Laura Earnshaw describes herself as a ‘Mum on a mission’.
She’s the CEO of myHappymind, which has just landed a minority investment from LDC.
Last year, Earnshaw completing a hat-trick of winning the Judges’ Overall Award at the 2025 GP Bullhound’s 2025 Northern Tech Awards; being a Northern finalist in the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year; and being named in LDC’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme.
Earnshaw’s evolution into one of the UK’s most highly-rated entrepreneurs is impressive.
A former global head of talent and diversity at AstraZeneca, she spent 15 years working with global CEOs and universities like Harvard Business School, helping top leaders develop resilience, the ability to cope with change and leadership skills.
Earnshaw realised that children weren’t being taught the same skills in schools so set up myHappymind to deliver the course to schools.
Speaking last year she told BusinessCloud: “The problem is it’s a perfect storm. You’ve got more prevalence of mental health issues than ever before. One in five children have got a mental health issue. That works out at about six in every classroom.
“However, the NHS is creaking at the seams, so the waiting time for help in some areas can be a year or more.
“A primary school age child could be in real need of mental health support, but have to wait a year, or more, to get the specialist support they need. And while they wait, typically things just get worse.
“What we do is teach children from as young as three preventative strategies so they don’t get to that point where they need that help. It takes pressure off the NHS and helps kids thrive.
“We support a culture change in school so that every single child learns how to look after their own mental health.”
It now works with more than 1,900 schools across the UK, offering programmes designed to help children build resilience, improve emotional regulation and develop positive mental wellbeing habits from an early age.
Earnshaw has grown myHappymind into a multi-million pound turnover with 50 per cent EDITDA and continued to build the business during Covid while homeschooling her children.
Bootstrapped
The achievement is all the more noteworthy because, until now, she’s bootstrapped the whole business.
The company’s work in some areas has resulted in a 60 per cent fall in exclusions, a 67 per cent drop in children requiring SENco support and a 43 per cent drop in CAMHS referrals.
Earnshaw’s husband Tim is the chief operating officer.
In 2023, myHappymind was awarded NHS Innovation Accelerator status in recognition of its social impact, while the business has also achieved B Corp certification.
The myHappymind has captured the attention of both NHS and investors alike.
Dale Alderson, head of the North West and partner at LDC, admitted: “We’ve been tracking the success of myHappymind for some time.
“So, when the opportunity arose to back Laura we knew we had to act quickly, completing the investment within three weeks of being chosen by Laura as her preferred partner.”