Janet Paleo is an internationally recognized mental health advocate, systems change leader, and champion of recovery whose work is grounded in lived experience. After a two-year hospitalization and more than 50 psychiatric hospitalizations, she transformed her journey into a powerful force for advocacy, peer leadership, and community empowerment. Since 1996, Janet has worked alongside public mental health systems to elevate the lived experience voice and advance recovery-oriented practices. She is the co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of Prosumers International, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering people to build lives they love despite life’s challenges. She also serves as Director of Recovery-Based Services for the Texas Council of Community Centers. Janet has served on the Board of the World Federation for Mental Health and has been honored with the Governor’s Trophy Award, the SAMHSA Voice Award, and the National Peer Specialist Award from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. Her mission is bold and unwavering: to help people rediscover hope and live lives of purpose, dignity, and choice.