An executive wellness program your leadership team will actually use.
The company funds the care and never receives the names of the people who use it. CEREVITY gives a CHRO, a chief of staff, a board chair, or a general counsel a confidential clinical benefit for the tier of the organization that will not touch anything it can be seen touching.
An executive wellness program is a company-funded benefit that gives senior leaders confidential therapy with independent licensed clinicians rather than an app, a hotline, or a coaching subscription. CEREVITY runs it as private-pay care: the company funds eligibility, each executive schedules directly with a matched clinician, and the report the company receives carries no names, no attendance, and no clinical detail.
What an executive wellness program actually is.
A nationwide network of independent licensed clinicians, funded by the company and used privately by the executive.
CEREVITY is a nationwide network of independent licensed clinicians providing private-pay therapy by secure telehealth across all 50 states. An executive wellness program built on that network is not an app, not a coaching marketplace, and not an employee assistance program. Each executive is matched by hand to a clinician who works with high-responsibility roles, and then keeps that clinician for as long as the work runs.
For the company, the structure is simple to reason about. The company funds eligibility and receives an invoice at the partnership level. It does not receive a roster of who booked, a dashboard of engagement, or anything a clinician wrote down. That separation is the product rather than a feature of it, which is the argument for a benefit that leaves no record an employer can read.
The pattern is already proven one tier down. The physician wellness program runs the same structure for clinicians, a population that will not use a channel it can be identified in, and it is the closest working reference for what a C-suite version looks like in practice.
Companies that describe the same arrangement in benefits language should start with the executive mental health benefit for companies, which covers scoping, eligibility tiers, and how the offer is announced internally without turning it into an event.
Why an executive wellness program is a different problem.
The barrier at this tier is not access. It is exposure.
Senior leaders are not short of ways to find a therapist. They are short of ways to see one that leave no trace inside the organization they run. A general wellness program is designed to be measured, and it reports participation, engagement, and utilization by population. Every one of those measurements is a reason for the person at the top of the chart not to enrol, because at that headcount an aggregate can identify someone.
The people declining to enrol are not declining because they are fine.
of C-suite respondents said they were seriously considering quitting for a job that would better support their well-being, a higher share than the managers or employees surveyed with them. Source: Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence, Well-being at Work Survey, 2023, 3,150 respondents in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
Read that figure for what it is. It is what executives said about their own intentions in a survey, not evidence about what any treatment does. What it establishes is narrower and still useful to a buyer: the tier a company can least afford to lose reports the highest intent to leave, and reports it while sitting on top of the benefits the company already pays for.
Source · Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence, Well-being at Work Survey, 2023 (3,150 respondents in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia).
The gap between the tiers is the argument for a separate channel rather than a better version of the same one. Benefits designed for a whole workforce routinely fail to arrive at the executive floor for reasons that have nothing to do with their clinical quality, a pattern set out in why benefits never reach executives.
What executives actually bring to the work.
The presenting issues behind the performance, in the language of the role.
Load without recovery
Years of sustained demand with no genuine off-ramp, absorbed as a personality trait rather than a condition. It is the pattern executive burnout therapy is built around, and it is usually well advanced before anyone at the top names it.
Decisions that do not reverse
A day made entirely of calls that cannot be unmade, taken with incomplete information and a room waiting. Volume alone degrades judgment, which is what decision fatigue therapy addresses.
Isolation at the top
No peer inside the company, a board that evaluates rather than confides, and a spouse who has heard it before. This is the exact pattern leadership isolation therapy exists for.
The moment before the room
Board days, earnings calls, diligence, the all-hands after a hard quarter. Anticipatory dread that never shows on the outside is standard at this level, and high-stakes anxiety therapy treats it directly.
The mind that will not stop
Sleep that breaks at four in the morning and refills with the same three problems. It is one of the earliest observable changes, and often the first thing an executive is willing to describe out loud.
Competence covering depression
Output holds while everything underneath it goes flat. High performers can run a long time on structure alone, which is why the presentation here rarely looks like the textbook one and why anxiety and depression therapy starts with what is actually happening rather than what is visible.
What the role costs at home
The hours and the mental load follow the executive home, and the relationship absorbs the overflow of a job that does not pause. Couples therapy is part of the network for exactly this.
Who you are without the title
Succession, a planned exit, or a move into a chair role raises a question the calendar has been answering for twenty years. It surfaces late and rarely resolves on its own.
The company can pay for the hour. It cannot be in the room, and it does not get to know the hour happened.
Session formats built for executive calendars.
Three lengths, and no requirement to defend the same slot every week.
The steady cadence of ongoing therapy. Most clients spend most of their care in 50-minute sessions.
For work that needs more room than a standard hour can hold. See 90-minute sessions.
For work that needs uninterrupted time to reach resolution. See 3-hour therapy intensives.
Care is delivered in 50-minute, 90-minute, and 3-hour sessions by secure telehealth, nationwide. An executive whose week is set by other people can do real work in a single 90-minute or 3-hour block instead of losing a standing appointment to travel and then quietly dropping out. Continuity holds because the executive keeps the same clinician, and modality is matched at intake rather than assigned. Where licensure and capacity allow, matching happens the same day the intake arrives, and same-week access is the normal case rather than the exception.
Give the tier that carries it somewhere to put it.
A confidential conversation about an executive-tier benefit takes one call, and nothing about it touches a company benefits system.
Start a partnership conversationHow an executive is matched.
Every executive is matched by hand, not by an algorithm running against an intake form. Clinicians in the network include Trevor Grossman, PhD, a licensed psychologist whose work covers executive and entrepreneur mental health, burnout, and performance psychology, using CBT, ACT, behavioral activation, and schema-informed approaches.
The eligible individual submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, professional context, and scheduling parameters. Operated by CEREVITY directly, not by a broker.
Intake is reviewed by CEREVITY's clinical leadership against the network's active capacity, current licensure footprint, and modality availability. This is the step that does not exist in an EAP.
A specific clinician is matched to the executive, who receives the match with the clinician's profile, modality, and credentials, plus a direct online scheduling link.
Scheduling runs directly through CEREVITY infrastructure with no phone handoff. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match.
Care continues on the cadence the clinical work requires, in 50-minute, 90-minute, or 3-hour sessions, without an employer-imposed session cap.
Capability comparison for executive teams.
An evaluation framework on the dimensions that decide whether a senior leader uses the benefit at all. All three models have a place, and they are built for different populations.
| Dimension | Typical EAP | Executive-tier platform | CEREVITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network model | Broker layer between employer 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 and scheduling | Phone handoff to the clinician's line | App-based intake and scheduling | Network-operated intake, direct online scheduling |
| Session formats | Standard 50-minute, capped session counts | Standard 45 to 50-minute sessions | 50-minute, 90-minute, and 3-hour formats, no cap |
| Clinical scope | Acute, broadly applicable concerns | Workforce-wide, executive tier as an upsell | Built around the presenting issues of executives |
| Modality fit | Generalist talk therapy | Generalist therapy with some specialty | CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, IFS, matched at intake |
| Reach | National via roster density | National telehealth, roster variance | All 50 states via telehealth |
| Payment model | Employer-sponsored, in network | Per-employee-per-month seat pricing | Private pay, out of network, partnership agreement |
| Company visibility | Aggregate, broker-mediated | Vendor dashboards with engagement metrics | Administrative reporting only |
| Right fit for | Workforce-wide acute support | Mid-tier ongoing care with an executive add-on | executive teams, end to end |
If you are running a formal evaluation, our notes on what to look for in a private therapy provider cover the procurement side in detail, including the questions that separate a network from a roster.
For the specific question of where an existing employee assistance program does and does not reach, our honest comparison of an EAP against private therapy is written for the buyer rather than for the vendor.
What the company sees, and what it does not.
The company is the payer and never the audience. This section is the mechanic in full, because for a CHRO, a chief of staff, a board chair, or a general counsel it is the only part of the page that decides anything.
- 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 executive's clinical content.
- Whether a specific named executive 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. Our notice of privacy practices and privacy policy are published in full.
Clinical records, session content, and individual engagement data sit inside the clinical platform. The administrative layer the partner interacts with 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, and whether one applies is a determination made with counsel rather than assumed. The partnership agreement defines the administrative reporting scope in writing before anything goes live. See also our terms of service.
Concretely, information moves in one direction. The company sends CEREVITY a list of eligible people. CEREVITY confirms eligibility at the point of intake and sends nothing back about who appeared on the other side of it. There is no engagement dashboard, no per-person attendance file, no monthly list of names, and no alert to a benefits team when someone books.
Scheduling runs directly between the executive and the clinician on CEREVITY infrastructure, so no assistant, shared inbox, or internal approval step sits in the middle. Internal communications go to the entire eligible group at once, which matters more than it sounds: when everyone gets the same note, opening it signals nothing.
What the company receives is an invoice and, where the agreement provides for it, aggregate confirmation that contracted services were delivered. The scope of that reporting is written into the partnership agreement before the program goes live, and it is the clause worth reading closely, because a small eligible population and a detailed report are a bad combination. Executives ask about downstream exposure before they will engage at all, and the question that comes up most is whether therapy shows up on a background check.
Clinical content stays with the clinician. Nothing an executive says is available to the company at any reporting tier, for any reason, beyond the limits to confidentiality the clinician explains directly at the first session. The confidentiality premium covers why senior people pay for that separation instead of accepting a free channel without it.
What the first 30 days look like.
The hardest part of a executive-tier partnership is not the contract. It is the period between signature and the first executive 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. CEREVITY confirms it against the network and establishes the verification path at intake. Only eligibility confirmation flows forward.
CEREVITY provides a confidential, executive-tier comms template explaining the benefit, the privacy posture, and how to access intake. It is written 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 company.
Retention, judgment, and recruiting are the levers, and an executive wellness program only moves them if the people it is built for will use it.
Retention where replacement is hardest
Three quarters of surveyed executives describing themselves as seriously considering a move is a retention signal about the most expensive seats in the building. A confidential channel is one of the few offerings that reaches the people least likely to raise a hand, and it belongs in the same conversation as the rest of retaining high-value employees.
Judgment under sustained load
What a company funds at this tier is decision quality, since a handful of people set the direction everyone else executes. Care that addresses the underlying pattern rather than the presenting symptom is the version worth funding, and it is the version a leader stays in long enough for the work to be real.
Recruiting and the signal it sends
An offer of confidential clinical care at the executive tier reads, to a candidate, as a company that expects to keep its leaders rather than consume them. It also shows up in diligence and in any serious comparison against peer packages, where an executive-tier clinical benefit is still uncommon enough to be noticed.
Questions a CHRO or a board asks first.
What is an executive wellness program?
An executive wellness program is a company-sponsored benefit that gives senior leaders confidential clinical care with licensed clinicians, separate from the general workforce offering. At CEREVITY it means private-pay therapy by secure telehealth in all 50 states, hand matching to a clinician experienced with high-responsibility roles, and 50-minute, 90-minute, and 3-hour formats. It sits above, not inside, the broader employee mental health benefits stack.
How does an executive wellness program stay confidential when the company is paying?
By separating the money from the information. The company funds eligibility and receives an invoice at the partnership level; it does not receive names, attendance, session counts by individual, or any clinical content. Eligibility flows one way, scheduling runs directly between the executive and the clinician, and the reporting scope is fixed in writing before launch. The step-by-step version is in how to set up confidential therapy for your executives.
Does an executive wellness program replace our EAP?
No. The employee assistance program continues to serve the whole population at volume. The executive program is a narrow, confidential tier for the leaders whose continuity most affects the company, and it exists because that group does not use the general channel. The reasoning is set out in why executives do not use your EAP and what to offer instead.
Is this coaching or is it therapy?
It is therapy, delivered by licensed clinicians, and it is a different thing from executive coaching. Coaching is oriented to performance and often reports to a sponsor. Therapy is confidential clinical care with no stakeholder other than the person in the room. The distinction is drawn in full in executive counseling versus executive coaching.
Who are the clinicians?
Independent licensed clinicians who work with high-responsibility professionals, matched to the executive by hand after a clinical review of the intake rather than by an availability queue. Credentials, modality, and professional focus are shared with the executive at the point of match. Our hiring standard is described in why CEREVITY only hires clinicians who specialize in high achievers.
Which leaders does a company usually cover?
Scope is defined in the partnership agreement. Most companies start with the executive committee and the chief of staff function, and some extend it to directors, where the isolation is different again. Keeping the eligible population deliberately narrow is what keeps the benefit credible as a leadership-tier offering rather than a rebranded workforce program.
What does an executive wellness program cost a company?
Structure depends on how many leaders are covered and the scope of access, and it is agreed in the partnership conversation. CEREVITY is a private-pay network with transparent fees, and standard individual rates are published on our pricing page.
How quickly can an executive be seen, and how do we start?
Once the partnership is live, an individual intake is reviewed and matched by hand, and where licensure and capacity allow that match is made the same day. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match. To begin, use the briefing form on this page or reach the partnerships desk through our contact page.
Start a partnership conversation.
Tell us how many leaders you want to cover and what the internal constraint is. A member of CEREVITY's clinical leadership will follow up directly and confidentially.
Further reading and related partnerships.
Research, buyer-side briefings, clinical writing, and the other partnerships CEREVITY runs.
Research and reports
For CHROs and boards
Clinical writing
A note on sources.
The intent-to-leave figures on this page, for employees, managers and the C-suite alike, are drawn from the Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence Well-being at Work Survey (2023), fielded in March 2023 among 3,150 executives, managers and employees in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. They describe what respondents said about their own intentions and are not evidence about the effect of any treatment. The structural argument on this page is based on the firsthand experience of CEREVITY clinicians who have served on employee assistance program panels, combined with publicly available vendor materials. Specific contractual scopes, including any Business Associate Agreement, are confirmed in writing in the partnership agreement before a partnership goes live. Additional CEREVITY research is collected in the knowledge base.