Sponsored by
In alphabetical order
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This category is judged based on evidence provided according to the British LGBT Awards criteria.
Arlene McDermott
London Stock Exchange Group
Alongside her day job, McDermott is Global Co-lead of LSEG’s (London Stock Exchange Group) LGBT+ network LSEG Pride. The network has had a huge impact on the culture at LSEG. She has participated in numerous panels including at myGwork, Lesbian Visibility Week, the London School of Economics and many more. She is listed on the Pride Power List 2020-22, Global Diversity List 2020, Visible Lesbian 100 list 2020 and 2021, OUTstanding 100 LGBT+ Executives List 2020 and won the European Diversity Award for Inspirational Role Model 2021. McDermott is on the London School of Economics Advisory Board for their Diversity and Productivity project.
Charlotte Phillips-Lynn
Seccl
Phillips-Lynn in their day to day life is a Senior Operations Analyst and D&I Partner for Seccl, an investment tech company. They are a huge advocate for the LGBT+ community and enjoy the various roles they hold in this area. These include Top 100 Gamechanger and Project 1000 Role Model with LGBT Great, Volunteer Regional Ambassador for It Gets Better UK, to name a few. They’ve also delivered keynote speeches globally surrounding LGBT+ people in finance.
Chloe Davies
Lucky Generals
Davies is a proud Black bisexual woman, a mother of two, a creative, global inclusion and belonging consultant, a chef and entrepreneur. Her work sees her campaigning for inclusion and equality in social spaces, corporate organisations and the wider community. She spent more than 15 years working in retail, artist management and PR before starting her own company in 2015. In September 2021 Davies took on the role of Head of Social Impact for Lucky Generals. The role is focused on building a sustainable, diverse and inclusive company culture and creates output across London and New York.
Christian Tooley
Bain & Co. / i³ investing
Tooley is an award-winning queer entrepreneur and innovator striving to build ‘queertopia’. From his Cypriot roots in North London, to Hong Kong and Asia, he has strived for LGBTQ+ advancement. In his day job, as an Expert at Bain & Company, he leads an EMEA team solving the world’s biggest problems with innovation and ventures, underpinned by sustainability. In his gay job, as Founder & CEO at i³ investing, he invests in LGBTQ+ founders, who are not just underrepresented, but also underestimated. As Christian coined, these entrepreneurs are “intersectional incredibles” and i³ offers them Community, Connection, & Capital. Christian is a recognised LGBTQ+ Leader by Yahoo Finance, Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum, and queer thought leader in the startup and impact space.
Darren Kerrison
Santander
As the Co-Chair of the Embrace Network, Kerrison has inspired and influenced Santander to put LGBT+ inclusion and the community at the forefront of D&I both in the UK and globally. He has transformed the network over the last nine years from its inception to more than 3,000 members today. He brings together an amazing network of LGBT+ colleagues & allies to raise awareness of intersectionality and less well-represented groups within the LGBT+ community. In 2022, highlights included an educational video series, ‘Perspectives’, which provided insight around the trans community and how to be an ally, and ‘Embrace Safe Spaces’, a place where people can confidentially meet based on their identity. Kerrison has created a dedicated customer journey team to fully support Santander’s LGBT+ customers.
Julian Gomez
Unilever
Gomez is originally from Barcelona but has been living in the UK for the last eight years. He has spent his entire career in Unilever, occupying different global, regional and local marketing roles. He defines himself as a transformative, curious and inclusive leader. Currently member of proUd, the Unilever LGBT+ network, he leads the brand workstream, with the objective of, in his own words, “saving lives” by leveraging the power of brands and increasing the community representation in advertising.
Louise Dowley
Jacobs
Dowley is Capability and Resourcing Director for Jacobs and has a lead role in their PRISM LGBT+ employee network, which has nearly 1,000 members. She founded and leads a Europe-wide virtual wellbeing café for the LGBT+ business community and also designed and delivers a personal development programme called the ‘Magic is in You’, It supports and empowers the LGBT+ community in the workplace alongside other initiatives to support LGBT+ employees such as routes to parenthood. Dowley combines her work with LGBT+ professionals with a lead role in a global women’s network, broader inclusivity initiatives, mentoring and community contributions such as school governor and parish councillor.
Mariana Ceccotti
KPMG
Ceccotti is the leader of KPMG’s LGBT+ network Breathe, which has 800+ members: it has doubled in size under her leadership. She is the youngest ever chair and has transformed the network to focus on grassroots activism and intersectionality by creating two network consortiums and partnering with LGBT+ charities. Ceccotti openly shares her story of being a Brazilian LGBT+ woman and subsequently inspired the development of LGBT+ networks in KPMG firms globally. Her impact is wide-reaching, from having LGBT+ inclusion spotlighted in firm-wide mandatory training to creating the infrastructure for an LGBT+ consortium with 50+ organisations working together to make the sector more inclusive.
Michael Duffell
Jefferies
Duffell grew up in an ex-mining community in County Durham. He was the first person in his family to attend university, where he was a passionate advocate for LGBT+ students as an LGBT+ officer. Following graduation, he has established a bursary scheme within Newcastle University for students who face educational barriers. Politically active, Michael was elected as a Councillor for the London Borough of Redbridge, where he promotes LGBT+ equality. Alongside his main professional role, he has also driven positive cultural changes through co-founding and co-chairing EMEA jMosaic+, the Jeffries LGBT+ network. jMosaic+ promotes workplace equality, allyship and trans inclusion throughout the company.
Pedro Pina
Pina is a Portuguese-born marketer who has lived and worked outside of Portugal throughout his 30+ year career. He lives in London with his husband, three-year-old daughter Maria and six-month-old son Gonzalo. He joined Google in 2013 as a Global Client Partner and is now Vice President of YouTube EMEA. Beyond his day job, Pedro leads Google’s LGBT+ chapter across the region and has a seat on Google’s global LGBT+ ERG. In 2019, he was named one of the 10 most influential LGBT+ executives in the UK by the British LGBT Awards.
