deeply about, start building a network of people who also think it’s a great idea and who also deeply care about it. There’s really no right or wrong way to do it if you’re guided by a shared mission — definitely stay organized though! And humble. Writing a thank you note after an introduction or making sure to actively listen when receiving feedback are both super important.
But to answer your question differentiating between a “regular job” and a founder job: I think we have to acknowledge the institutional barriers that often box people out from leadership positions, or make them think they’re not qualified enough to move up. Gender, sexuality, race, and disability status are still hurdles to upward mobility in the founder community. We have to acknowledge and overhaul that reality.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Compassion: if you don’t have compassion for both your clients and your team, you’re not going to build a sustainable network of support for your company. If you don’t care about other people in a substantive way, why should they care about you and your company?
- Precision: it’s really easy to get distracted or bogged down by the occasional chaos that can accompany starting your own company. So tackling each project or task as it comes and remaining laser-focused on your founding mission and vision will help you drown out all of the other noise.
- Unparalleled work ethic: This will come easily, if not naturally, when you’re passionate about what you do. Relentlessness is a fringe benefit of deep belief in the people you’re serving and the team you’ve entrusted to help you guide the company.
- Chutzpah: In this fast-moving world, most people have the attention of a fly. To make a lasting impression, you only have a second. In those few seconds it’s not charisma that counts, it’s chutzpah.
- Empathy: this is similar to compassion, but different in how it affects you on a personal level. Having empathy…for clients and employees…trickles out into your broader world views and informs how you deliver care. Empathy is at the core of what we do at Charlie Health and I believe that it sets us apart. Many of us at the company have experienced these same mental health issues as our clients. Empathy also gives us perspective when the work feels overwhelming or even fruitless in the face of such a massive mental health crisis.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
The entirety of my career has been devoted to addressing the youth mental health crisis head-on. Charlie Health is an extension of that mission, and I believe through our innovative model of offering virtual care that’s anchored in both compassionate care delivery and virtual accessibility, we can make a fundamentally change in rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and other mental health issues. Radically and relentlessly expanding access to mental healthcare by implementing a payer agnostic model is also part of this mission. Disparities in access only exacerbate the problem (such as the amount of time people spend on waiting lists for treatment; the barriers that family finances or insurance puts up around receiving care). Charlie Health exists to eradicate those barriers. We’re also hyper-aware that access for rural kids, kids of color and Native kids, and members of the LGBTQ+ community is even more difficult.
At a more granular level, building a company culture that equally commits itself to the wellbeing of our team will ultimately contribute to a healthier corporate landscape across the board. Just like we believe that wellness and recovery require a cohesive plan that involves the entire family unit, we believe that supporting the health and wellness of our clinicians and staff ensures that our patients are receiving care from people who are operating at their best. Care providers need care too.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I’m doing it. I truly believe that making high acuity care accessible by way of leveraging virtual therapy and other types of technology will change the lives of young people and their families across the country. I’ve seen it in real-time with the hundreds of patients we’ve already worked with. I learned about empathetic, compassionate, personal care as a teen myself, but it’s my mission to build a company that provides that to as many people as possible. We won’t stop until this crisis is tempered…and even then, we’ll keep going because there’s no shortage of people who need help.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I’d love to sit down and talk with Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube. Her career is absolutely prolific, and her leadership over the last two decades has shaped some of the most fundamental shifts in how we understand business and lifestyle today. I’m really inspired by the way she’s pivoted so many times as new opportunities arose over the years: from marketing and advertising to analytics and tech and now at the helm of one of the most influential companies. I’d jump at the opportunity to pick her brain.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Female Founders: Carter Barnhart of Charlie Health On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.