McKinsey's GLAM network hosts webinars for LGBTQ+ community

The LGBTQ+ community of McKinsey & Company, known as GLAM, is celebrating 25 years in business. In honour of the milestone, McKinsey is hosting several informative webinars on diversity and inclusion.

McKinsey & Company was one of the first top global management consulting firms to take diversity and inclusion seriously within its ranks. Back in 1995, the US consultancy launched GLAM. This network is committed to a number of objectives, including providing peer support to LGBTQ+ professionals, advising McKinsey’s partners on LGBTQ+ policies and benefits, and recruiting LGBTQ+ professionals into the firm.

Today, GLAM comprises nearly 1,000 ‘Glammies’ (how the network calls its members) and 5,000 allies (non LGBTQ+ professionals but ‘friends’ of the network), and this has not remain unnoticed outside the firm. Since 2006, McKinsey & Company has earned a perfect score of 100 points from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate equality index every year. The firm has also bagged a number of awards internationally for how it fosters a LGBTQ+ work environment.

Further reading: McKinsey's LGBTQ+ network GLAM celebrates 25th anniversary.

Proud Leaders

With the aim of informing how McKinsey opens itself up for LGBTQ+ people, the firm has launched a series of six webinars for individuals who self-identify as a LGBTQ+ or a LGBTQ+ ally.

Kicked off in August, the first session set the stage for the topic by exploring McKinsey’s ‘Diversity wins: How inclusion matters’ research, which found that companies that address diversity and inclusion in their management outperform their peers financially. Notably, ethnical diversity was found to have more of a positive impact that gender diversity.

The three upcoming webinars focus on how queer professionals make dual careers work (September 22), how being “out and proud” at work can be beneficial to both LGBT’s as well as colleagues (October 2), and how LGBTQ+ employees can overcome the challenges they typically face on the work floor (October 7).

Join the events: For more information and registration for the webinars see McKinsey’s GLAM website.

According to Brian Rolfes, a Toronto-based partner at McKinsey in charge of the global recruitment team and a GLAM member since the very beginning, the strategy consultancy has made embedding its LGBTQ+ values into its recruitment processes a key pillar of its human capital strategy.

Diana Ellsworth, GLAM’s global co-lead based in McKinsey’s Atlanta office said that “while we’re so strong today, we’re not stopping. We’re pushing forward to be bigger, better, and brighter in the future.”

As part of this ambition to make more impact globally, GLAM has among others launched The Alliance – a McKinsey-convened annual global conference that brings together the world’s brightest minds on LGBTQ+, aimed at helping public sector and company leaders with advancing their own LGBTQ+ agenda.

McKinsey’s global boss, Kevin Sneader, describes diversity and inclusivity as one of his “personal” missions. “There can be no glass closets, no glass ceilings. We are doing everything we can to make sure that's the case within and beyond our firm.”

For more information on 25 years GLAM, watch the below video: