LGBTQ Bankers

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LGBTQ Bankers

The financial industry has been a leader in the business community today for adopting employee diversity policies that target discrimination in employment and the workplace. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the banks. As an industry whose success depends on individual competency, achievement and relationship building, this is perhaps not a surprising development.

A good part of the reason for the outright acceptance of LGBTQ individuals is simply because of the large presence of LGBTQ individuals in the banking sector of the financial industry. Many of these individuals have advanced into the ranks of senior management. They have then gone on to found the company’s LGBTQ employee groups, or become executive sponsors to diversity initiatives within their companies.

Banks around the world have also grown to appreciate the influence, relative wealth and affluence in the LGBTQ community and wish to reach out to them in signs of recognition and acceptance to attract them as customers.

There have also been notable and prominent LGBTQ individuals in the banking history throughout history, and these individuals have made remarkably important contributions to global economic progress. Among these are included American Alexander Hamilton, the creator of the U.S. financial industry and the country's first Secretary of the Treasury, and Great Britain's John Maynard Keynes, the most prominent economist in history. The first out gay banker to head a stock-exchange listed bank in the world was Trevor Burgess of C1 Bank in Florida.

Nevertheless, there is still a great deal of work to do in the industry to advance the equality and presence of LGBTQ individuals in the banking industry despite the progress made. More than half of all LGBT corporate employees are still closeted at work, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The organization also found in a 2012 study that 81% of non-LGBT workers agree that gays and lesbians 'should not have to hide who they are' in regular conversations about their social lives. Yet fewer than half of those respondents said they'd feel comfortable hearing LGBT colleagues talk about dating, and over 70% said "it is unprofessional" to talk about sexual orientations or gender identities in the workplace.

We have identified a large number of LGBTQ bankers from around the world. They hail from France, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Malta, Colombia, the United States, Switzerland, and Denmark. Read on for their fascinating biographies:

Further Reading/Research


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