Education

MPP, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Nonprofit Leadership

Founding CEO of Hope Xchange, delivering innovative frontline programs for the bipolar community;
Leader of the SMI Peer Alliance.

Economic & Policy Expertise

Federal/State Contingent Valuation,
SMI Policy Reform, & Strategic FDA Advocacy

Marketing & Brand Strategy

30 Years Experience: Dot-Com Startups, Brand Positioning, & Cause Marketing

Clinical & Frontline

Peer Support Specialist & Bipolar Coach;
ACT Team Frontline Experience.

KERRY MARTIN, MPP

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF STRATEGY & IMPACT |
​board member

Kerry Martin, MPP is a social change architect and policy strategist who has championed the rights of individuals living with severe neurobiological illnesses since 2014. As a survivor of a broken psychiatric system who has lived through the fire of active Bipolar I psychosis and severe depression, Kerry leads with a profound personal mandate to change the status quo. Her decade-long involvement with the National Shattering Silence Coalition provides a legacy perspective that has helped shape the coalition into a fierce national authority on Severe Mental Illness (SMI) reform.

Strategic Leadership & Root-Cause Advocacy

Kerry’s expertise is anchored by a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and 30 years of strategic leadership across the tech, marketing, and nonprofit sectors. As the Founding CEO of Hope Xchange, she built a national nonprofit dedicated exclusively to delivering innovative, frontline programs for the bipolar community. Her professional pedigree includes 20 years of brand positioning for dot-com startups and extensive cause marketing within the mental health space. She previously managed complex Federal and State Contingent Valuation Damage Assessments, handling the rigorous economic modeling required to quantify non-market, systemic impacts.

Kerry is known for turning raw ground-truth into systemic power. She successfully lobbied the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to host a pivotal Patient Listening Session to discuss the severe unmet needs of the bipolar community, helping to fast-track a new medication for bipolar suicidality. At NSSC, she weaponizes hard data and narrative truth to dismantle bureaucratic inertia, demanding real medical accountability and upstream suicide prevention.

Bridging High-Level Policy with Frontline Truths

As a Peer Support Specialist and leader of the SMI Peer Alliance, Kerry bridges the gap between elite legislative design and the realities of the street. Her frontline service on Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams allows her to translate complex clinical protocols into human survival. Having experienced discrimination and systemic abandonment firsthand during a severe health crisis—where she was discarded as a liability rather than seen as a human being in a medical emergency—she refuses to tolerate the sanitized, comfortable language that dominates mainstream mental health advocacy.

Alongside NSSC’s executive team, Kerry fights to change the entire national paradigm: proving that Severe Mental Illness is a physical, no-fault brain disease, not a moral flaw or a lifestyle choice. By fighting for the absolute right to be well, Kerry ensures NSSC’s initiatives are driven by a simple truth: a failing brain deserves the exact same immediate medical grace and inherent dignity as any other vital organ.