Being yourself at work: An evening with Lord Browne

Imagine you had to adjust your personality to ‘fit in’ every time you walked into the office. At a Deloitte GLOBE event in London, former BP Chief Executive Lord Browne, talked about the importance of authenticity in the workplace. He described his own journey towards acceptance as a gay man, made intensely difficult due to pressures from the ‘traditional’ working environment of the oil industry at the time.

He went on to argue that allowing individuals to be themselves at work produces an uptick in productivity, adding that if a company gets LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) inclusivity right, it is likely that other minority groups will feel welcomed too.

The discussion — chaired by managing partner for talent Emma Codd and introduced by our chief executive David Sproul — saw Lord Browne joined on stage by three distinguished panellists: Julia Hoggett, Head of Investment Banking (Supervision Division) at the Financial Conduct Authority; Michael Brunt, Chief Marketing Officer at The Economist and Deloitte partner David Noon. They provided a mixture of straight and gay perspectives on the themes of the evening.

The event heralded an exceptional sign up rate to our Allies programme with over 600 people declaring their support in under a month.

* Our GLOBE diversity network provides networking opportunities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people across the firm.

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