In this article we are going to list the 12 biggest companies with gay CEOs. Click to skip ahead and jump to the 5 biggest companies with gay CEOs.
A couple of decades ago it was not usual to find an openly-gay person at a senior position in any organization. This is because while companies claimed to be a welcoming place for LGBT, the reality was far-fetched. People from LGBT had to fight for their basic rights for a prolonged period. For example, in 2013 the Supreme Court of USA allowed the government to not provide federal benefits to homosexual couples. It is only five years ago same-sex marriages have been legalized in the USA and then later on in other parts of the world.
Even then, while the United States has banned discrimination based on sexuality, many people still face a lot of discrimination in the workplace, which is quite hard to fight off and can often be at a subtle enough level that it gets quite hard to prove. Even a couple of decades ago the concept of LGBT workplace protection was relatively unheard of and many companies used to lay off people based on their sexuality. Moreover, people have now become more vocal against companies that marginalize LGBT. But still, even in today’s world, many companies prefer to have a heterosexual person as their CEO.
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You will note that many companies which have become accepting enough to have gay CEOs belong to the developed world. This is because despite the fact that advancements have been made, these advancements have mostly been restricted to only developed economies, where the view on human rights is drastically different from other countries, especially those based in Asia and Africa. Countries in these continents mostly still have laws against gay relations and same sex acts, and it doesn’t look like this will end anytime soon. Many countries have these arcane laws because of religion; Islam has a very strict stance against homosexuality leaving little wiggle room and these countries have adopted rules to reflect that very stance. This is why in some African and Asian countries, same sex acts are actually punishable by death. You can learn more about these countries if you visit the 15 most dangerous companies for gay travelers.
Having said that, there are still many well-known Chief Executive Officers who came out as gay and became a source of inspiration for the young generation belonging to the LBGT community. For example, the appointment of Inga Beale was a CEO of Lloyd in 2014 was hailed by many as they claimed that it will encourage other organizations to have more visible LGBT representation. Similarly, it was Tim Cook who paved the way for other LGBT leaders by becoming the very first openly gay CEO of a renowned company that is a part of the Fortune 500 list. However, even companies which are said to be gay-friendly such as Coca Cola (NYSE:KO) or General Motors (NYSE:GM) Now, if you search for the biggest companies with gay CEOs, other than Apple and a few others, there are few proper lists. To ensure that our data was correct, we checked the revenues of these companies either from Forbes, Fortune or their own annual reports, with foreign currencies converted to US dollars. Therefore let’s take a look at the 15 biggest companies with CEOs that are challenging the status quo by being openly gay, starting of course with number 15:
