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Devora Kestel is a senior global mental health policy expert with more than twenty-five years of international experience in Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America working on implementing and advising governments on national policies related to mental health systems. In 2000 she joined the WHO as a Mental Health Officer in post-war Kosovo and later served as WHO Representative in Albania. In both countries, she worked closely with the Ministries of Health to help establish comprehensive community-based mental health systems. In 2007 she joined the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) where she first worked as the Mental Health Advisor for the Caribbean Countries, and then at the headquarters in Washington DC, providing technical cooperation in the mental health field to the entire region of the Americas. In 2015 she became the Unit Chief for Mental Health and Substance Abuse and since 2019 has been serving as WHO's Director of Mental Health and Substance Abuse. She speaks to us about outdated views of mental health issues and mental health reforms, her transition from clinical practice to public policy, strategies and tools to advocate for increased government investment in mental health, fighting against the stigmas associated with both mental health and substance abuse, the building back better approach, the bureaucratic challenges of working in UN agencies, country level vs regional level work, the presence of corporate lobbying in the sector, the importance of having a more inclusive global representation in initiatives, mental health as the shadow pandemic behind the coronavirus pandemic and much more. She joins us from Geneva, Switzerland.\\xa0