Discovery Never Ends

What would you say was the moment that you discovered your true life's purpose and what you would be pursuing in your career? How did you discover that and is this important in your success as a leader?

Well, I think I'm still discovering it, actually, which I think is part of my success. I would say very early on at Merrill, it was probably the first opportunity that I thought to actually have business drive change because when I started proving that this was a business opportunity for the firm, I also went to the firm and said, "Look, if we're going to go after this market, we as Merrill Lynch have to make sure that our policies and how we treat LGBTQ people both inside this company and outside this company are in line with the values that we're telling these clients that we espouse," and to see an old, conservative command-and-control Irish Catholic 90-year-old organization like Merrill Lynch very quickly add nondiscrimination for transgender people, transgender medical benefits, and actually support LGBT organizations in the community because I tied it to a bottom line was really thrilling, and so I think that was probably the moment when I thought, gosh, if I can get this company to do this, why couldn't I get more? And that really was the underpinning for creating Out Leadership because 10 years ago, you did not see CEOs speaking out about LGBT equality, you did not see companies using their economic power and the heft they have in a country as in the States where they do business to say that LGBT quality is good for business, and so I wanted to create a platform to do that and our very first summit was in March 2011 and we had six Wall Street banks, as you mentioned at the beginning, and that was the first time more than one CEO had ever spoken on gay issues in the same place at the same time.

Really? The first time? Wow!

It was, the very, very first time, and in the two weeks that followed that first summit, four of those six CEOs actually signed on to support marriage equality for the state of New York and directly tied their decision to us educating them as part of our summit, that this is not just some social justice issue, this really did matter to their bottom line, and so I've had these moments throughout my career when I can literally see the direct impact of changing not just hearts and minds, and also in the pocketbooks of these companies, to actually have them act as, I don't want to say social justice warriors but as agents of change.