259 | The First Company Whose Sole Product is LGTBQ Equality with Todd Sears
Our guest this week on the pod is Todd Sears. Todd is the Founder and CEO of Out Leadership, a company that develops innovative and forward thinking initiatives to leverage LGTBQ opportunities across a range of industries and a globally regarded business leader and equality entrepreneur.
And a special thanks to Saybrook Business Administration programs for sponsoring this episode!
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Interview with Todd Sears, Founder and CEO of Out Leadership
NOTE: While it’s not perfect, we offer this transcription by Otter.ai for those who are hearing impaired or who don’t find listening to a podcast enjoyable or possible.
SPEAKERS
Todd Sears, Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:02
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience, and is already transforming many boxes. Before I introduce our topic, and our guest today, I have one request. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app, you're listening to the show on, do a rating do a review, it helps tremendously. Thanks so much for considering. today. I'm thrilled to introduce you to Todd Sears. And our topic today is The First Company Whose Sole Product is LGBTQ Equality. Todd is the founder and CEO of Out Leadership, a company that develops innovative and forward thinking initiatives to leverage LGBTQ opportunities across a range of industry, and a globally regarded business leader, and a quality entrepreneur. Todd, welcome to the show. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Nice to be here. I was saying before we hit record, this is a timely topic, right? I mean, especially here in the United States, but around the world, we're seeing some regressive policies and communities that you have been working on and advocate working in and advocating for for a really long time. And I'm just honored to have you here.
Todd Sears 01:26
Well, thank you. I'm excited to be here and excited for the conversation.
Paul Zelizer 01:29
So we're called Awarepreneurs, Todd. And one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness or resiliency practice that you personally use to resource yourself for this important work?
Todd Sears 01:43
Well, you know, when you asked me about that, in preparation for this, I thought about it. And I think there's probably a couple of ways you could go. I think, as an entrepreneur, myself, I think oftentimes, we're kind of alone, we're out there, doing our thing. And we don't always bring people in, I just speak for myself, I'm, I ended up going off and traveling around the world and having meetings and doing the work that I'm doing, but I don't always let everybody know what's actually happening in my life and in my world. And ultimately, that's a little bit exhausting. You don't let the people in who actually can help you. And even just by knowing what's going on, people are helping you. And so from a resiliency perspective, you know, I thought about that, I really think that's been a shift that I've been able to achieve in the last really only the probably since COVID, in the last 12 months, of just being more aware of letting people know what's going on with me and what's going on in my life and what's going on in my work. Because as you said, I mean, we're all doing important work, and it can be very draining. And I do think that the more you can rely on the community that you've built to actually know you and know what you're doing and kind of bringing them in, they can support you in a whole different way. So for me, that's, that's been a huge thing on the resiliency front. And the second is just more practical. The headspace app for meditation, I, I use it daily, whenever I get five to 10 minutes, and I use the nighttime thing as well. There's so much research on the world of emotional intelligence, about when we're working together on teams and in companies, just knowing like you're saying, just knowing what's going on the ups and the downs and something exciting a big family event or going through a challenge. Just being aware of that humanity actually increases our business results. Take a look at emotional intelligence and business do a search on that. And you'll see a ton of research on on thanks for bringing that to our awareness that really appreciate it. Absolutely. So you've had an incredible career, interesting trajectory. And you started in the world of finance, like that was where you sort of cut your chops as a professional and and tell us a little bit about that world. And how did you go from a more traditional finance career into the world of equality entrepreneur, in terms of my own sort of journey as a as a gay man, because it's relevant to the work that I've done, and how it got me to Wall Street and finance. So I grew up in North Carolina. I'm an only child and my dad was in, in the textile industry as a finance professional himself. He was a financial officer of different textile companies. And if you know anything about the textile industry, especially in the 80s, and 90s, it was not a wonderful industry, and was full of all kinds of challenges. And companies continued to go out of business be bought or sold, and we moved so I went to nine different schools before I went to boarding school in Virginia. So an only child who knew he was gay when he was four, and we can talk about that But at that time, I, you know, the only person I knew who was gay was the guy on stage, David Marshall Grant, who played Joe the Mormon. And so when I got back to the middle of nowhere, Virginia, for my boarding school, I wrote him a letter. And I sent it to the stage door, or the Walter Carr theatre. And he wrote me back. And through my years at Duke, we corresponded. And when he moved to New York to start banking, he actually took me out to dinner, and he was kind of my first sponsor, my first mentor, I share all of that, because it really shaped obviously, who I am and who I was at that time. So coming into Wall Street, I had come out to my family, I come out to my fraternity in college, my friends, and truthfully, I'd never really had a bad experience. You know, it was a lot of fear. But ultimately, everyone that loved me, loved me when they knew more about me. And that was not the same with my first job. My my second week on the job. At my first Wall Street bank, my managing director called the guy beside me a faggot. And I thought, Oh, my God, like, first of all, he wasn't saying it, because he thought the guy was gay, he was just being derogatory, but I thought, jeez, I've got a homophobe for a boss. So I did what anyone in a homophobic environment does. I went back in the closet, and I looked for a new job. And the second investment bank that I went to was called DeSilva. And Phillips, and they were amazing and truly supportive. And I was super out my interview. And, and they said, you know, it's totally cool. You know, we know and like gay people, it's not a big deal. But that allowed me to start connecting the dots between being gay and business. And ultimately, I helped them win some business, from the LGBTQ community. And I started sort of thinking through what that really meant, how I could access the position I had, or the the community that I'm part of, and start to leverage that and really connect that to business opportunity. So I can I can pause there, but I can I can go on through the the second half of Wall Street into leadership, you told me we're so used that sometimes that was fascinating. You said, connecting the dots between being gay in business, and sound like I can almost imagine like, if this was a cartoon, there'll be a drawing with a light bulb over your head right there. And that would be the words like that led to this, like decades long exploration, and there's like global phenomenon called out leadership, talk to us, like, what was that aha moment around connecting the dots between being gay and business? Sure. Well, as I said it for the first bank, it was just, you know, if, if I'm open about myself, then I can connect to other people in the community. Because LGBTQ people are everywhere. We're every race, every color, every gender, and every socio economic status as well. So the opportunity from a business perspective to to understand that I think was important. But then I shifted sides of the world in 2001. And I left investment banking, and I went into private banking at Merrill Lynch. And that's where I really took that idea and operationalized it. So at that time, the way that private banking worked was you got to a phone a desk a computer, and Merrill had a goal of $24 million in New assets and 24 months. And if after eight months, you didn't have 8 million under management, you were fired. And the fail rate at that time was about 92%. So it was kind of a turn number nine mentality. Yeah, 92%. And so in my final run interview, I had to come in with a business plan, how was I going to do this, and I was 25 at the time, by the way, so just two or three years ago, and, and I had to come in and say how I was going to achieve these goals. And I kind of took a deep breath and thought, I have this idea, I know that I can have access to a community that has specific financial issues. In 2001, marriage equality was not even on the horizon. And just taking gay and lesbian couples, for example, there were over 1049 rights at a federal level, the gay and lesbian couples did not receive because marriage equality was not a reality. And about 90% of those rights are financial. So I thought, Well, gosh, if I've got to bring in money, I have access to this community that matters to me. And we can actually help the community because we're getting screwed by the law, that seems to sort of make an opportunity. And so I, I pitched that in my final interview at Merrill and the the MD at that time, Brett Barnard was a really supportive an interesting guy and said, Sure, go for it. And, and so that was that was my business idea. And I came in and the way I started operationalize it was thinking through how I could bring the community together and leverage what I could bring from Merrill Lynch to the community to help the community and therefore win clients. So I really focused on philanthropy. And I started partnering with nonprofits, Lambda Legal, for example. And I would work with their major donors to educate them on one how to protect protect their financial assets and their families and create family structures, because you literally had to create legal family structures to protect yourself. But then I would also have a charitable planning aspect to it because the vast majority of gay and lesbian couples did not have children and their estate could be the community. And at that time, no gay organizations in the country had planned giving programs, which is the idea of estate planning for the community. And so I built the first two at Merrill Lynch for both land illegal, and my team built one for HRC. Long story short, I brought on $100 million in the first 12 months of my business, and over the first four years, I brought it almost $2 billion.
Paul Zelizer 12:17
So it was still any taller. So I guess you got to keep your job.
Todd Sears 12:22
I got to keep my job. It was kind of nice.
Paul Zelizer 12:24
So just fighting back for us a little bit, because our founders are impact oriented in a wide variety of spaces and impact area Titan, one of the things I'm hearing you that you did here that I want to kind of highlight and just ask a little bit more, that's kind of a little bit impact area agnostic, but I think is really key. You sat down and said, Okay, this is the community I care about, in your case, the LGBTQ community, and you thought about how to provide value to them in like, oh, well, I understand their situation. For instance, a lot of families, gay families don't have kids. And there's all this like legal blocks in the way of financial well being and good planning. And you did some really innovative partnerships, and some targeted, like, hey, in this community, these are issues, I'm going to bring people together and provide information and structures and strategic partnerships to help this specific community. So you didn't come in and say, Hey, by my staff, you came in right from the start with a How can I serve this community? And what do they need kind of a mindset? Is that fair to say?
Todd Sears 13:37
It is, and I would add to it, that I, I structured it for as an ROI initiative for Merrill Lynch as well. So I didn't ask Merrill to do anything that wasn't in their financial best interest. And I think that's important. I didn't come at it from a right thing to do heart sleep perspective, I came at it from a, this is a multi trillion dollar market that no one is speaking to. But by helping this market, you can make business you can you can actually do better business and make money. But you can also do well, you can you can do good and do well at the same time. And so what was important to me was that I was transparent about that, both to the community and to Merrill. So when I brought in clients, I said, Look, I'm going to track your assets, I'm going to say to Merrill, that because we were doing good things, that community because we sponsored this organization, you're a client. And so that's how I track the assets. But I also said to Merrill, if we're going to do this, we have to support the community. You can't just come into the gay community and say, Come be our clients but not have non discrimination protections for transgender medical benefits or spending money on gay philanthropy. So when I started, Merrill Lynch had never sponsored a gay organization and for years, and they were spending almost $4 million to support gay rights, because I tracked it as a business equally. The clients that we brought in knew that because they were banking with Merrill Lynch, they were actually using their financial power to make Merrill Lynch a 92 year old Irish Catholic command and control Firm. support gay rights. So it was this neat opportunity. And that's ultimately what I do without leadership. But this neat opportunity to exact do exactly what you're saying, actually helping, helping provide financial assistance and education and planning to a community that needed it, but equally getting a company, because they were getting business from it to actually support that community.
Paul Zelizer 15:20
Absolutely. So that was like, there was like this three way triangle that I drew that I was going to ask you about, and I was only asking you about one of theirs. There's a community want to help. There's the company or organization you work for. And then there's your own impact goals and profitability goals. And you found a really creative way to bring those three things together, which launched this incredible career and wound up as our leadership where we're going next. Anything else you can say about that triangle, the goals and needs of the community you want to serve the goals and needs of the business that you're working in and your own goals and desire for impact. Anything else you can say about that really important triangle talk?
Todd Sears 16:03
You know, I'm not sure if it's a part of the triangle, or if it's a fourth piece, and we make it a square. But a key piece to me and how I've worked and I think has been successful is you mentioned, you know, my own personal goals. I've always looked at it as how can I bring people along? So for example, at Merrill, you know, after I had my first successful year, I got a meeting with the head of wealth management, who've managed 60,000 people, and somehow it's 25 year old got 30 minutes with him. And I said, Look, we need to do this nationally, and I need a quarter million dollars to do it. And here's how, and I put together a whole strategy. And he agreed, but the deal was that the ROI for him was not just assets under management, but more financial advisors like me who were doing what I was doing, were leveraging my idea. And I agreed to it, I was excited about that. So there were ultimately over 250 financial advisors and Merrill Lynch, who then understood how to successfully serve gay and lesbian clients, how to protect their families, and how to do gay financial planning. So it wasn't just about me, it was about bringing all these other people along. And so that it created a much bigger impact. Because if it was just me, then sure I could have made money. But But that wasn't the point. That wasn't the driver, my driver was making an impact. And so I throw that out there in your, your structure there. Because I think that's a, that's been an important thing for me and how I've operated in the world. And that's how I operate now.
Paul Zelizer 17:25
Super helpful. So along the way, you said, oh, there's a thing here. And that led to our leadership tell us like, when did you start out leadership? And what does the company do
Todd Sears 17:35
a thing here? Well, so there are a couple steps between the financial advising and leadership just to kind of fill in the gap there. So ultimately, that guy named Dan Sontag, who I went and met with who gave me my first investment, to build what we were doing, asked me to run diversity strategy for him for Merrill, Lynch and I. And I ultimately said, No, because I didn't want to give up my clients. And he was very persistent. Over a year or so we, he, he wore me down, and I agreed. And so I ran diversity strategy to basically do what I was doing in the LGBTQ space, and try to replicate that across all the diverse communities. So African American, Native American, etc. And then I was actually recruited away to Credit Suisse. And I was given the job of Head of Diversity for the Americas for them, which was a pretty big job, but across all their business units. Unfortunately, for lots of reasons, it was a pretty cultural mismatch, I was put into HR which I was promised I wouldn't. My budget was cut in half. It was it was not a not a great situation from the start. But I, I like to think I made the best of it. I am, I launched the first veterans network on Wall Street as part of as part of my role there, did a number of things in the women's space, LGBTQ space. But ultimately, I was kind of a business guy in an HR world that was not really supportive of a business guy that just decides what he's going to do and goes and does it. In August of 2010, I was asked to come in for a meeting, and I was told that they were going in a different direction with diversity. And, you know, here's a separate check, take care. So I found myself that that August back at Fire Island, having lots of martinis sitting on a sofa, thinking alright, what's what's next with my life. And, and what was kind of interesting was I thought back to where I was happiest, and where I felt like I made the most impact, and it was getting a company like Merrill to support gay rights, because I proved it was a business and 12 years ago, you didn't have companies and CEOs speaking out on quote, unquote, social issues, especially not LGBTQ issues. And I thought, well, if I could get one company to do that, could I get more? And so I took my severance check. And I got some friends together from different banks. And I thought, you know, bankers like to go to summits, you know, they go to Davos, the World Economic Forum, Could I could I do the same thing and bring together that caliber of leaders and create a conversation around LGBT equality and talent. And, and so I had six friends from six different banks who helped me They sort of formulate the agenda for the first summit and they call it out on the street. And the first summit ended up being in March 2011. I used my severance check to fund it. And I had Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Those are my six original banks. And I was lucky enough to have the CEO of Deutsche Bank for the Americas at that time, Seth Wah, be the host. And I gave each of the bank's 20 spots for director level or higher business leaders. I said, Not HR, not diversity. I want business leaders because if you have a p&l, you have impact. And ultimately, we were 200%. oversubscribed for the first summit and grew from there. So I launched in Europe. 10 years ago, in Asia. Nine years ago, we were the first gay summit ever in Asia, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Sydney, Australia seven years ago. And as we've grown, and I can talk more about this, but we have 97 companies now that are members, I've worked with over 700 CEOs globally. Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs is my first board member, for example, we have about 30,000, business leaders in our network. We have town initiatives that I built for young gay leaders called out next, a town initiative for women called out women, and a board development program and an advocacy program called out forum for LGBTQ leaders on corporate boards. And ultimately, what's exciting about all of these things is not just that we've built these conversations in summits, we have summits now in New York, London, Hong Kong, Paris and Sydney each year. But the exciting opportunities that I have been able to create a global movement of business leaders who are using their platform to advocate for equality. My very first time it was the first time more than one CEO of in the same place at the same time speaking about gay rights. And now as I mentioned, we've had over 700, all over the world, in places like Indonesia, or North Carolina, or Hong Kong, in places where LGBTQ rights are still an issue. It's still illegal to be gay in 71 countries around the world. But my companies do business in all of those countries. So if I can use if I can enable them and educate them and give them the tools to use their platform, to say to Singapore, well, you know what, gay people shouldn't be illegal here, because we're an economic engine here. And we matter, then that's how we can make change. And that's what we've been able to do the last 12 years.
Paul Zelizer 22:04
There's so much will you do whole summits on this, there's I can see why there's so much and what you just said, Todd. Let's do this. I want to unpack what you're saying and talk specifically with some of the initiatives you just mentioned. Before we do that, I just want to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. I'm excited to announce that we have a new sponsor for the pot, Saybrook University. Saybrook University prepares students to challenge conventional thinking in business, social structures, mental and physical health and more. They have innovative online and hybrid programs to help students become part of a global community. They offer certificate, Master and doctoral programs, and they're guided by renowned faculty with years of experience in their respective fields. Saybrook is committed to helping students achieve their full potential, and their sacred community is deeply rooted in this humanistic tradition. CEPR graduates are transforming healthcare, providing organizational leadership, developing sustainable practices, and caring for populations and be open to business and non business majors like, say bricks 100% online Master of Business Administration Program is designed for students who are passionate about conducting business operations guided by the principles of sustainable social impact. Their hybrid online Doctor of Business Administration Program is designed for experienced professionals who are interested in exploring and applying the most recent research and theories regarding organizational and social systems change. You can learn more@saybrook.edu There's a link in the show notes. And thank you to Saybrook University for sponsoring this pot. So today, on the second part of the show, we like to joke about putting on our entrepreneur glasses. So if you were going to like just put on your entrepreneur glasses and say right now on the ground, here's some of the main programs that bring in revenue that our leadership does right here right now, what would you say?
Todd Sears 24:14
I'm trying to think in terms of can you give me a little more context? So
Paul Zelizer 24:18
yes, it's like describe it as a business. Like what are some of your revenue streams? You talked about saying, what are your next gen leader programs, like just get a sense, like in terms of how the revenue comes in this, like maybe in a pie chart kind of a way, like you have all these different initiatives? But if somebody's trying to understand it as an enterprise look at as a pie chart and tell us some of the sections you see. Sure.
Todd Sears 24:41
Well, so ultimately, we're structured right now. And I think it will continue to morph as we grow because the the interest in the work and what we're doing and our framework and our model has just been astronomical, and I think it has, I think we're people are very much. I think people are very much aligned to my way of thinking and the way We've operationalized this. And so I think it's going to grow in a different way going forward. But as of right now, we're a membership organization. So companies pay an annual membership fee to be a part of everything that we do around the world. So we have, as I mentioned, five summits. Each of the summits consists of six to eight events in a city. So London, Hong Kong, Paris, Sydney, New York, we have talent initiatives, I mentioned all the things that we do are included in that annual membership fee. And then companies can sponsor us. So if they want to underwrite a piece of research, because we've written we published 17 pieces of research in the last four years, five years, including board diversity, research, talent, research, you name it, advocacy, so companies can sponsor that they can also sponsor our summits. And those are really the two revenue streams that we have right now. It's, it's pretty simple. The membership is a flat rate, there's not gold, platinum, silver, etc. Companies are either a member or they're not. And why that matters to me from a a, an event perspective is it means that we can curate the attendance of the event. So you cannot buy a ticket to a leadership event, you have to be invited. Which means that we can get the right people in the room to have the right conversations to hopefully make impact.
Paul Zelizer 26:09
Here well, I love membership. I love recurring revenue. My name is Paul Zelizer and I love because it allows a certain sustainability, I used to work for a big events business. And when you're selling tickets, it's like next event, ticket sales, like, you know, you can get short horizons, whereas a membership community, if you're doing well, and you have people who care about your mission, there's there can be a lot of ease there, if it's done well. So I'm joking about it. But that's the why behind it, you can really build things like what you've done, just incredible. And I would imagine, if you had shorter horizons, and you were selling tickets to an individual event, at a time, it might not have had the same growth trajectory as you've had I it just feels like a more sustainable way if you can really dial in who you want to help and help them understand the long term value of being in the community and partner on the journey. So that's my thinking, why I love that model so much. And I know there's lots of other models, but I do happen to like that particular one.
Todd Sears 27:10
Yeah, well, me too. It it helps us with COVID as well, because, you know, we didn't, we weren't relying on ticket revenue. And we were able to really actually expand, we brought in 26 companies over the first, you know, the last 16 months. So it's been a, a good model for us.
Paul Zelizer 27:28
Cool. So I want to I want to unpack a few of the other pieces. Besides the events. Before I did that you mentioned the research in one particular. Not sure if you would call it research or report in 2022, you came out with a state by state LGBTQ business climate index. And I was like, this is fascinating. And I love when organizations or when businesses can demonstrate what's happening in a space in such a concrete way. Can you tell us what that business climate index is? And why did you all decide to this was important?
Todd Sears 28:06
Sure. Well, just top line, the way that I look at research, and the work that we do is I want it to be pragmatic. You know, I've worked with so many business leaders and you write a 200 page report, no one's gonna read it, it's got to be something that's very tactical, and something that they can, they can use right away, I don't want us to do a piece of research that just sits on the shelf. So everything that we have published and produced is meant to create impact and to be used. And one of the one of the drivers for some of it is just either misinformation or lack of information. And I wanted to sort of compile it. So our board research we can talk about as well, we mapped the board diversity policies, for example, the fortune 1000, and the entire NASDAQ, because nobody had ever done that. And we were able to show how few companies include LGBTQ and the definition of board diversity. And how few companies even have a board diversity policy. No one had ever actually looked at it. But we had to do it manually by downloading all the proxy statements and board reports. Wow, 1000 of them, ah, well, actually 7600 Because the NASDAQ has 505,600 companies. So between the two, it was quite a lot. And we found that 4% of the Fortune 1000 include LGBTQ people when they talk about diversity at their board level. And so the the climate index is the same thing. I started thinking about this five years ago, a little after marriage equality, when people started thinking, okay, great. Well, you know, the gays have marriage, what else do you need? And I knew quite quite pointedly that there are specific issues that LGBTQ people still face at the state level, on everything from non discrimination being fired for being gay or lesbian or trans, to conversion therapy to HIV criminalization, and there's so many issues that still remain for the community, but nobody really was paying attention to it, and there wasn't really a way to speak about it. And so we thought of this index is a way to rank all 50 US states on 20 publicly identifiable data points. on things like conversion therapy on what the governor says and what the state senators say, kind of trans person changed their birthmark Coronavirus, certificate or driver's license, you know, very, very, almost binary things, then give that a score, and then rank them. Because everybody loves a ranking. And states in particular always want to be at the top of the ranking, and nobody likes to be at the bottom. And so sort of leveraging that competitiveness, and is something that I do all over the place, right? In business leaders always want to be the top as well. And so we published this index, four years ago was the first one. So we just published the June 1 of this year for our fourth annual. And it's it's increasingly gotten more and more notice. I mean, we've had so many states reach out. And what's been exciting to me, is that we've had states reach out three states in particular, just since we published three weeks ago, who all want to do better. And they've asked us how they can do it, which is really, really thrilling. When you have a state that reaches out, especially one of the south and I won't name names, because it's that's not the point. But they reached out and said, you know, we know we can do better, we've got some opportunities here. The governor wants to do some executive orders, you know, can you help us think through what we could be doing? Another Governor and I are co authoring an op ed together to talk about why it's so important to her that her state is high in our index, because she wants talent to come to her state. Because you know, the Edit quite fundamental level, I say this all the time discrimination is just fundamentally bad for business. It's just not smart. If you want to discriminate against talent, great, somebody else is going to take them. And so that's what these governors who are switched on are doing and we're helping them do it.
Paul Zelizer 31:36
I'll put a link to the business climate index and the whole section, we're on your website on the leadership by play, you have so many great resources. So listeners, that'll be in the show notes, just winding back for a little bit, just for a moment. There's something you do with data, you know, we've done over 250 episodes where the where printers I've been in the space for 15 years, your attention to data is very precise. And very, it's a robust like this matters, and you use it in a way that is not as common as I wish it was in the impact states. Can you talk a little bit about how you think about data and how you use it as a tool for the kind of impact you want to have?
Todd Sears 32:23
Sure? Well, you know, I, I think having a banker mindset is probably served me well. I think data is fundamentally rational. And often a lot of the conversations that we have around social issues are emotional, and rightly so it's not a bad thing. But it's hard to argue emotion sometimes. And people have their own perspectives on why they think what they think and you know, if you can come in armed with facts that take it out of the the realm of religion and culture, for example, it creates a little bit safer space for dialogue. So if I can say, Look, this discriminatory policy, so I'll give an example from our climate index, we found that 26% of LGBTQ people have left anti gay states in the last two years to go to more friendly states. Okay, that's a direct factual outcome of discriminatory laws that these states have passed, which by the way, are seeking to solve a problem that does not exist. There is no there is no gender affirming care for trans kids, has been shown to be 100%, effective and safe by the American Medical Association, the American Pediatric Association, every organization that actually knows what they're talking about with youth and trans care says that it's the right thing to do. But the politicians are using us as a wedge issue, to literally solve this problem that they've created to advance a political agenda. Well, my perspective is, I want to point that out. But I also want to show you that you are economic consequences, discrimination. And it's not telling you your religion is wrong, you know, you can believe what you want. But if you make policy based off of a belief that's not based, in fact, then there are consequences. And I think that the data makes that an easier conversation to have. And so I, I've really focused on having that data on all of these things. So that the Board report I mentioned, you know, companies can now go back and look and, and see, Wow, gosh, we thought we were LGBTQ inclusive, but we don't include LGBT in the definition of board diversity. And by the way, with the research, we also provide the policy. So when companies finally realized that they don't have LGBT people at the board level, and don't include us, I have the policy that they can download, and they can adopt and even had a company, one of our law firms write the board resolution, I want it to be easy for them. I'm never in the name and shame business. I want to highlight the problem. If there is one, I really focus on opportunity. Why does this matter? LGBTQ people at the board level are LGBTQ people in your state? We're smart, we're empathetic. We're, we we we bring a lot to the table. And I want people to understand that that, and the data is a really important and easy way to do it.
Paul Zelizer 35:04
Listeners, if you're an impact founder, I hope you were listening and taking some notes there, because it's really helpful information. And I see us moving in that direction as a space. And I'm a big fan of that direction. So I'll get off my soapbox now, that one of the things you all are doing so many great things, but one of the things that really caught my attention is the next generation of leadership that you this whole program of mentoring, LGBT, q plus leaders, tell us a little bit about what does that look like? And how does that work? You've got so many different companies, people in you know, all sorts of different industries. How does that mentorship program? And what kind of response are you getting?
Todd Sears 35:47
Well, I mean, the, the response has been phenomenal. I started I call it out next. And you know, I'm a serial entrepreneur, as you probably can figure out, I like to build things when I have an idea. And nine years ago, I realized, well, okay, I've gotten senior business leaders, and I've gotten CEOs involved, but I looked around and there was nothing in the business space for young LGBTQ leaders. And so I thought, well, I should build that. So I, I started, actually, McKinsey was our partner originally, and they let me use their leadership curriculum, their centered leadership curriculum that they built for senior women. And we sort of tweaked it a little bit. And the idea was that every one of my remember, companies could send two to three of their top LGBTQ young leaders to this program. And we would have a global summit in New York, and then half day salons alongside our summits in New York, London, Hong Kong, Paris, and Sydney. And so that's, that's what we've done. As we've grown, we partner with PwC for a number of years, and now we're, we've built our own leadership curriculum based off of the learnings that we've had. But we've had almost 8000 young leaders go through the program globally, since I started it. And I really want them to do three things I want them to have best in class leadership development training, I want them to be connected to their community. Because the LGBT community is like no other community in the world, we are absolutely connected in ways that no other community is. And I want them to understand that being gay is an advantage for them. I call it an advantage. Because when I was growing up, as I mentioned, you know, earlier, there were not gay role models, you didn't see positive things, you know, the assumption was that you were gonna get AIDS and die. And it was it was not a positive thing to be LGBTQ. And we actually have data that says the same thing for our generation. The Gen Xers and Boomers, about 11% of us thought that being gay would be an asset in our career. We did some research with this our next cohort that we're doing again, excuse me, we called it out to succeed. And we found that 68% of them found that find or think that being LGBTQ is an asset for them in their career. So a massive sea change. And I share that with them, but also with the companies, because I want companies to know that these young leaders are switched on, and that they're out and that they know their worth and their value. And that's exciting. And we're doing a second phase about succeed, I was just seeking out to succeed to point out that we'll publish next year, going back in the field, and not just looking at Gen Y, but looking at Gen Z, Gen X and the baby boomers, because there's a whole generational spread of interest in the gay community. Because we lost an entire generation to AIDS, as well as the Gen Z's who 21% of Gen z's in America identify as LGBTQ. So there's this really important conversation, companies and leaders need to have to understand what LGBTQ young leaders need and want from their companies in their careers. And that's what we've been doing with our next.
Paul Zelizer 38:44
That's so exciting to hear about that change to go from 11% to think about it as the NASA 60 Plus person. Oh, my gosh, that's just the chills. That's awesome. And it is really exciting. I'm curious to hear your thinking, like, obviously, there's been some, you know, collective issues and across the world, but here in the United States we're in, we're having a moment, we might say, right. Yeah, it's a pretty significant moment. And there's questions about marriage equality, and is that even going to continue and, you know, people going after medical providers who are giving gender affirming care to kids and families like we're in a very powerful and convoluted time. Let's just say that. So when you look at what our leadership has done, and all this incredible momentum, and you look at some of what's happening in the political world and the policy world, like, what's the conversation like about here's this incredible positive change? And then we have some real regressive leaders that are trying to bring us backwards. How are you all thinking about that? What's the conversation in the community of out that difference?
Todd Sears 40:02
Well, I think that the top line is the work we're doing now matters more than ever. And it's not just about LGBTQ leaders, it's about people who believe in forward movement. And you actually said it? Well, I think that there are those who want to take us backwards to the 1950s. They want to have regressive policies they want to bring shame into back into the world, they operate from a mindset of scarcity. If if somebody else wins, that means I'm losing. And I have to protect myself at all costs. And they're not focusing on humanity and kindness and opportunity. And the humanity, the opportunity, the kindness and the humanity piece are very much my framework, I think, you know, nobody wants to be part of a problem. Everybody wants to be part of an opportunity. And if we look at all of these things, as you know, what's the world that you want to live in? Do you want to live in a world where people can be who they are whoever they are, and they can be successful. And it's not about anything other than the opportunity to live in love, and safety and security. And that's ultimately what gay people want, we just want the same rights as everyone else. But that's also what black people want, what white people want, what men want women, it's just about humans. And so when I talk about it, now, I really am encouraging people to think about this as a human concept. We've we've really done a number on ourselves in some ways, by creating so many structures, right? We humans want to classify things we want to understand. And we want to put things in a box. And if I can, you know, say that gender is this or that, then I can, I can categorize it, I can understand it. But unfortunately, challenge is that humanity is is a ton of shades of grey, we're not any one thing. sexuality. The Kinsey scale says that sexuality, human sexuality is from zero to six, no one's 100% gay, and no one's 100%, straight. Most people are three, four or five. That's uncomfortable for some people. But it is a fact. The same thing with the gender spectrum, trans people exist, that's uncomfortable for some people, but it is a fact. And so the more we can understand that there are things that that have changed in the world that we just now know more about. And we have to change our mode of operating to accommodate that. And so I, I really think that, you know, historically, we've had kind of, quote unquote, two sides, right, Republican and Democrat. In the political system, I don't think that's the case anymore. Going forward, I think there are two sides, I think there are people who want to see success and opportunity and move forward. And there are people who want to go backwards, and they can be Republican or Democrat or Independent or libertarian, it doesn't matter. And my focus for our leadership is to lean into that and to just focus on the humans who get it and focus on the humans who we can help get it. How can we take people where they are and bring them along, there will always be people that will just be intransigent and will never move, and you just can't focus on them. You can only focus on the people that believe what you're focusing on, and what they call in some corporate spaces, the movable middle, and, and focus on those pieces, because otherwise, you're trying to boil the ocean. And I think, you know, the world that we live in right now with Roe v Wade being overturned, and I think there were 161 Anti trans bills in 31 state legislatures in the past 12 months, right. So there's a preponderance of this. And it's really easy to get really hysterical about all these things. And obviously, they're really, there's some really bad things. The Trans bills are terrible. But if you look at the underlying cause, it's because they're using us as a wedge. And the trans community is important, but also is not huge, right, one of the states that passed one of these bills that wouldn't allow kids to play sports that match their, their, their gender identity, I think there were two kids in the whole state that that law impacted. So once you start to understand that they're not doing this for any other reason than a political tool, then you can start to sort of unpack and expose the hypocrisy and start to say, Gosh, that's not how we want to live. And so I think, as we move forward in that way, I do think that the Supreme Court, and everyone you know, if you look at the supreme in Clarence Thomas's decision, I mean, the hypocrisy is just laid bare, there's there's no hiding it any longer. They have literally come out and said, We're going to try to make this theocracy. And we're, we're, the hypocrisy knows no bounds in terms of now going after marriage equality, and you know, all these other decisions. And I think that's going to galvanize people in a very different way, I hope. I hope it will galvanize people to move forward and come together and those who are of like minds work together, I hope it does not devolve further into the polarization that we have seen, because I think what we're seeing right now is the result of the polarization and the hatred and the, you know, your side versus my side and, and, you know, and it's not, you know, there are challenges that come from lots of different perspectives. You know, I get frustrated with the quote unquote, progressive left, because shaming people is never a way to change their minds. And no one ever changed their minds is sport. You're right. because you call them a bigot, that's just not a thing. So I think we just have to really reframe how we speak about these things, and how we move forward. Because that that is what we have to do, we have to move forward. And if we don't reframe it, we won't.
Paul Zelizer 45:14
Thank you so much for sharing, I really appreciate your thinking. So it's like a dozen years now and you're having conferences all around the world. 1000s Accompany 8000 Young Leaders at a time like you've really done some things in a dozen year. And thank you, and congratulations. Thanks. When you look ahead, like what are some of the things that are on your radar in terms of in the next three to five years that you see leadership growing into?
Todd Sears 45:46
Well, five years is a long time, right? I think five year strategies are, are hard to do, and maybe even a three year but I will say I've started thinking. Having said both of those statements, I have started thinking about what I'm calling a 10 year ambition, which is not about our leadership, per se, but it's about leadership being a convener and a change agent to accomplish this. And the idea is pretty simple. From a gay rights perspective, we have only ever gone from fight to fight to fight. North Carolina passes a law we focus on Indonesia kills gays, we focus on it. Sharia law gets reinstituted in Brunei, you name it. But we have never sat down and said 10 years from now, where could we be? And so I mentioned earlier that in 71 countries is still illegal to be gay sodomy laws still exist in those countries. We still have conversion therapy, we still have HIV, there's so many things. And so I I thought to myself, we're at leadership turn 10, two years ago, we're having a 12 year celebration this fall. And at that celebration, I'm going to announce this idea that I am going to try to get as many companies, businesses and nonprofits to come together and focus all of our efforts on these kind of key areas. Could we imagine 10 years from now, could we eradicate sodomy laws globally? Could we do that? And not have it be this sort of reactionary things happen? And we jump on it? But be proactive and say no, this is the world we want to live in. And we want to bring all these people together to actually make that change. And it would require a lot of different people, right, it would require government leaders, it would require legal scholars, it would require nonprofits, NGOs, the business community, everybody has a role. But I really like to think about leadership as the convener. We have these companies, but we have 66 nonprofit partners globally, as well. And as a B Corp. By the way, we are a B Corp, we were the first gay B Corp. We're the only global gay B Corp, which means we reinvest our profits in our mission. But we also donate 20% of our net profit to gay nonprofits. So we really are, in my opinion, an engine for good, and a convener, and so I really want to continue to push that idea. And for the next 10 years, be able to do it on a even deeper global scale.
Paul Zelizer 47:56
Thanks for sharing that inspiring vision, Todd. So you're busy guy, or the listeners are busy, I could hang out all day, but you've got hold multi day conference, you've got other things to do. If there was something you were hoping we were going to get to you today, and we haven't gotten to it yet. Or there's something you want to leave our impact founders with as we start to wind down something that they can take and implement in their organizations in their ecosystems. What would that be?
Todd Sears 48:27
Well, maybe, maybe there's an idea, don't ask. I think the idea is something that I've just found successful, which is, I try not to make my work about me, I try to make my work about empowering people to use the talents, skills, platforms and access that they have to make a change I've had so many CEOs say that they're grateful to me, because, you know, they run multibillion dollar corporations, but they don't feel like they can do good in the world. But by doing you know, by engaging with our leadership and doing what we're doing, they're able to feel like they're making a little bit of a difference. And that's really exciting. It's exciting to be able to bring people in and let people be engaged. And I think the more we can do that, the better. So I think that would be the the advice because I've seen it work really well. And you just never know where that will lead. Because people get really excited and want to do more. And that's, that's ultimately how we win. And the second part is I would love more people to to help us and to give us ideas and partner. I mean, we we have all kinds of organizations and companies and that who reach out and say, you know, we're doing this, there's this alignment. We're trying to build a digital community for our leadership. It's been totally analog. I'd love to have a digital community about next years. For example, we have an out next LinkedIn group, which is great, but there's so much more engagement we could do. How can we, you know, for the senior ambition statement, it's going to require an awful lot of people to help with with this idea if we can actually achieve it. So you know, I would love anyone who's interested and being involved in the movement to connect and info without leadership.com seizes way to do it.
Paul Zelizer 50:07
Thank you so much for being on the show today.
Todd Sears 50:09
Thanks for having me, I appreciate the opportunity.
Paul Zelizer 50:12
So we'll put all the links that we talked about in the show notes. And before we go, I just want to say thank you for listening. And we love I mean, we love listener suggested topics and guest. If you have an idea for a show or a guest that you think would be an awesome guest, please go to the AWARE printers website, look at our contact page. And we have three simple guidelines, we try to be really transparent about who we have on the show and who's not quite ready or not quite a fit. So if you read those and it feels like a fit, please send in your ideas. For now I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.