We hear three individual stories from people from the LGBT+ community – the challenges they have faced, personally and professionally, and how issues such as stigma and discrimination has impacted on their mental health. The panel will also share what action they believe that businesses can take to create an inclusive culture, which fosters a sense of belonging.
Chaired by Beth Robotham, Deputy Chair of CMHA and Executive Director at Goldman Sachs, we are delighted to welcome Liz Grant OBE, CEO of Fantail Business Development; Andre Toure, B2B Customer Success Manager at the FT; and Bee Vanunu, Consultant at Deloitte.
Speaker bios:
Liz Grant OBE (she/her/hers) is a consultant who focuses on Inclusion in the workplace. She works across organisations and especially at senior leadership level, helping them to build inclusion into their culture and operations. Liz has worked as an advisor to many workplace diversity groups and has judged a number of awards including the Apollo Project Awards, Insurance Insider Honours, British LGBT Awards, TTG Travel awards programmes – all for their Diversity & Inclusion categories.
Having held trustee roles at Stonewall, IBM UK Trust and the Women’s Sport Trust, Liz is now a trustee of Open for Business. Over a period of 10 years Liz was a trustee and Vice Chair of the Board of Stonewall, where she had Board leadership for their workplace programmes. She stood down from Stonewall in 2012. She was recognised in the 2013 New Year’s Honours when she was made Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender equality in the workplace.
Andre Toure (he/him/his) - Andre works for the Financial Times as a B2B Customer Success Manager and co-leads the US chapter of its LGBTQ+ employee resource group. He also serves on the FT's Next Generation Board, an initiative to bring employee perspectives directly to senior board members through reverse-mentoring. Andre hopes that his continued involvement in these initiatives will help foster a more inclusive culture at the FT and beyond.
Bee Vanunu (she/her/hers) - Bee is a consultant & solicitor at Deloitte. She is trans inclusion lead for their GLOBE network (LGBT+ network).
Beth Robotham, moderator (she/her/hers) - Beth Robotham is the Chief of Staff for Human Capital Management at Goldman Sachs in EMEA. She was previously responsible for Health and Wellbeing in the region and spent three years as Head of Business Development and Marketing at Bupa, focused on wellbeing for global businesses. Beth is passionate about creating mentally healthy workplaces and is Deputy Chair of the City Mental Health Alliance and a Mental Health First Aid Instructor.
