Billboard has named Hilary Gleason, the 36-year-old co-founder and executive director of the music industry mental health non-profit Backline, as the lead entry on its 2026 40 Under 40 list, published on 30 July 2026 (Billboard).

The profile recognises Gleason's work building an organisation that connects music industry professionals and their families with a trusted network of mental health and wellness providers (Backline). Backline's services are free and available to artists, managers, agents, promoters, labels, crew, and family members. They include a 24/7 crisis support line called B-LINE (855-BLINE99 or text 254-639), a case management programme that offers one-on-one help finding vetted therapists, and wellness programming spanning yoga, meditation, breathwork, mindfulness, binaural beats, sound healing, and nutritional items. Case management is available to US residents; wellness programming is available globally (Backline).

Backline launched in October 2019, following the suicides of musician Jeff Austin of Yonder Mountain String Band and guitarist Neal Casal in the summer of that year. Gleason co-founded the organisation with eight others, including psychotherapists and music agents. The first donation came from promoter Peter Shapiro, who contributed $10,000. Billy Strings, the Grammy-winning bluegrass guitarist, was Backline's first artist supporter. Strings met Gleason in 2015, when he was touring in a van playing over 100 shows a year, and has said the organisation matters because he has lived the mental health challenges of the music business himself (Billboard).

The organisation gained wider public attention in February 2025, when Chappell Roan used her Best New Artist acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards to call on record labels to cover healthcare costs for artists. The following weekend, on Super Bowl Sunday, Roan donated $25,000 to Backline. The live entertainment giant AEG matched her donation. Noah Kahan, Sabrina Carpenter, and Charli xcx also matched it, as part of a fundraising campaign called "WE GOT YOU!" The connection came through Roan's business manager, Lisa Hess, a longtime friend of Gleason (Billboard).

Backline has since expanded its reach through partnerships. With Spotify, it released "Between the Lines," a mental health guide for songwriters, and announced what the two organisations described as a first-of-its-kind "Mental Health for Creators Global Initiative" (Backline).

Gleason's path to founding the organisation was unconventional. She grew up in Durham, North Carolina, and as a high school senior helped build a training programme in Uganda alongside a Duke University neurosurgeon. She studied global and Africana studies and community health education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In the mid-2010s she worked on the global policy and advocacy team at Global Citizen. A former partner was a member of the band Greensky Bluegrass, giving her a front-row view of touring life. She also runs a separate non-profit called "level," which consults for touring artists; its clients include the electronic music project Femme House and DJ-producer LP Giobbi (Billboard).

Billboard's 40 Under 40 list recognises executives across the music business, from labels and streaming platforms to live events and publishing. Gleason's placement at the top of the 2026 edition puts a non-profit founder ahead of corporate dealmakers, which is where the story sits: a mental health crisis line built by nine people in 2019 is now a name artists invoke on Grammy night.