According to Yahoo Finance, there are solely 4 brazenly homosexual CEOs atop Fortune 500 corporations. That’s up from zero in 2014, when Apple’s Tim Cook got here out. But it represents lower than 1% of the cohort, nicely beneath the 7% price of Americans typically who identification as homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual. Is there a glass ceiling for homosexual executives? And in that case, are some queer bosses nonetheless opting to remain in the closet to keep away from damaging their careers? To attempt to reply these questions, we invited Jim Fielding, an brazenly homosexual entertainment-industry govt, to be a visitor on The New World of Work. Fielding has thought a lot about these questions and has determined to share his personal story and perspective in a just-published ebook, All Pride No Ego: A Queer Executive’s Journey to Living and Leading Authentically. He was president of Disney Store Worldwide; president of shopper merchandise and innovation at twentieth Century Fox; international head for shopper merchandise and retail growth at Dreamworks Animation; and CEO of the Clare’s Stores chain. He at present serves as president of Archer Gray’s Co-Lab division, focusing on constructing companies by way of enterprise investments. But regardless of that spectacular resume, it hasn’t at all times been straightforward. In the interview, Jim talked about the bullying he endured as a younger man, the years he spent residing a closeted double life, and on how he finally developed the confidence he wanted to be his genuine self at work.
