The OUTstanding LGBT+ Executive Role Model Hall of Fame 2019

The 2019 OUTstanding LGBT+ Role Model Lists, supported by Yahoo Finance, are a powerful reflection of the incredible achievements of LGBT+ people in the business community.

Each year diversity charity INvolve publishes lists showcasing the top 100 LGBT+ Executives, the top 50 LGBT+ Future Leaders, the top 50 Ally Executives, and top 30 Public Sector LGBT+ Executives.

As part of the celebrations, OUTstanding has put together a complementary Hall of Fame List. These inspiring leaders have been longstanding advocates of OUTstanding. They are visible champions of the group’s work, demonstrating their commitment, year-on-year, for LGBT+ inclusion and workplace equality.

1) Stacey Friedman, General Counsel, JPMorgan Chase

Stacey is a committed advocate for LGBT+ individuals. Currently the only openly gay General Counsel of a large financial institution, this visibility affords her the chance to speak to, write about and mentor those internal and external to the firm. She is a thought leader within and outside of the company around topics like the importance of allies and of bringing diversity to law and banking.

Throughout her career, she has regularly supported a wide range of programs designed to address the challenges and successes of LGBT+ professionals and women, sharing her experiences as an out woman in mentoring circles, on panels and other industry gatherings.

She is a founding member of JPMorgan (JPM) Chase’s LGBT+ Executive Council, where she initiated the process to set a global policy that governs how JPMC makes public statements in support of LGBT+ issues, and serves as the Operating Committee sponsor for PRIDE, an employee resource group dedicated to maintaining a welcome workplace for all. Additionally, she was integral in the firm’s efforts to expand fertility benefits and surrogacy assistance to employees in the U.S.

Externally, Stacey serves on the board of the National Women’s Law Center, alongside involvement in other similar organisations. With the help of Stacey’s activities, JPMC has been awarded Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality from the Human Rights Campaign and has earned a perfect score on their Corporate Equality Index for the past 17 years. Other accolades have come from OUTLeadership, Chambers and Partners, and the National Bar Association, among others.

2) Paul Polman, Co-founder & Chair, IMAGINE

As the former CEO of Unilever, fostering an environment where each individual feels uniquely valued and free to bring their whole selves to work was among Paul’s highest priorities.

He supported LGBT+ initiatives worldwide, through impactful internal programmes, policies, LGBT+ PRIDE networks, and advocating through the Unilever brands externally. Through Paul’s leadership, Unilever became the first company to publish a Human Rights Report, which examined areas such as discrimination, freedom of association, harassment and fair wages in detail.

They also promoted inclusive policies on diversity, LGBT+ and minority ethnicities, and explicit same sex benefits where possible. For instance, Unilever USA’s benefits cover gender affirmation surgery and benefits for same-sex or domestic partners. Unilever are active members of Stonewall in the UK and have achieved their 9th consecutive 100% on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index in the US.

Paul also engaged with states in the USA that are seeking to reverse HB2, the controversial bathroom bill, and signed statements commending LGBT+ policies, as part of a wider B-Team campaign against homophobia, including research illustrating that diversity is good for business.

3) Martine Rothblatt, Founder & CEO, United Therapeutics Corporation

As an open and visible transgender CEO, Martine always strives to be a positive role model for lesbian, transgendered, and non-binary gender employees. She ensures that all of their employment policies are inclusive, treating all applicants and employees equally without regard to sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression. Martine has always been very open about her transition and gender identity, and led the company to issue an official statement opposing transphobic legislation.

Externally, Martine regularly speaks on the importance of LGBT+ inclusion, and often gives one-to-one advice to people who have recently come out in the workplace. She keeps up an active profile on social media, has been widely featured in the media, and regularly discusses the importance of openness in her life and her work, including giving a TED talk on her transition story.

Martine is a vocal advocate for trans rights, and wrote a book called “Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender,” in which she argued that “forcing everybody to be either male or female is a kind of sexual apartheid. This is not scientifically accurate.” She was also in attendance at President Obama’s LGBT+ Pride reception in 2016.

4) Mark Zuckerberg, Founder & CEO, Facebook

Mark is a vocal supporter for LGBT+ rights. Facebook has a perfect score of 100 on the HRC Corporate Equality Index and 7% of US employees identify as LGBT+ (based on a voluntary survey). In 2017, Facebook’s LGBT+ employee group marched in 21 pride parades worldwide.

Facebook offers a lot of fully inclusive policies for families (no matter how you define “family”) and earlier this year, announced new and extended benefits for all employees. As well as establishing gender neutral bathrooms, Facebook have a subgroup of their LGBT+ employee resource group (ERG) solely for transgender individuals and offer gender confirmation surgery and mental health counselling as part of employee health care plans. Facebook also rolled out several products, including new camera experiences and profiles frames, to celebrate Global Pride and for Transgender Day of Visibility and Instagram created a viral campaign: #KindComments.

Additionally, Mark has committed to donating 99% of his shares in Facebook to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative whose mission is “advancing human potential and promoting equality” and has publicly spoken out against the ban against transgender individuals serving in the United States military.

5) Inga Beale, Former CEO, Lloyd's of London

Inga Beale is a British business leader with over three decades of experience in global financial services and was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to the economy and for her contributions to driving the inclusion agenda for women and the LGBT+ community.

Most recently Inga led Lloyd’s of London, the 330-year-old global insurance and reinsurance market. During her five year tenure, Inga was responsible for accelerating Lloyd’s modernisation, expanding the market’s global access across new, high-growth markets including China, Dubai, and India and delivering Lloyd’s strongest capital position ever following the sector-wide major losses of 2017.

As the first female Chief Executive of Lloyd’s, Inga also played a critical role in advancing diversity and inclusion initiatives across the global insurance sector, including the Dive In Festival – the only sector-wide diversity and inclusion festival in the world. Inga is currently patron of Insuring Women’s Futures, and a member of the UK Department for Education’s Business Advisory Group, the London Mayor’s Business Advisory Board, the UK Government’s Public Service Leadership Taskforce, and the England Rugby Football Union Try for Change Board.

6) Andrew Liveris, Former Chairman & CEO, The Dow Chemical Company

As Executive Chairman of DowDuPont and Chief Executive Officer of The Dow Chemical Company, Andrew led the charge at Dow to strengthen diversity and inclusion in the workplace. A vocal advocate, he called for action to tackle inequality head-on within the company, as well as within communities and society. He was among the first to sign the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion (D&I), rallying with 160 other companies to advance workplace equality.

In addition, Andrew spearheaded plans this year to strategically increase the diversity of Dow’s supplier base and was most recently presented with the 2017 Global Leadership Award from the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC). The award recognises honourees for creating inclusive business environments, integrating India in the global supply chain and advancing core values such as manufacturing, innovation, and scale in tough market conditions.

Under Andrew’s leadership, Dow spoke out in opposition to contentious, discriminatory legislation in several states, including North Carolina, Indiana, Louisiana, and Texas, and the organisation maintains strong partnerships with several organisations, including: the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation, Out & Equal (O&E), PFLAG, Victory Institute, OUTstanding, and GLAAD.

7) Alan Joyce, CEO, Qantas

Alan is a longstanding advocate for greater social inclusion, equality and LGBT+ rights. He believes that being an openly gay CEO of a large publicly listed company sends a clear message about the kind of company Qantas is and hopes his public stance helps others to be themselves at work.

In 2017, Alan was a prominent leader in the successful campaign for marriage equality in Australia. He was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia’s highest civil honour, in part for his contribution to community issues like gender equity, inclusion and diversity, and Indigenous education.

Alan is a patron of several LGBT+ organisations in Australia – one of which helps young people facing challenges based on their sexuality and another focussed on improving workplace practices for LGBT+ inclusion. At Qantas, Alan has also led a massive corporate turnaround which now sees Qantas as one of the best performing airline groups in the world.

8) Paul Reed, Non-Executive Director

Paul was for 7 years the former CEO of BP’s Global Oil and Gas Trading organisation and now sits on the boards of four internationally active companies as a non-executive director. He is a strong believer in the association of diversity with high performance and when at BP was active in promoting all forms of diversity, from social mobility through school entry programmes, being executive sponsor of the Ethnicity and the LGBT employee networks, armed forces veterans programmes, gender diversity and introducing a host of other initiatives involving mentoring programmes, allies programmes, and intersectionality events. He now sits on the boards of two UK companies, a Danish and a German company, and in 2017 he became a Stonewall Ambassador.

9) Claudia Brind-Woody, Vice President & Managing Director, IBM

Claudia Brind-Woody is currently the Vice President and Managing Director for IBM Global Intellectual Property Licensing. Claudia has been with IBM since 1996, and has held multiple global roles during her tenure including work in Finland and the United Kingdom.

Claudia is also the Global Co-Chair for the IBM LGBT+ Executive Taskforce, and an executive sponsor for the LGBT+ group in UK and Ireland. In addition to her IBM Co-chair role, Claudia has also served on the Board of Directors or Advisory Board of: Out & Equal Workplace Advocates (USA), Lambda Legal (USA), Workplace Pride (Netherlands), OUTstanding (UK), Wybernet (Switzerland), Stonewall Global Diversity Champions Programme (UK), GayStar News Advisory Board, and the Economist Pride & Prejudice Advisory Board.

Claudia is an accomplished speaker who has is in high demand for keynote speeches on LGBT Diversity throughout the world, addressing businesses, governments, NGOs, and other organisations. She has also contributed to the books: Out & Equal at Work: From Closet to Corner Office (2013) and The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out is Good for Business (2014). She is featured in the book Pride and Joy: LGBTQ Artists, Icons and Everyday Heroes (2017).

Claudia has received numerous awards for her work in the LGBT+ including: the Out & Equal Trailblazer Award, GO Magazine’s “100 Women We Love,” The Guardian’s WorldPride Power List Top 100, #2 ranking on the Telegraph Media Group’s Out at Work LGBT Top 50 Executives, and the Diva Power List.

10) Beth Brooke-Marciniak, Former Global Vice Chair, Public Policy, EY

At EY, Beth worked extensively on LGBT+ inclusion within her organisation and on a global level outside of it. She convened leaders before, during, and after the World Economic Forum (WEF) every year. Beth led several WEF panel discussions including 2017’s panels about LGBT+ identity, and the role of business, government and society in achieving LGBT+ equality and sustainable growth. Beth was also central in shaping WEF’s newly-formed Accelerating LGBT+ Inclusion Initiative. Within EY, Beth was a global sponsor for diversity and inclusiveness. She worked with key stakeholders to establish a workplace culture where all people are respected and celebrated for their differences.

By sharing her story and leveraging her platform as one of the most senior out executives in the world, Beth shed light on important issues and the barriers to inclusion, such as bias. Beth also convened LGBT+ partners within the organisation to increase LGBT+ presence in leadership.

As a Global Advisory Board member of Out Leadership, Beth provides executive-level access and advice on LGBT+ matters. Last year, Beth participated in the United Nations’ ‘Special Event to Celebrate Allies’ in honour of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. In addition, Beth supports several EY clients and other leading LGBT+ organisations around the world by speaking at events and penning compelling thought leadership pieces.

11) António Simões, CEO, Global Private Banking, HSBC

António continues being a visible LGBT+ role model in HSBC globally and in the wider banking and business communities, demonstrating that the experiences of LGBT+ people can support development of key skills that lead to career success. He has championed LGBT+ inclusive communications for many years, understanding the importance of highlighting the topic to both employees and customers though authentic social media and advertising campaigns. António’s 2013 HSBC YouTube video sharing his views on diversity & inclusion has had over 17,000 views.

He has spoken at numerous external events on LGBT+ issues, including on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on LGBT+ in the global workplace, where he called on other leaders to prioritise improving their companies for LGBT+ staff. HSBC again hosted Out Leadership’s Europe summit in London in October 2018, for which António is an Executive Sponsor.

12) Anthony Watson, Founder & CEO, TBOL

Anthony Watson is a leading British business and technology executive, and human and LGBT+ rights activist. In each of his organisations he has held leadership positions that allowed him to drive forwards LGBT+ inclusion. He has a high public profile for both his business leadership and LGBT+ global advocacy, charity, and political work.

He has been interviewed and profiled in many leading international publications and media outlets, including: The Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Forbes, among many others. In October 2014 Anthony was placed Number 19 in Fortune Magazine’s 40 under 40, which lists the world’s most powerful C-level executives under 40; he was the only openly LGBT+ executive to feature.

In February 2015, The Albert Kennedy Trust presented Anthony with the inaugural Paul Cottingham Award of “Diversity Champion & Campaigner Of The Year” for his services to the LGBT+ community and his campaigning for LGBT Youth Homelessness. In January 2016, the Telegraph Newspaper named Anthony the most powerful LGBT+ business leader in the UK. In February 2016, he was appointed chair of the British Labour Party’s Business and Enterprise Council and is a senior advisor to Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’s Shadow Cabinet.

Since 2013, Anthony has been a member of the Board of Directors, chair of the Finance Committee, and Treasurer of GLAAD, the worlds largest LGBT media rights advocacy organisation. He is also a patron of Diversity Role Models, and the chair and head judge of the European Diversity Awards.