Neerja Birla: The Matriarch Building India's Mental Health Movement
Simi Shah speaks with Neerja Birla, matriarch of the storied Birla family, about how she's taking on India's most taboo topic: mental health.
Content Warning: Mrs. Birla briefly references her work with victims of sexual violence. The reference is contextual and non-graphic.
Mrs. Neerja Birla is the Founder & Chairperson of the Aditya Birla Education Trust, the force behind her organization, Mpower. Founded in 2016, Mpower is a full-stack mental health care and advocacy organization serving individuals, schools, corporates, and government across India. One decade later, Mpower has impacted over 180 million lives and delivered more than 300,000 clinical sessions. Today, Mrs. Birla is a global voice on mental health, serving as Global Chair for Mental Health at G100 (Group of 100 Global Women Leaders) and the first Indian representative on Headspace's advisory board.
Married at 18 to Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, Mrs. Neerja Birla has spent 37 years at the center of one of India's most storied families. Her most personal work, though, has been building alongside her daughters: Mpower, the mental health organization she co-founded with Ananya Birla, and Ujaas, the menstrual health venture Advaitesha Birla started at 17. She dives into how she approaches leadership, legacy, and the thesis the entire movement rests on: mental health does not discriminate — not by age, gender, geography, nor how much a person has in their bank account.
Catch up on our conversation with her daughter: business leader, artist, mental health advocate, Ananya Birla, from March 2026.
IN THIS EPISODE:
Why Mrs. Birla chose mental health advocacy over every other cause she could have taken on
Building Mpower and challenging India's deep mental health stigma
Why wealth and privilege do not protect against mental health struggles
Parenting across generations and raising independent daughters at the center of a dynastic family
The opportunities and risks of AI in mental healthcare, from first-layer ChatGPT counselors to the loneliness pandemic
Expanding mental health access across the Global South
Marriage, personal growth, leadership, and the meaning of legacy
She also opens up about being a social entrepreneur, mother, wife, and matriarch from one of India's foremost industrial families; the role of language and culture in mental health care; the loneliness pandemic in the age of AI; and her ambition to build mental health infrastructure in the Global South.
ABOUT NEERJA BIRLA — Educationist, Mental Health Advocate & Philanthropist
Mrs. Neerja Birla is an Indian educationist, mental health advocate, and philanthropist. Beyond her landmark work in mental health through Mpower — a pioneering initiative under the Aditya Birla Education Trust (ABET) — she leads premium educational institutions, including schools designed specifically for children with special needs. She is a powerful voice for empathy, education, and holistic societal change.
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