DIVERSITY
BH : Do you see change as more tied to generational shifts ? Do you sense an organic desire in the corporate world ?
IA : I think it ' s a bit of both . I do think it ' s a bit like my earlier point about investors and - let ' s face it - generational changes that are being aggregated in terms of how people are saving for their long term future and the kind of questions younger investors are asking were just not being asked by their parents . But I have seen a mindset change at board level , too .
I do think more and more companies understand , and the heartening thing is they seem to understand that for global companies there ' s an opportunity to affect change through their supply chains and where they operate , and sometimes where they operate is in places that are not safe for LGBTQ + people . I mean , some territories where , we ' ve got to be honest , you could be thrown off a building for being gay and face no consequences . In fact , you could be applauded by certain sections of society . So , there ' s been some pretty groundbreaking work with some organisations to create and make work a very safe place to be .
“ I ' ve seen amazing examples where companies are trying to bring together the LGBTQ vote and allies ”
IAIN ANDERSON CO-FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN , CICERO / AMO
BH : Can you tell me more about your work with Lord Herbert and also initiatives , especially Safe to Be Me and LGBT At Work ?
IA : So working a lot with , with , with Nick Herbert as he ' s working at a macro intragovernmental level . His work with the caucus of parliamentarians around the world to seek and secure LGBTQ rights is well-known . My role is to support his work but to bring that business element , to bring that business voice to be able to join the dots in some of the wider efforts . Nick is leading the initiative for the first global LGBT conference which takes place on June 27-29 this year , around the 50th anniversary of the first Pride March in the UK [ July 1 , 1972 ].
What I am most actively engaged in is the Safe to Be Me conference from June 29-July 1 . Getting business commitments to create a specific sort of business declaration that will get businesses signing up to at least the UN principles on LGBTQ + rights . I want to write in specific commitments to get large and small businesses working together , back to my earlier theme that we work in commitments around supply chains , that we don ' t reinvent the wheel , but we actually make the wheel a bit bigger .
BH : What do you hope to accomplish as a legacy of what you ' re doing ?
A commitment to equality . We made a commitment to an LGBTQ + network here in the UK as a long term thing . That ' s why I ' m so keen to link this into the current debate around ESG , a meaningful and tangible thing that businesses can do around the social part of ESG . So that this is locked in .
Right now , about 20 % of LGBTQ + people in the UK do not feel they can be out at work . We ' ve got to try to drive that number as low as we possibly can .
BH : Iain Anderson , thank you very much .
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