President-Elect — Dr. Ross Menzies

Congratulations to Professor Ross Menzies who has been unanimously appointed as the next WCCBT President of the WCCBT  and will take up the role at the Annual  General Meeting at the World Congress in June 2026 in San Francisco. Until then Ross is our President-Elect while at the same time carry on serving as the WCCBT Treasurer until a replacement is appointed.

Ross has been associated with the WCCBT since it was formed in 2019 serving as both our treasurer and as the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy (AACBT) representative on the WCCBT Board.  Long before the WCCBT was formed Ross had a long history of involvement with CBT nationally in Australia and internationally. Ross was the convenor of the 8th World Congress of Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies in 2016 in Melbourne and  editor of the AACBT’s scientific journal, Behaviour Change, for 17 years. He is a Fellow of the AACBT and a previous winner of the Distinguished Career Award of the association. Ross is now the President of AACBT and  continues active research in anxiety and mental health and has published a dozen books and more than 220 journal papers and book chapters.

As Treasurer of the WCCBT Ross has helped grow our funding base through the development of the Global Ambassadors Program and the introduction of a levy on the host organisations of our congresses. Expansion of our income-generating activities has taken us from depending on minimal annual fees to building a reasonable bank balance. With increasing income, we are  better able to consider practical actions to support access to CBT around the globe. In his view, this should be a focus of the WCCBT over coming years.

As President of the WCCBT, Ross’s goals will include:

1. Continuing to support the development and advancement of CBT organisations representing the continent of Africa
2. Solidifying our relationship with the World Health Organisation (WHO)
3. Ensuring the stable and collegial operation of our WCCBT Board in the context of new member organisations potentially joining us
4. Continuing to increase the annual income of the WCCBT
5. Beginning to support and/or develop CBT programs to meet the mental health and training needs in under-resourced regions of the world.