As 2020 began, financial services heavyweight Citi placed a stunning seventh in the latest Top 100 Employers list from Stonewall, beating its 2019 ranking by two places.
It is the third, consecutive year in which the global bank has made the top 10. Indeed, when it soared into the list’s upper tier in 2018, it climbed 23 places on the previous year, and a whopping 92 places on 2016.
Citi’s dramatic elevation over the past four years reflects both the range and detail of its efforts to welcome, include and support LGBT+ staff – work that also led Stonewall to name the bank as its Top Trans Inclusive Employer of 2020.
Sanjay Sood-Smith – the charity’s executive director of workplace & community programmes – said: “By taking steps to make their workplaces supportive and welcoming of all lesbian, gay, bi and trans people, businesses like Citi are bringing us closer to a world where everyone is accepted without exception.”
The Treasurer spoke to Citi director, head of Markets & Securities Services Middle Office for Japan, Clare Eastburn, who co-chairs Citi Pride Network London, to discover the steps Citi has taken to carve out its achievements in the LGBT+ arena.
I’m bisexual, and when I joined Citi in 2001, I was in a relationship with a guy. That was during my first six years at the firm – so in all that time, my sexuality didn’t come up as a subject, and I didn’t bother to mention it.
Then my personal circumstances changed. I fell in love with a woman, and suddenly thought: ‘Oh, how am I going to handle this now?’ And I went from a place of not mentioning my sexuality to actively trying to hide it.
I felt like my integrity was coming into question, because I wasn’t being real with my boss or my team. People can tell that something’s up, right? So I went on the company intranet – remember those? – sought out the co-chairs of the Pride network and said to the female co-chair: “Help! I don’t know how to tackle this.”
She showed me how to embark on the process of coming out to my colleagues, managers and clients one by one – just as people do when they come out to their families. She helped me navigate that, and not to feel like I was facing a massively career-limiting situation, which was my fear at the time.
Part of the reason why this was such a challenge for me was that, back then, I didn’t know anyone else at Citi who was out. And more generally, I didn’t know anyone who was bisexual who was out. Added to that, I was working on the trading floor – a very alpha-type environment – so I was worried about how my sexuality would be perceived.
Thankfully, I had a really positive experience of coming out, and that spurred me to get more involved in the network – because I sat there and thought: ‘Hang on a minute – here I am in this organisation of 200,000 people, and I don’t know anyone else who’s bisexual. There are no immediately visible examples of anyone who’s bisexual, and I’ve been having this much trouble thinking about coming out at work… I need to step up and do more.’
So I did. I joined the Steering Committee of our Pride London network, and then in 2016 became co-chair. It’s been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done – not just professionally, but personally, too. It’s provided me with so many fantastic opportunities for growth, and enabled me to build a personal network right here at Citi, plus all across the industry and with clients.
Going on to the second part of your question, I guess that in the leadership role that comes with being co-chair, I have been helping to shape Citi’s climate of LGBT+ openness and inclusivity.
We have almost 30 Pride networks around the world, which are based at the grassroots level of the company and referred to as Affinity Networks. Then we liaise at a more senior level into the Global Affinity Networks, which are overseen by our CEO Mike Corbat. Some of his direct reports co-lead those affinity groups, which cover not only LGBT+, but ethnicity, women and so on.
Having those two types of networks engaged in close collaboration makes us really effective. While there’s a lot we can do in the grassroots networks, sometimes we come up against a big-ticket item where we think: ‘this is above our pay grade’ – such as tracking large amounts of data, changing benefits or changing policies.
That’s why it’s important to work alongside the Global Affinity Networks, to secure that crucial, senior-level support.
One example that immediately comes to mind is how we look at parental leave. We ensure that all parental leave is shared and equal across the organisation, regardless of what your family structure is.
Whether the leave is maternal or paternal, whether or not parents are of the same sex, or whether the child is adopted or from a surrogacy arrangement – all those sorts of issues – our benefits are shared equally. And not just around parental leave, but all our benefits in general. In the end, it’s about your partner. It doesn’t matter what gender your partner is.
On that very theme, we’ve actually removed gendered language from all of our policies and benefits, because it really doesn’t matter what that make-up is. You, as an individual, decide what your family is. You, as an individual, decide who your partner is. And Citi should be there to support you regardless.
There are also areas around transitioning-at-work policies, and changes to the guidelines around how we support trans staff. For example, providing gender-dysphoria assistance: medical care to help people through that, and relevant guidance not just for the individual who’s going through that transition, but managers and colleagues – everything required to work through something that some employees may never have come across before.
What’s really important for us as an organisation is that Citi publicly stands up to support not just its LGBT+ employees, but also our LGBT+ clients and customers – and that’s all about having an internal understanding of where our values lie.
For example, we signed a letter in support of marriage equality in Northern Ireland. We have a culture of putting our name to those sorts of documents. We were, I think, the only financial services firm that signed a recent, Stonewall-organised letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson about concerns that had emerged among several organisations around the UK’s policy on the Gender Recognition Act.
Off the back of that, some of the points we’d made were rolled back, and the negative direction of travel was reversed.
We also sign amicus briefs used as evidence in proceedings at the US Supreme Court. So, I think we’re being very proactive. We understand that our brand has power, and that standing up and publicly demonstrating our values is important, and something we should continue to do, where relevant.
This is another example of an area where having senior-level support has been key, as it has allowed us to act in quite a public way. It speaks to the broad, economic impact we can have, as well as the changes we can make internally for our staff and their families.
First of all, have a network!
Talk about this stuff. Recognise it. It shouldn’t be something that’s taboo – it’s a fact of societal life.
Statistically, between 7% and 10% of the population is LGBT+. Even from a client-facing perspective, if we’re assuming that all of our customers are heterosexual, we’re going to be wrong up to 10% of the time. And that’s not a good position for us to be in when we’re trying to service, understand and really know our clients and provide for them in the best way we possibly can.
So, have an LGBT+ network. Get involved with organisations such as Stonewall, which is helping employers figure out how to get better at all this.
Celebrate the successes of LGBT+ people within your organisation. Recognise and celebrate LGBT+ dates on the calendar – London Pride being key, although this year’s took a rather different form! But there are many others, too.
We like to explore opportunities to celebrate intersectionality across our community – for example, by partnering with our Roots Network for BAME staff. We look for points where our communities can cross over – and similarly with networks for parents, women and people with disabilities. There are so many opportunities to partner with and learn from each other.
Understand that we shouldn’t look at LGBT+ issues through a single lens. We’re a multifaceted group. Even within the L, the G, the B and the T, our experiences are different and should be recognised.
If you’re missing out on 10% of the best talent in the industry, well – that’s a case enough, right? We have to be reflective of the community we serve, and any business that isn’t is being really shortsighted about the opportunities that come from that.
In just the same way it’s important for us to have diversity of gender, it’s vital for us to have diversity of background and experience from our LGBT+ community, too.
Plus, if you’re not publicly making it clear that you’re an organisation where it is safe for people to be LGBT+, and to have a thriving career while being themselves, you’re going to be missing out on all that frankly brilliant talent.
It’s definitely a new situation for us all to navigate, and it’s thrown up a set of challenges that are different to anything we’ve encountered before. The prevalence of mental health challenges within the LGBT+ community is well documented, so the impact of distancing arrangements upon safe spaces has been a concern.
But with that in mind, one of the ways we have tried to deal with it all is to just keep communicating.
One avenue that has allowed us to do this really well is Coffee with Pride, which started out as an in-person, informal, monthly meeting where staff could meet other LGBT+ employees, have a catch-up and do some networking.
After lockdown, Coffee with Pride went online. The network canvassed its members to ask them whether it was still useful and wanted, and the response was an overwhelming yes. So now we’re asking members ahead of each session which topic they’d like us to focus on, and we’re also bringing in guest speakers for their input.
One recent guest was Bobbi Pickard – a trans woman at the support organisation Trans in the City, who came in and talked about her experiences. She’s a fantastic speaker who had everyone gripped, and we went way over our allocated time! We also had far more people tune in than we’d expected.
In moving to the virtual world, we’ve used platforms such as Slido to make things more interactive, and we’ve opened up scope for people to tune in from other countries, such as the US and India – as well as from right across the EMEA region, which comprises some of the world’s most progressive cultures and environments, as well as some of the most conservative.
That’s provided us with some real food for thought: how should we play this going forward once it’s safe to get back into our offices? How can we continue to allow people who aren’t necessarily co-located with us to join in these discussions on an ongoing basis?
Greater accessibility has been an accidental benefit of the situation we’re going through.
Matt Packer is a freelance business, finance and leadership journalist