“Courageous.” That’s the word that leaps to mind when listening to Beth Brooke-Marciniak, Global Vice President Public Policy and board member at global consulting firm EY (Ernst & Young), during a fireside chat with PROUT AT WORK chairperson Albert Kehrer.

For the third time in a row now, senior executives of major German and international commercial enterprises and institutions had accepted the invitation of the PROUT AT WORK network and come to the financial metropolis of Frankfurt. In a casual atmosphere, they exchanged their views about opportunities and pathways to a more open, diverse and discrimination-free workplace at the DINNER BEYOND BUSINESS over a first-class meal.
Among them were representatives of Continental, BASF, Vattenfall, Coca Cola, Thyssenkrupp, the European Central Bank and SAP.

This year, PROUT AT WORK managed to bring Beth Brooke-Marciniak on board as a keynote speaker and, framed by the spectacular view from Germany’s tallest skyscraper, engage one of the 100 most influential women in the world in an informal personal conversation that allowed for many perceptive insights and powerful statements.

Role models – “If not me, who?”

As Beth Brooke-Marciniak relates how she had not been open about her sexual orientation for most of her life, the audience in the room are quietly thinking, “Pretty courageous.”
For in February 2011, Brooke-Marciniak participated in the “It Gets Better” video campaign that aims to encourage LGBT*IQ teenagers, and spontaneously decided to come out as a lesbian woman in front of the rolling camera.

“What would I say in this video if I was being truly honest,” she had asked herself the previous evening. “I had a message to deliver that I knew was important.”

She and her then-partner had both assumed that coming out would mean the end of her career. However, the reactions to her sensational openness were the exact opposite. “My life changed for the better; from black/white to colourful in an instant. After 52 years.”
But not just that. Her candour also changed how the business world thinks about diversity.
“Our executive level was very proud of me, I received calls and e-mails from young people and their parents and even standing ovations at a subsequent public appearance, which moved me to tears.”

With her spontaneous coming out, she had changed more in one moment than ever before in her life, role model Brooke-Marciniak explains. “I considered it my job and my duty. Who was supposed to do it if not me?”

Business case – “The market imperative”

Introducing the second topic of this year’s dinner talk, Albert Kehrer suggests that attracting the best talent is one aspect of the business-case perspective on creating an LGBT*IQ-positive working environment, and the EY executive adds: “It’s about the market imperative. We need to be as diverse as our customers are. Whether it concerns functionality, quality or innovation – that way, we’re better everywhere.”

Kehrer mentions that the difficulty of assessing the effects of measures that address the concerns of lesbian, gay and transgender people within a business presents a significant hurdle.
“I know,” Brooke-Marciniak replies, “in most countries, it’s not possible to identify as LGBT*IQ within a corporation.” She adds that this makes it difficult to evaluate the effect of an LGBT*IQ-positive corporate policy. “But it doesn’t matter. Because we know it’s an added value.”
Having said that, she believes that forgoing such policies because their value is not quantifiable is just an excuse.

In response to Kehrer’s pointed question whether LGBT*IQ issues should really be given such high priority within corporations, Brooke-Marciniak again responds decisively: “Studies show that corporations that focus on the importance of LGBT*IQ employees are also well positioned with regards to all other aspects of inclusion and diversity, for example in promoting women.”

Allies – “Changing the world, providing safety”

Darkness has fallen, and against the background of the lights of the Frankfurt skyline, Kehrer opens the last third of the fireside chat with the question of why it’s important for a corporation to be an LBGT*IQ ally. After all, in Great Britain as well as in the US, EY specifically supports this group of employees.

“Because we have values,” Brooke-Marciniak replies without hesitation. “All of us are active across the globe. But we have no influence on the laws of individual countries. Many of them are going in the wrong direction, even backwards, and populism is spreading. Our footprints can change the world.”

In response to Kehrer’s question how individuals in corporations can become allies of their LGBT*IQ colleagues, EY board member Brooke-Marciniak points out a host of options for getting involved: being curious and unafraid, for example. After all, she says, it’s not always about specific lesbian-gay-trans* issues but about a fundamental understanding. “One day, it could affect you, too.”
She adds that just recently, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, she had a private chat with a grateful CEO whose daughter came out as homosexual only a short while ago. Having discussed the issue previously had helped him immensely in this situation.

And, she adds, there’s also the “Wow, even him” effect when top management personalities publicly declare themselves allies of LGBT*IQ people within their corporations, facilitating a significant increase in visibility for those employees that HR departments or LGBT*IQ groups themselves could not achieve in this form.

Another important point, she says, is signalling to employees who have come out that you’re ready to help, giving them time but being at their side if needed. “Some people prefer to go back into their shell when they have the impression that they can’t trust their boss and aren’t sure whether his or her openness really means they’re safe.”

Accordingly, 70 percent of employees who haven’t come out leave a corporation over the short or long term, which is why it’s so important to start that conversation and find out what is still standing between them and their coming out.

“Above all, though, it’s important to be aware of conversations that should no longer take place the way they still do, and to say something, because people who haven’t come out yet will definitely take notice,” Beth Brooke-Marciniak concludes the conversation.

Fireplace-Chat with Beth Brooke-Marciniak:

Hearing Claudia Brind-Woody talk about both the necessity and the opportunities of an LGBT*IQ-positive corporate philosophy, it’s hard to avoid an emotional rollercoaster. Knowing smiles appear on the audience’s faces when the Vice President of IBM relates how she was recently told in Japan that there were no gay or lesbian people amongst the employees, and therefore there was no need for action.

After all, the board members and senior executives who have gathered in the tower of Deutsche Bank AG for the DINNER BEYOND BUSINESS this evening at the invitation of the PROUT AT WORK foundation know only too well that that’s not the case. That every large corporation has a talent pool of employees with an LGBT*IQ background, and that far too often it remains untapped.

Just a moment later, Brind-Woody provokes awkward silence among large parts of her audience when her keynote poses the question of who actually has a list of LGBT*IQ top talents in their own company? Only a very few.

When she broadens the question to whether an opportunity for voluntary self-identification as LGBT*IQ exists in their corporation, barely a hand is raised anymore.

While prepared to admit that Germany’s strict privacy laws prevent any such self-identification, Brind-Woody deplores this fact: “If we don’t know who among our employees has an LGBT*IQ background, how are we going to promote them systematically?”

A dinner guest wants to know how to implement mentoring programmes for LGBT*IQ employees without requiring a coming out on their part.

Brind-Woody’s response is surprising but unequivocal: “LGBT*IQ employees need to be courageous as well. It is their decision. However, we need to show them the positive consequences of coming out rather than only associating disadvantages with it the way we have done until now.”

After all, she explains, authentic leadership also means being able to put together teams with a diverse composition.

“A soccer team that only consists of strikers will never win a match. Without the goalie in his flashy colours, it’s just not going to work,” Brind-Woody draws a parallel between business and sports. “After all, business is about winning, too.”

‘Walk the talk’ – following words with deeds

Claudia Brind-Woody has been working for IBM since 1996 and is the corporation’s Vice President as well as Managing Director of Global Intellectual Property Licensing, making her one of the most influential homosexual women in international business and a key figure in many LGBT*IQ organisations. These days, the IT and consulting corporation supports more than 40 of them in 30 countries, and this open attitude is instrumental in an LGBT*IQ-positive corporate philosophy taking root in other companies as well.

In the past few years, Brind-Woody has not just been awarded a number of equal rights awards, she has also been a constant presence in the international rankings of the most influential lesbian personalities. In doing so, she exemplifies what she demands of other corporate leaders and has indeed made the title of her DINNER BEYOND BUSINESS keynote: “Authentic Leadership.”

By that, she means the mandate to legitimise one’s own leadership role through authentic relationships with one’s employees.

“Can I as the supervisor use the words ‘lesbian’ or ‘transgender’ in a way that gives the other person the impression that it’s not a problem to be like that?”

That, she explains, requires a leadership style from the heart, without fear of making oneself vulnerable. But it also requires following words with deeds. Those who declare that diversity in the workplace is important need to do something about it as well.

“What’s the use of having brilliant strategy papers on diversity up here at the top management level when at the same time a homophobic supervisor in middle-management obstructs the professional careers and thus the lives of many of our talents with an LGBT*IQ background?”

Silence and concern fill the hall on the 35^th floor as Brind-Woody explains to the executives in the audience why even today, many LGBT*IQ people avoid coming out in their workplace. She tells them about the increasing number of lesbian, gay or trans* children and adolescents in the US who are thrown out of their homes by their parents and driven into homelessness. About the equally increasing suicide rate amongst those teenagers.

“Muslim, Jewish or dark-skinned child may experience bullying in the schoolyards, too. But they come home and receive understanding and support from their families, because their parents are Muslim, Jewish or dark-skinned themselves. However, that usually isn’t the case for parents of lesbian, gay, transgender or genderqueer children.”

In terms of the aspiration for authentic leadership, she says, this means learning to be able to motivate and support employees who are different from ourselves.

Many, herself included, have been too silent in the past when discriminatory decisions were made or hurtful words were chosen. “But silence is not a leadership style,” Brind-Woody summarises succinctly.

At the end of her keynote, she calls on executives to be more courageous and assertive, even if that occasionally means having to go against the flow.

“Of course being successful is wonderful. But doing something meaningful is even better.”

This year, almost 30 board members and senior executives of Lufthansa, Vodafone, IBM, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Fraport, the European Central Bank, Randstad Germany, Accenture, White & Case, Sandoz, Oliver Wyman, Linklaters, Bayer, Procter & Gamble, Hogan Lovells Merck, Mainzer Verkehrsgesellschaft [Public Transport Mainz], KPMG and Google once again accepted the invitation of the PROUT AT WORK foundation to discuss the advantages of diverse and equal-opportunity leadership in a casual atmosphere over dinner.

Video of Claudia Brind-Woody’s speech:

Research in his book, The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out Is Good Business, found that the value of companies with authentic and open-minded board members is significantly higher than for those with board members representing traditional conservative views. The economy and society as a whole have been proven to benefit from tolerant corporate cultures, Brown said in his emotional keynote. He presented his case to the attending DAX board members and top executives: The logic of companies is to bring people together. Therefore, it is only logical – and important – that global corporations and large companies become champions for diversity and inclusion, openly communicating and always putting diversity on the agenda, in order to create a fear-free work environment. Coming-outs are still rare in the business sector, especially among executives, the charismatic Browne noted. There is a dearth of role models who are prepared to be honest about their sexual identity.

In his Q&A session, Lord Browne asked: how many openly-gay board members there are in the S&P 500 Index? The answer: just one – Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple.

As one of the most successful managers in the world, John Browne made the conscious choice, after his ex-partner outed him, to become a role model and to encourage others to stand up for themselves and define their own paths.

Brown explains his commitment as simply “doing the right thing”. That’s why he now writes books and is active in the public sphere. From his own experience, he knows too well that the business sector is a “special place” and very conservative. Changes take time and perseverance.

In Germany to date, only one top corporate executive has come out as gay: the Managing Director of Telekom Deutschland, Niek Jan van Damme.

Guests at DINNER BEYOND BUSINESS, many of whom had travelled to Hamburg specially to attend the event, expressed how moved there were by Lord Browne’s speech. Robin J. Stalker, the Chief Financial Officer at Adidas, remembered his first encounter with the LGBT movement, saying that at first he had to take time to think about their concerns, but now he identifies with them absolutely. “This was my first PROUT AT WORK event that I was encouraged to join, because I was really interested to hear Lord Browne. He is really interesting as a person and a very credible person to speak about inclusion in the corporate environment. He gave us lessons which I hope we can take home to our own companies.”

Lord Browne’s half-hour speech was followed by an exceptional dinner, which lasted until late in the evening, during which interesting discussions and new contacts developed.

Janina Kugel, a member of the Management Board and the Human Resources director of Siemens AG, said she planned to attend the next DINNER BEYOND BUSINESS too: “I met a very open-minded group of representatives from different companies. And all of us think that this topic is important. We want to push it forward, so that workplace diversity gains public awareness in Germany. Because when you think it over, we’ve got some catching-up to do: we need to find people who say, ‘yes! I’m part of the LGBT community and I’m proud of it. I am who I am, and I don’t hide. ’”

Norbert Janzen, Human Resources director and member of the management board at IBM, was also enthusiastic about the idea of the evening: “I have a great affinity for openness, and I love this kind of exchange between companies, because I believe we can learn a lot from each other. And the platform offered here is phenomenal. Combining that with an after-work dinner and with such an inspiring guest is outstanding. I’m going to take a lot with me and bring it back to the company.”

The event with Lord John Browne in Hamburg is the opening event for the DINNER BEYOND BUSINESS series. In a relaxed atmosphere and with a first-class menu, a select circle of corporate executives meet with the directors and founders of PROUT AT WORK. The keynote by a renowned speaker creates a framework for inspiration and exchange on new perspectives of corporate culture. These special events are held at irregular intervals.

PROUT AT WORK sent invitations for the first DINNER BEYOND BUSINESS to members of the executive boards of Adidas, Allianz, Bayer, Commerzbank, Covestro, DEA, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Börse, Dow, EY, GE, IBM, Latham & Watkin, Merck, Pfizer, PwC, Sandoz, Siemens, Sodexo and White & Case.

Video of the Speech of Lord Browne: