Debbie Carroll

Biography

Debbie Carroll serves as the CMA Endowed Chair and Executive Director for the Center for Mental Health in Entertainment at Belmont University, where she provides visionary leadership to guide the Center’s strategy, growth, and industry impact.

Carroll brings more than 30 years of experience at the intersection of mental health, entertainment, and nonprofit leadership. Most recently, she served as Vice President of Entertainment and Specialized Services at Onsite—an international leader in emotional health—where she built and launched Onsite’s concierge-based emotional wellness platform for public-facing professionals. Under her leadership, the division grew by 300% in three years, expanding access to transformative mental health support for hundreds of entertainment professionals nationwide.

Prior to Onsite, Carroll spent 23 years with MusiCares as Vice President of Health and Human Services. She led the development, expansion, and national implementation of MusiCares’ programs and services, growing the organization from serving 230 clients and distributing $236,000 in 1998 to more than 38,000 clients and over $28 million in support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Carroll guided MusiCares’ mission-driven response through more than 10 major disasters—including Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Harvey, the Nashville Floods, and the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting.

Carroll also launched MusiCares’ first preventative Healthy Essentials Clinic. This program has since grown to more than 500 annual events across the country, offering medical, dental, hearing, emotional health, addiction recovery, and educational services to music professionals.

Before joining MusiCares in 1998, Carroll spent nine years in the human services field, working across hospital settings, private practice, and community-based programs. She played a key role in developing substance abuse treatment programs in Massachusetts, Colorado, and Georgia.

Carroll currently serves on the boards of the Country Music Association, ACM Lifting Lives, and Harmonium.  She is the former Chairman of ACM Lifting Lives and the former President of the Leadership Music Board of Directors. Her previous board service includes the American Heart Association and the Onsite Foundation. She has been honored for six consecutive years with the Nashville Business Journal’s Women in Music Business Award and was named a Pollstar Impact 50 honoree in 2020.

Carroll holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Georgia and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder.