This Wednesday will mark the inaugural Wall Street summit on LGBT community issues and involvement. The event, hosted by Deutsch Bank and titled ”Out on the Street”, will include six of Wall Street’s biggest banks and focus on panel discussions highlighting culture change, recruitment, client development and business impact with regard to LGBT employees and clients.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will join Deutsche Bank in the Out on the Street events lineup. Representatives from all the participating companies have expressed their excitement about the summit and noted significant changes to the Wall Street landscape over the past decade.
“Being a successful global business leader means having a workforce that is reflective of the diverse clients we serve,” said Tom Montag, president of Global Banking and Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “We are honored to be part of this ground-breaking event.”
The agenda for Wednesday’s event includes panel discussions on how best to translate awareness of LGBT issues into initiatives that will create a more inclusive, welcoming employee environment and improve access to the LGBT market.
“The LGBT community pervades every aspect of our work, encompassing our employees, clients, suppliers and the communities where we do business. Being a diverse and LGBT aware company provides us with the context in which to make smarter business decisions and better serve our clients,” said Guglielmo Sartori di Borgoricco, Global Head of Distribution at Barclays Capital.
Todd Sears, a diversity leader and banker and the originator of Out on the Street , added that “The response has been overwhelming, and we’ve already had interest from a number of additional banks for 2012. The fact that so many senior executives from these six banks are committed to Out on the Street, shows that these issues matter to the business, not just human resources and diversity.”
