10 years ago today, on March 30, 2011, Out Leadership was born

I'd spent the prior six months since being fired "without cause" from Credit Suisse, pulling together a small army of LGBT+ bankers to help me build something that had never happened before - a CEO-hosted gay Wall Street summit. So many folks came out to help me, from Alexandra Tyler from Citi who did all our design work including creating the Out on the Street logo, to Brian Saluzzo who secured Goldman Sachs' participation (and ultimately the connection to Lloyd Blankfein that would lead to his joining my newly formed Board), to Mark Stephanz, a recently out Vice Chair of Bank of America who used his platform to help us engage the bank. 

Eileen Taylor and Mark Chamberlain got Deutsche Bank's CEO Seth Waugh to host the summit in their headquarters at 60 Wall Street (where just 13 years before I'd had a final round interview an analyst role for J.P. Morgan--I didn't get the job...). Senior bankers and movement leaders like Brian McNaught, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Tony Tenicela, Eric P. Berger, Marty Chavez, Maggie Stumpp, Kevin Jennings, Jeffrey Siminoff, Jeff Davis, and my sister Brad Sears formed the phenomenal agenda, discussing how Wall Street could support LGBTQ employees and be a force to drive equality.

I used my severance check from Credit Suisse to fund the effort, and invited Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, DB, Morgan Stanley & UBS to bring 20 Director-level or higher business leaders to the summit. I felt strongly then (and still do) that business leaders have both economic interest and the economic platform and power to win full equality for LGBTQ+ people. But, I didn't know if we'd get 120 bankers. I didn't know if one of the banks would suddenly get cold feet from the risk of being associated with a gay summit (remember, ten years ago was a different world). I'd invited all the major business press, which upped the stakes considerably. 

The morning of the summit was a clear one, but I was slightly cloudy. The night before, I'd chaired the fashion show fundraiser I'd helped build, Jeffrey Fashion Cares. Over 1,000 people joined us on the USS Intrepid to raise over $900,000 for Lambda Legal, Hetrick-Martin Institute - HMI, GMHC and Point Foundation, thanks to help from 44 of the top male models in the world. It had been a bit of a late night celebrating the success of the event, but I counted on the youth of my mid-30's to get me through.

At 11am, attendees began arriving...and they kept coming. By noon, when the CEO of DB took the stage to welcome us, more than 250 leaders from across Wall Street had jammed themselves into our small conference room, sitting on window sills, standing against walls, even sharing seats. Reporters from ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, American Banker -even Here is the City from the UK--scribbled furiously, quoting Wall Street as the gay community's ally, for the first time. The summit worked.

In the weeks that followed the summit, 4 of our 6 banks issued statements of support for marriage equality for the state of New York--something that we never expected to see. And the momentum has continued ever since. 

88 CEO-hosted summits across five continents have followed that first one, including the first gay summit ever in Asia, the first LGBT emerging talent summit, the first global LGBT's women's program--even the first LGBT board program. Today, Out Leadership counts 83 member companies from Goldman to Walmart, and has used our platform of tens of thousand of business leaders, and 650+ CEOs to create business-led advocacy from Hong Kong to North Carolina. 

Our research has been used from Supreme Court marriage briefs in the US to the Finance Minister of Indonesia to the Obama White House's first LGBT Summit to the Nasdaq's recent SEC filing--even in the new California board diversity law. 

In 2020, the pandemic year, Out Leadership convened over 140 global events with over 8,000 leaders, published the first global Ally research (and 5 regional reports), built the first-global virtual Pride month of 40 events, and led or supported advocacy efforts all around the world. What started in that small DB conference room ten years ago today has turned into a global movement of business driving change--a model that is now successfully replicated across so many social justice movements.

Looking back, I am not just proud, I'm grateful. I'm grateful to the CEOs who have believed in me, to the businesses who have placed their trust in me and Out Leadership, and most importantly to the thousands of business leaders all around the world who have given their time and talent to make Out Leadership a success. Because visibility matters. Coming out matters. I think back to what it would have meant to the 18 year-old me to have seen CEOs publicly support gay people. And I'm aware of what our work still means to the millions of young people who are still in the closet today, despite all the progress we've made. 

Yes, it's been a phenomenal ten years. But the most important work is still to come. #lgbtprogress