A mental health benefit for investment banks and trading desks.
A private clinical channel for the bankers and traders who run on extreme hours, deal-cycle adrenaline, and a culture where admitting strain is treated as weakness. Matched clinicians. Extended sessions. No firm visibility into care.
A private clinical channel for the desk tier of your firm.
This page is for heads of human capital, chief operating officers, division heads, and the leaders at investment banks and trading firms scoping a desk-tier mental health channel that operates outside the firm's existing EAP and benefits stack. If that is you, the rest of this page is the briefing document.
CEREVITY operates as a clinical network with direct relationships between the network, the clinicians, and the firm. There is no third-party broker layer. Bankers and traders are matched, not first-served. Scheduling and intake run through CEREVITY infrastructure and around the deal cycle and market hours. Care is private-pay, out-of-network, and structurally outside the firm-sponsored channel by design.
Our clinicians are independent licensed professionals. Many understand the particular world of the deal and the desk: the all-nighters that stack into weeks, the adrenaline of a live trade or a closing, the comedown after the deal prints, and a floor culture where being seen to struggle is read as a liability. CEREVITY exists because the standard EAP and a culture that punishes disclosure leave the desk tier without an appropriate channel of care, and because that channel needs to be built differently.
The clinical profile of a banker or trader is not the workforce-wide profile your EAP was built for.
The reasons your people do not engage with the EAP are not failures of the EAP. They are inherent to how that system was scoped, and to a culture where admitting strain is widely read as admitting you cannot handle the seat.
Bankers and traders present with a recognizable profile: anxiety and depression rates that survey research has found elevated in the field, the physiological toll of extreme hours and chronic sleep deprivation, the boom-and-bust cycle of deal adrenaline followed by collapse, and a learned silence driven by the belief that disclosure ends careers. These are not workforce-wide concerns a generic EAP roster was built to address. They are the presenting issues of the revenue-producing population the firm is built around.
Standard EAPs are scoped around short-term, workforce-wide problem-solving and a handful of sessions. They are not built for ongoing depth-oriented work, they do not fit deal-cycle or market-hours schedules, and they cannot overcome a floor culture in which using a visible benefit is perceived as a tell. For many on the desk, the math is brutal and simple: the perceived career risk of being seen seeking help outweighs the help.
What changes when the channel is built around this profile: clinicians who understand deal-cycle and desk pressure, session formats long enough to do real work, scheduling that flexes around closings and market hours, and a confidentiality posture that gives the firm no visibility into who has engaged or with what. In a culture that punishes disclosure, that separation is the only thing that makes engagement possible.
What CEREVITY clinicians actually treat in the desk tier.
The clinical scope is built around the presenting profile of investment bankers and traders, not the workforce-wide profile a generic EAP is built for.
Sleep deprivation and exhaustion
Weeks of all-nighters and five-hour nights are not a phase to push through; they reshape mood, cognition, and physical health. The chronic deprivation common in junior banking has a clinical signature and is treated as one.
Deal-cycle adrenaline and comedown
The pattern of all-consuming intensity during a live deal followed by sudden emptiness when it prints has a recognizable clinical shape. Most people manage it; some never learn to, and it compounds across a career.
Performance anxiety on the desk
P&L visible in real time, decisions priced in seconds, and a number that defines your standing produce a particular kind of acute, sustained anxiety. On a trading desk it is constant, and it is treatable.
Disclosure as career risk
A culture where struggling is read as a liability drives people to hide what they carry until it breaks. The silence itself becomes part of the clinical picture, and the reason a fully separate channel matters so much.
High-functioning anxiety
Performance maintained at significant personal cost. The output looks flawless to the firm and the client; the cost is invisible until it is not. Common across both deal teams and trading desks.
Substance use as coping
Long hours and high pressure make stimulants, alcohol, and other substances an easy and dangerous form of self-management. When coping becomes dependence it is a clinical issue, addressed in a confidential channel rather than concealed.
Identity fused to the number
When self-worth is welded to bonus, title, and P&L, an off year or a missed promotion is not a setback but an identity rupture. Separating the person from the number is its own clinical project.
Post-bonus and post-deal crash
The depressurization after bonus season or a major closing leaves a vacuum that surprises people who expected relief. The crash has a clinical signature, and the intensive format was built partly for this kind of work.
Three session formats, each chosen for the work.
Most benefits programs offer one session length. CEREVITY offers three, because different kinds of clinical work need different amounts of time. The choice is made between the clinician and the banker, not by what a payor will reimburse.
The steady cadence of ongoing therapy. Most clients spend most of their care in this format.
For work that needs more room than a standard hour. Focused work on a specific transition or decision.
For work that needs uninterrupted time to reach resolution within a single session.
The 50-minute format suits ongoing weekly work. The 90-minute format gives room for deeper processing or for a banker with a single window in a closing-heavy week. The 3-hour intensive is built for concentrated work, including processing a post-deal crash or making real progress in one sitting when the next live window is weeks away. Because CEREVITY operates outside the insurance reimbursement model, session length is set by the clinical work, not by what a payor will reimburse.
Ready to scope a desk-tier briefing?
Briefings are scoped to your firm. We respond personally within 48 business hours with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the shape you are evaluating.
Request a briefing →How a banker is matched.
Matched, not first-served. Here is the process that produces the match for a banker or trader.
The eligible individual submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, professional context, and scheduling parameters. Operated by CEREVITY, not by a broker.
Intake is reviewed by CEREVITY's clinical leadership against the network's active capacity, current licensure footprint, and modality availability. The step that does not exist in an EAP.
A specific clinician is matched to the banker. They receive the match with the clinician's profile, modality, and credentials, plus a direct online scheduling link.
The banker schedules directly through CEREVITY infrastructure. No phone handoff. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match.
Care continues with the matched clinician on the cadence the clinical work requires, in 50-minute, 90-minute, or 3-hour sessions, without an employer-imposed cap.
Capability comparison for Investment Bankers and Trading Desk Professionals.
A vendor evaluation framework on the dimensions that matter when scoping a desk-tier-tier offering for bankers. Both models have a place. They are designed for different populations.
| Dimension | Typical EAP | Exec-tier platform | CEREVITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network model | Broker layer between firm and contractor roster | Single-vendor platform, W-2 or contracted pool | Independent clinical network with direct relationships |
| Clinician assignment | First contractor to reply with availability | Algorithmic matching on intake-form inputs | Clinical review by network leadership |
| Intake & scheduling | Phone handoff to clinician's line | App-based intake and scheduling | Network-operated intake, direct online scheduling |
| Session formats | Standard 50-min; capped session counts | Standard 45 to 50-min sessions | 50-min, 90-min, and 3-hr formats, no cap |
| Clinical scope | Acute, broadly applicable concerns | Workforce-wide, executive tier as upsell | Built around Investment Bankers and Trading Desk Professionals presenting issues |
| Modality fit | Generalist talk therapy | Generalist therapy with some specialty | CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, matched at intake |
| Reach | National via roster density | National telehealth, roster variance | All 50 states via telehealth |
| Payment model | Firm-sponsored, in-network | Per-employee-per-month seat pricing | Private-pay, out-of-network, partnership agreement |
| Firm visibility | Aggregate, broker-mediated | Vendor dashboards with engagement | Administrative reporting only |
| Right fit for | Workforce-wide acute support | Mid-tier ongoing with executive add-on | Investment Bankers and Trading Desk Professionals, end-to-end |
What the firm sees, and what it does not.
For a desk-tier-tier channel to function, the participating banker has to trust that engaging with it does not create visibility into their care. CEREVITY is designed around that requirement.
- Confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals.
- Aggregate utilization at the partnership level, where contractually appropriate.
- Invoicing and eligibility reconciliation.
- Nothing tied to a specific named banker's clinical content.
- Whether a specific named banker has scheduled, attended, or engaged.
- What clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned.
- Session notes, treatment plans, or diagnostic information.
- Any attendance detail at the individual level.
Clinicians are independent licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. Protected health information is held within the clinical infrastructure, and the agreements governing it are defined in writing before the partnership goes live.
Clinical records, session content, and individual engagement data sit inside the clinical platform. The administrative layer is structurally separate from the clinical layer.
Eligibility lists are maintained on the partner side and confirmed at the point of intake. Administering eligibility does not require the partner to receive clinical information back.
A Business Associate Agreement is executed where the partnership structure requires it. The partnership agreement defines the administrative reporting scope explicitly, in writing, before the partnership goes live.
What the first 30 days look like.
The hardest part of a desk-tier-tier partnership is not the contract. It is the period between signature and the first banker in care.
A 60-minute kickoff with your team and CEREVITY's partnership lead. We confirm the partnership shape, the eligibility model, the administrative reporting scope, and the internal owner. The BAA, where applicable, is executed.
Your team provides the eligible-individual list in the format your administrative systems support. CEREVITY confirms it against the network side and establishes the verification path at intake.
CEREVITY provides a confidential, desk-tier-appropriate comms template. Your team adapts it to your voice. Designed to be received without stigma.
Eligible individuals begin intake on their own cadence. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days. By day 30, the partnership is operational and a quarterly review cadence is in place.
The business case for the head of human capital and the COO.
Three axes a head of human capital, a chief operating officer, or a division head can defend in a budget conversation. The numbers will vary by firm; the structural argument does not.
Junior attrition is a per-departure problem the desk feels directly.
A large share of junior bankers leave within their first years, and each exit costs the firm the recruiting, training, and ramp investment, plus the load absorbed by the team during the gap. A clinical channel built for the realities of the desk pays for itself across very few prevented departures.
A clear-headed desk is a performance and risk input.
Exhaustion, untreated anxiety, and substance reliance degrade exactly the judgment the firm pays for, and on a trading desk degraded judgment is a direct risk to P&L. A supported professional operates with more reserve and makes cleaner decisions. That reserve is the entire point.
Wellbeing posture is a recruiting and reputation signal.
Talent increasingly weighs how a firm treats its people, and the industry's reputation on this is a recruiting headwind. A named, confidential, desk-tier mental health channel is a differentiating signal in a competitive market and a defensible answer when the question of culture comes up.
Questions bankers and their teams ask first.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network are independently licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. The handling of any protected health information, and the specific agreements that govern it including any Business Associate Agreement, are defined in writing in the partnership agreement before the partnership goes live, scoped to your firm's structure.
No. Administrative reporting only. The firm receives confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals and aggregate utilization where contractually appropriate. It does not see whether a specific named person has scheduled, attended, or engaged, what is being addressed, or which clinician is assigned. This is contractually scoped before the partnership goes live, and in a culture that reads disclosure as risk that separation is what makes the channel usable.
CEREVITY provides confidential clinical care and does not report to or interface with any regulator, exchange, or the firm's compliance or supervision functions. Clinicians are bound by their own licensure obligations. Any question about whether a specific personal circumstance carries a disclosure implication is a matter for the individual and their own counsel, not something CEREVITY represents or advises on. The channel is built so that seeking ordinary support is structurally separate from any firm or regulatory process.
No. CEREVITY is a structural complement. Most firms keep their EAP in place for workforce-wide, short-term coverage and add CEREVITY as the desk-tier private-pay channel for ongoing depth-oriented work that an EAP was never scoped to provide.
No. CEREVITY is private-pay and out-of-network by design. The structure is intentional: it is the only way to deliver the clinical scope, session formats, and confidentiality posture that bankers and traders require.
Yes. Scheduling and intake run through CEREVITY infrastructure and are built to flex around closings, live deals, and market hours. Care is delivered nationwide via telehealth, so continuity holds even when the week does not go to plan or the desk is on the road.
First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of intake, depending on modality requirements and scheduling parameters.
Through a briefing call. Use the form below or email [email protected] directly. Briefings are scoped to your firm; we respond personally within 48 business hours.
Tell us about your firm. We respond within 48 business hours.
Briefings are scoped to your firm. Share a few details below and we will respond personally with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the desk-tier channel you are evaluating.
The structural argument on this page is based on the firsthand experience of CEREVITY clinicians who have served on EAP panels, combined with widely-published industry estimates of EAP utilization and Investment Bankers and Trading Desk Professionals-specific data where cited. Specific contractual scopes, including the administrative reporting boundary and the BAA structure, are confirmed in writing in the partnership agreement before any partnership goes live.
