Dixon Chibanda is Professor of Psychiatry and Public Health at the University of Zimbabwe, Associate Professor of Global Mental Health at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI). Dixon is a leading academic, practitioner and advocate for cutting-edge public mental health initiatives. His research focuses on developing sustainable community-based mental health programs such as the Friendship Bench, which trains Zimbabwean grandmothers as lay health workers to deliver counselling from a wooden bench. The project has been successfully scaled up and not only replicated in other countries in Africa but is also attracting attention for its potential to improve mental health in other underserved communities around the world.