She Left GOOGLE X to Fix a Crisis 20 Million Teens Face | Obi Felten, Flourish Labs

She led moonshot projects at Google X. Then she walked away to take on one of America's hardest problems: a youth mental health crisis where roughly 20 million teens and young adults need care — and only half get it.

In this episode of Inspiring Women, Laurie McGraw talks with Obi Felten, founder and CEO of Flourish Labs, about a different model for closing that gap: training young adults with lived experience to become accredited, professional peer supporters — and scaling it with telehealth and AI through Peers.net.

In this conversation:

- Why Obi left Google X moonshots for mental health

- The care gap: ~20M young people in need, only half reached

- Peer support as a way to expand the mental health workforce — not just add clinicians

- Winning Medicaid contracts to reach underserved youth

- Peer support in high-risk moments, like post-ER care for suicidal teens

- What it takes to scale a mission to a million supporters

About the guest — Obi Felten:

Founder and CEO of Flourish Labs, scaling professional peer support via Peers.net. Previously led technology moonshot projects at Google X and was Director of Consumer Marketing for Google across EMEA. BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Oxford; based in California.

→ obifelten.com · flourishlabs.com · peers.net

About the host — Laurie McGraw:

Laurie is a 30-year health technology executive and creator/host of Inspiring Women. She's Executive Vice President at Transcarent, and previously served as President and Chief Client Officer of Allscripts and SVP at the American Medical Association. A Brown University cognitive science graduate, board director, speaker and advocate for health equity and women's leadership, she started Inspiring Women to close a stubborn gap: women make up 70% of healthcare's workforce but hold only about 20% of C-suite roles.

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Inspiring Women with Laurie McGraw advances women to healthcare leadership — and keeps them there. New episodes every Tuesday.

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