Fiftyfaces Focus 2023 Pride Special

We are delighted to bring you our second Pride Special, in which we celebrate the career journeys of LGBTQ+ professionals around the world.   In this year’s series we speak with a surgeon in training committed to raising awareness of the LBGTQ+ community, a finance industry COO who was once a teenage rebel, a recent recipient of an OBE award for services to the diversity an inclusion, a fixed income fund manager, a data junkie, a social worker and many more. 

We talk about the challenges of coming out (sometimes over and over again), the lack of role models across professions and in medicine in particular, how advocacy is lacking in medicine too, and why nobody wins the gender wars. Tune in to hear from these 9 amazing guests: 

Elizabeth Kleinerman is a Fixed Income Portfolio Manager at Wellington Management, based in Boston.  She has worked at Wellington for her entire career, and is Chair of the Advisory Board of the Wellington Foundation as well as the Founder of the firm’s Pride Network and a leader of its diversity and inclusion efforts. She lives with her wife and two sons in the Boston area.

Leo Caldwell is an inclusion educator and consultant at “Empathy by Design” and an Assistant Lecturer at Ball State University School of Journalism where he teaches visual communication courses in the journalism department.  He also teaches podcasting and strategic social media communication in the graduate program at Drexel University.

Chas Manning describes himself as being passionate about people and data.  He obtained a degree in Manufacturing Engineering from Boston University and has held a series of engineering and operating roles, with some twists and turns in between. He lives with his husband Will and two dogs in the Oak Park area outside Chicago. 

Brison Scholar Lee Downing, also known as Dr. Scholar Lee, who is an inspirational speaker, spiritual life coach, transformational leader and a leadership consultant based in the Atlanta, Georgia area. As a Black Man of Trans experience, he has unique insights into the challenges of transition and cloaks his guidance in a deep spirituality.

Robyn Grew is group COO and General Counsel as well as Global Head of Legal & Compliance at Man Group. Previously she worked in a number of different compliance roles at financial services firms. She lives with her wife in the NYC area and has a college aged son.

Zander Keig is a licensed clinical social worker, emotional wellness and personal growth webinar facilitator, and trans social care clinical consultant based in Central Florida.   He was named NASW National Social Worker of the Year in 2020, NASW California Social Worker of the Year in 2018, and WPATH Educator of the Year in 2020. To learn more about Zander visit his website: www.zanderkeig.net

Kate Baur is a fourth year medical student at Loyola. She lives with her fiancée in the Chicago area, however will be starting her surgical residency in Ann Arbor this June. She has a particular interest in colo-rectal surgery, in particular as anal cancer is a cancer that has a higher incidence in populations such as the LGBTQ+ population.

Jack Dodd describes himself as a human who talks about mental health. I came across him thanks to a powerful LinkedIn post he made about how boys get sad too, in which he called to normalize expressing emotion, sometimes at work. He is a corporate partnerships lead at Citizens Advice and prior to that worked in client accounts management and partnership development at Stonewall and prior to that in recruitment. I asked Jack to join me to talk about the mental health advocacy that is close to his heart.

Joanne Monck, OBE is director of global education and equality, diversity and inclusion at The Believe Foundation. She is an advocate for transgender awareness as well as domestic abuse, and last year was awarded and OBE for services to transgender equality in the 2021 New Year

This series is brought to you with the kind support of Wellington Management, one of the world’s largest independent asset managers.  Wellington believes in the importance of a diverse workforce, equitable opportunities for all colleagues to reach their potential, and an inclusive culture. 

The Honorable Judge Victoria Kolakowski, is a judge of the Superior Court of Alameda County, in the Bay Area of California and in November 2010 she was the first Transgender person to be elected a Trial Judge. Judge Kolakowski is a committed advocate for transgender people and makes herself available throughout the United States and internationally for conferences, seminars and interviews acting as a role-model and providing support. Her conversation with a new host, Patrick Devitt, goes back to her childhood, to her earliest days of wishing she were a girl, through adolescence, college and law school. She talks about her transition, reactions to it, the support network that made it possible and how being transgender affected her employment opportunities and career path. We hope you enjoy this profoundly moving interview that we are releasing to coincide with LGBT History Month in the UK. There is more information about Judge Kolakowski on the following links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Kolakowski https://vkolakowski.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzPT40eaEGY&list=PLIsDBjtKYyJalB8rWNJqtKt-bAhhX2h6T 

This podcast was made possible with the kind support of David Mooney, as well as Tom Soto of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund.

Perry Zizzi is a Managing Partner at Dentons based in Bucharest, Romania, and he has worked in corporate law since the mid 1990s, when we met as office mates in a midtown Manhattan law firm Debevoise & Plimpton. He is the President, Founder and Board Member of the Romanian Diversity Chamber of Commerce.
Our trip down memory lane starts with Perry's childhood in upstate NY where his early fascination with history led him to cycle around the town making a map of the streets. He also collected stamps as well as a coterie of mentors including teachers and local historians. Later on in Georgetown he deliberately sought out professors who might push him outside his comfort zone and his love of languages, Latin America and travel took root. Perry often talked about his time in Palau with the Peace Corps while we shared an office, and it was fascinating to reflect on the lessons learned from time spent in this island in Micronesia with a population of around 18,000 people.
Our conversation then moves to his time at law school, practicing corporate law, and the twists and turns that took him to Paris and then Romania, and the shifts that led him to realize how much he enjoyed practicing. We talk about his work in the Romanian Diversity Chamber of Commerce and how the inclusion of LGBT professionals has changed dramatically over the course of his career. We finish with reflections on wisdom shared by some legendary teachers.
This podcast was made possible with the kind support of David Mooney, as well as Tom Soto of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund.

Oli Shakir-Khalil is an investment director in EM Debt at Fidelity International, based in London. We met at an industry conference where he discussed his role as a mental health ambassador within his firm and the industry and his efforts to amplify the importance of mental health awareness. He is passionate about the need to reinforce listening within organizations and the debunk the myth that this area should be taboo. His initiatives both within his own firm and within the industry are innovative and powerful to spread inclusion and promote dialogue about this issue.
Our conversation starts with Oli's university specialty of classics and how he happened upon a city career with this quite unconventional background. What it did endow him with, though, was sharp writing skills and a comfort and ease with public speaking and client situations, which were the essential cultural "add" to round out a team.
We speak about his role as a mental health ambassador, why these roles are more essential than ever today, in light of the Covid-19 disruptions and enforced isolation and how simple adjustments like noting his status on his signature - indicating that he is "free to talk" and that colleagues who may be struggling can open up to him can be critical.
Oli is also an active advocate for the LGBT community at work and in the City.
This podcast was made possible with the kind support of David Mooney, as well as Tom Soto of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund.

Genie Cesar-Fabian is a Partner, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Palladium Equity Partners, based in the NYC area. She previously worked as in-house counsel, a law professor and an attorney in private practice. She lives with her wife and two children in the NYC area.
Our discussion starts with a look-back to Genie's childhood in Long Island, her love of sports and music, and her experience of coming out in the Village of NYC in the 1990s. She tells a deeply personal story of some of the struggle that was involved.
Her study of law seemed to be pre-destined, and it lived up to all of its expectations. We spend a little time talking about the law course that she thought on law and literature, and how she started her career in private practice but ultimately transitioned to an in-house role and the benefits that that brought. Her professional experience was a broadly positive one - with inclusive forward-thinking environments where her status as a parent and a member of the LGBT community was welcomed.
We then turn to her assessment of the current levels of inclusion and acceptance and marvel that things have come so far, but we do note the small gestures that continue to make a difference in creating a welcoming environment.
This podcast was made possible with the kind support of David Mooney, as well as Tom Soto of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund.

Matthew Choyce is a Virtual Event and Video Production Specialist at I-connections. He has worked in event production since high school. He is the President and Founder of the Foundation for Gay Youth in Technology, a nonprofit which encourages, empowers and provides resources to LGBTQ+ youth and young adults across the technology industries.
Our conversation dives into to the rapidly evolving world of event production - and takes in the dramatic changes that the space has seen since the Covid disruptions. We look at whether a blend of real and virtual events will be the way of the future.
We then turn to the foundation that Matthew founded with his Partner in order to provide resources and support to gay youth interested in working in the technology arena. He describes what the gaps were that this foundation was intended to solve, and reveals the supports that are so critical, particularly when young people feel isolated as many did during lockdowns.
This podcast was made possible with the kind support of David Mooney, as well as Tom Soto of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund.

Nicci Take is interim head of growth at Mercer. She is an expert in sales, and is the chairwoman/founder of M62 Vincis, which helps organizations win by working out the last 15 mins of the sales cycle. She is a Presenter, Entrepreneur and stand up Comedienne and a prominent transgender advocate, inspirational speaker and coach. who is a #BritishLGBTAwards Top 10 Inspirational Leader as well as one of the FT 100 Leading LGBT+ Executives 2017.
Nicci's experience as a sales expert was developed over decades of global experience, often as an entrepreneur. She resists efforts to reduce sales to a process and stresses the importance of relationships and the human connection. Her transgender journey had a different trajectory - although she always felt drawn to feminine things in her youth, she only transitioned in her professional life at age 42. We talk at length about that, about how it transformed her approach to business and changed her management style.
The transition also paved the way for tremendous insights not only into how women are treated in the workplace but also into how many contemporaries and colleagues - both familiar and those less so - viewed femininity and women more generally. As a stand-up comic, Nicci can always see the funny side of what life has thrown her way, and this humor comes through wonderfully in this podcast.
You can read more about Nicci on http://niccitake.com/
This podcast was made possible with the kind support of David Mooney, as well as Tom Soto of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund.

David Mooney is a former asset manager and commodities specialist, having spent close to 30 years in the financial services industry. He has managed derivatives and commodities desks at investment banks and hedge funds, and ran a fund of commodities funds for close to 10 years, which is when we met.
David is a bit of a legend in the area of commodities investment, and I have always known him to have a skeptical eye and an aversion to hubris. Never afraid to call a spade a spade, in this podcast David gives a refreshing overview of the industry he made his own and advises that it is always essential to maintain the element of surprise.
We turn to the topic of diversity and inclusion and LGBT inclusion in particular, and David has some fascinating insights into the way things were - as well as into the way they are starting to trend.
This podcast was made possible with the kind support of David Mooney, as well as Tom Soto of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund.

Georgy Egorov is Chief Financial Officer of Vaccitech, a firm that develops vaccines and T cell immunotherapies to treat and prevent cancer and infectious diseases. It was one of the firms behind the recently launched Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. He has held a series of executive roles in fintech and biotech firms, and prior to that worked in finance both at the EBRD and investment banking. He was born in Russia and studied in the Netherlands and University of Cambridge in the UK.
Our conversation starts with Georgy's upbringing in Russia and the somewhat wild backdrop of the 1990s, which was, surprisingly, a very liberal time in the country. In the spirit of new beginnings, he set off for London after university with the bare minimum in his pocket and no work visa. A fortuitous landing in the EBRD set him on course for a successful career in banking. This is where the first journey of discovery begins. We discuss the environment on trading floors in investment banking in the 1990s, when homophobic slurs were not uncommon and LGBT role models were largely absent.
The second journey of discovery was the drive to keep learning and move into the world of tech, AI and ultimately biotech, which saw him shift from a traditional hierarchical structure to a flat, entrepreneurial environment. Inclusion and acceptance was encouraged in this environment, and we reflect then on how far professional settings have come in terms of acceptance but the areas where more work needs to be done - namely in the area of inclusion and the availability of role models.
This podcast was made possible with the kind support of David Mooney, as well as Tom Soto of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund.

Jenny Whiteman is a Director of Legal Services at the international business of Federated Hermes, based in London, a role she has held for over 12 years. She previously worked as a solicitor at Eversheds. She lives with her wife and two children in London.
As a former colleague of Jenny's I was thrilled to talk to her about her career journey and how she moved through the ranks in private practice initially and subsequently in an in-house role. We talk about what attracted her into law, and what she enjoys about in-house practice.
We move then to talk about Jenny's experience in the workplace as a gay woman and as a working parent. We speak about the startling statistic that gay women in the workplace are twice as likely to not be out than gay men, and why Lesbian Visibility Week is even needed to raise awareness of this fact. We mention the inclusive gestures that would contribute to more freedom to bring one's whole self to work and the fact that there is still a lack of prominent gay role models in this respect.
This podcast was made possible with the kind support of David Mooney, as well as Tom Soto of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund.