Thought Leadership Case Study — Headspace
Turning workplace well-being into a leadership platform.
How it started
Program 11 had already built the Headspace for Work brand and content strategy — a foundation that helped the company shift from a meditation app to a workplace well-being partner.
The next natural step: Headspace wanted to establish itself as a thought leader for executives, not just employees. They needed a platform that would elevate their leaders, influence HR and C-suite conversations, and show that mental health isn’t a benefits perk; it’s a business advantage.
Our mandate was to create a thought-leadership engine that could carry that message with authority, credibility, and momentum.
What we did
Over eight weeks, Program 11 built a full B2B thought-leadership engine designed to speak directly to HR, people leaders, and the C-suite. We:
Designed and named the Working Well Awards, reframing mental health as a strategic business advantage.
Built the entire content ecosystem: landing pages, email campaigns, storytelling frameworks, winner case studies, and celebration assets.
Developed an enterprise Mental Health Awareness Month campaign including interviews, white papers, op-eds, and executive-ready thought pieces.
Created a LinkedIn strategy for Headspace leaders designed to grow authority and visibility across HR, benefits, and workplace-strategy audiences.
Our a-ha moment: Across interviews and discovery, one theme kept surfacing: organizations don’t change because a policy changes — they change because leaders model humanity in real time. That insight became the spine of every asset, shifting the platform from “mental health content” to leadership content.
How it’s going
The Working Well Awards became a signature Headspace Health program — a recognizable, repeatable platform for celebrating companies shaping the future of work. The broader Mental Health awareness thought-leadership engine positioned Headspace executives as credible voices in workplace transformation, fueling PR, webinars, enterprise sales, and social reach.
Today, Headspace isn’t just part of the workplace well-being conversation — it leads it. And executives across HR, benefits, and the C-suite look to them for guidance on how mentally healthy organizations actually get built.
