 Ladies and gentlemen, good evening to this press conference from the 49th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum here in Davos, Switzerland. Thank you for joining us here in the room and thank you for joining us on the live stream, whether you're watching on Twitter, Facebook, all the usual channels or on our website. We're very happy that you're joining us. Thank you very much. You are joining the press conference titled, Are We There Yet? The Status of LGBTI Inclusion. And I'm very happy to introduce now a wonderful panel to talk and hopefully answer that question in the next 30 minutes. To my immediate left, I'm joined by Saadia Sahidi, who is a managing director of the World Economic Forum and the head of social and economic agendas. Next to her, we're joined by Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights based in Geneva. To her immediate left, we're joined by Sander van Nordtende, the group chief executive products of Accenture. And last but definitely not least, we're joined by Karl von Rohr, who is a member of the managing board of Deutsche Bank, of course, based in Germany. Thank you very much for being here. Without further ado, Saadia, why is the World Economic Forum engaged in this debate about inclusion, LGBTI inclusion, and why is it such an important topic here at this annual meeting? Sure, thank you. I'll try to be very brief. In October of this past year, we launched our Global Competitiveness Report. And it included a new updated framework, a new updated methodology that tries to take into account social equalities that tries to take into account the value of technology when measuring competitiveness. And when we built a much more diverse portfolio of what competitiveness truly means for different societies, it becomes incredibly clear that competitiveness can only occur for countries that provide opportunity for all. And that opportunity for all has to include women, that has to include people who have disabilities, that has to include people of different socioeconomic groups, and that absolutely has to include LGBTI diversity as well. And so there is a clear economic case. It's very clear that countries that do this well tend to be the ones that have faster growth, that have better productivity, that have better competitiveness, that have better long-term potential for all of their people. But there is also a moral case. There's a very clear values case. We have to ensure that every single person, regardless of sexual orientation, regardless of gender, regardless of race, regardless of religion, has equal opportunities. And so that's really the main rationale. And what's also interesting is now with the World Economic Forum being much more of a platform for public-private cooperation, we have an opportunity to take this movement that was very much started by various businesses and by civil society organizations and international organizations here at the forum, provide a platform for that movement to go forward, and employers in particular have such a strong role to play in providing better standards, providing better ways of accelerating LGBTI inclusion. Thank you, Sadia. What a wonderful bridge, since you mentioned standards. Michel, the United Nations has its own standards on LGBTI conduct. Tell us a little bit about them and what you think the way forward is. Well, I welcome really to be here with the launch of this platform for LGBTI inclusion, accelerating LGBTI inclusion. And it's no better place than in Davos to do this, because it was here in 2016 that my predecessor talking and activities with the company realized that company did not understood it was their responsibility to ensure LGBTI's rights. And they even thought that LGBTI issues were not the human rights issues. So the decision and the reality is different. The UN believes that the private sector has an important role to play in human rights, because companies make decision, being it on human resources or investments, supply change, or marketing that can have a real and profound impact on human rights. And of course, we all know the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states clearly that all human beings, despite all their diversity in religious, geographical diversity, gender, ethnic, etc., they all equally need to be respected with dignity and need to be considered their issues. And on the other hand, we understood that LGBTI community was very vulnerable. It was very vulnerable, it was discriminated. So the standards where they look after, and we work those standards since 2016 at the Office of the High Commission of Human Rights, we work also with corporates, with civil society, with LGBTI organizations, that what what means to be is to engage companies in ensuring policies, anti-discrimination policies to ensure to sensitize managers and to ensure also to equalize benefits of the employees in terms of being LGBTI community or not. So I would like to also take this opportunity to I would say to recognize the huge support of the seven members of this project. They have done a fantastic thing and they have been do advance a lot, but are we there yet? No, we're not there yet. So now it's the time for implementation and also the time to reach out to more companies and encourage them to support the project that will permit to accelerate people's rights. So I think that I will finally say that I would like to recall that support for human rights or LGBTI people must be part of a broader corporate social responsibility agenda. So there is another agenda or is part of the agenda called business and human rights that is also very important and that of course LGBTI community has to be part of this broader approach to human rights. Thank you, Michelle. You mentioned the partnership. I should spell this out, especially for our online audience. We're launching here as well the partnership for global LGBTI equality and we have two of the partner companies represented here, Deutsche Bank and Accenture, but I should also mention that involved in this and also present here in the room are EY, there's Omnicom and also this is supported by other companies like Mastercard, Microsoft and Salesforce. It's a pretty broad coalition and we're hoping of course to get more partners. But Sander, as one of the as a representative of one of these partner companies, what is the business perspective here and how do you think business can develop a culture that helps to end discrimination in the workplace, especially? So we like and that's why we call the initiative also we like to speak of a culture of equality and we use that word because we are moving on from diversity to inclusion to equality and it's really important because we, Accenture, we've done some research and the research shows clearly that companies who have a culture of equality and Michelle already alluded to it are much more innovative and ultimately more successful. So because they create a more trusting environment for their people and I always say in Accenture there's no one who has to leave anything by the door. You can come to work, be yourself and focus at the work without having to hide, think what am I going to do? So I think that's really, that's that culture of equality that we're looking for. So the culture of equality is really a business imperative. I mean obviously there's the human rights aspect that Sadia talked about and Michelle but also from a business point of view, if I just look in our business, our clients are diverse, they bring different people to the table. They expect us to bring different people to the table who can be their selves and who can collaborate in the right way with their clients. It's my strong feeling but it's also backed up by the research that diverse and equal teams have much better ideas to ultimately bring to the clients and to the business. So that's where the innovation point comes in and then last but not least from a talent point of view we are Accenture. We want to have the best people on board of Accenture and if we do not tap into different pools of talent and have that culture of equality we're not going to be the best for our clients. So what to do or what would be my three pieces of advice for a CEO or anyone at the C-level looking at this? I would say the C-level commitment goes beyond signing up for the standards. It goes to operationalizing the standards and that's what this initiative is all about but it also comes to visible commitment at the C-level and I always say showing up matters. You have to go where the LGBT people gather, I mean you have to set the right tone from the top. You have to be out in the field setting the right tone day in, day out and not shy away and just saying yeah we signed the standards and that's it. So visible CEO commitment day in, day out and if I say CEO it's leadership commitment at large. Then secondly and I'm not going to steal too much of your thunder but it's very important that from an HR point of view you put in place the policies. I think you're going to say a bit more about it but that's really important because that is translating the tone from the top into real life action. And last but not least I would say it's very important to stimulate and I call it grassroots movements in your company, LGBTI networks and other ERGs to stimulate those to exist, to connect with other organizations to learn, to bring IDs to leadership to implement because the real improvement or the real progress I think comes from the grassroots so we need to ensure that we stimulate that to happen. So I mean we are very excited to be here today, we are very excited to have seven companies sign up. I think we should strive, I don't know if we have an official target but to get to the 100 companies sooner rather than later and that's the objective that we as an initiative have here together with the World Economic Forum and let's say I couldn't be more excited to be here today. Thank you Senator Karl, you're a banker so let's talk about investment but I mean specifically investment in talent diversity. So what from your perspective are the steps that need to be taken within the company and for example what role does the HR department play there? Well let me probably start by saying that of course like also the other participant firms we really welcome the World Economic Forum's decision to make the LGBTI, LGBTI issue part of their agenda and as Sander said it's a simple human rights issue, it has a business imperative and that's why we are very supportive and we're very committed to do our share in order to promote that topic. Now we published this morning from Deutsche Bank a small video that hopefully you will also have access to that released nine important what we think are very practical tips how to promote LGBTI inclusive business practice and we hope that that's something that will be widely distributed because I think it could serve as a means to help HR departments to help companies to help government agencies take a look at the topic and I'm not going to bore you with all the detail but maybe I'll just give you some of them and then I'll pick out two that are very dear to my heart and the first thing is know the business case of true inclusion and I'll come back to that the second one is word choice matters that's something that I think some always struggle how to actually use the words and there's nothing wrong with it making mistakes just try to get it right and over time you will and I think that's something that people just should try to not be shy about then the third one and I'll get back to that as well is allies are important and that is very much going back to Sunday's point you need senior support for the topic because otherwise things don't move I think we know that if leaders don't move topics it's it's it's it's difficult then investigate the laws in the places your company operates in you have to understand as an HR department well what's the environment you're dealing with then make the LGBTI inclusion topic part of your strategic agenda I think very important to get it to the company's topic edit to the company's top then understand the company's policies and and benefits something that is very important for the real life of LGBTI people then consider offering opportunities for people to self-identify again not everyone wants to self-identify however you have to give possibilities for people to identify also in the HR systems then of course an obvious one ensure inclusive people practice practices something that is very important and then again coming back to Sunday's point influence your company's executives to become engaged that's something we take very seriously as a board of Deutsche Bank and we have had a number of initiatives on that so let me come back to two because I would like to leave you with a few numbers you said I'm a banker so I have to give you a few numbers and that's that's the business case and there was some research that was done and that I think gave very interesting numbers so 72% of the respondents of a survey that was done I think among 30,000 people or so are more likely to accept a job at a company that is supportive of LGBTI employees 87% of millennials believe that the success of a business should be measured in terms of more than just its financial performance but also its inclusion practices 82% of the respondents are more likely to purchase from companies that support LGBTI equality and what the research also told us is that LGBTI inclusive organizations are more innovative concretely they are more likely to have innovative products 75% more likely 45% more likely to improve market share and 70% more likely to succeed in new markets so inclusion really really matters now the second point that I find particularly important and I've in many discussions with some of our LGBTI employees that's something that has very often been raised to me is the the third topic that I mentioned before is allies are important we know that LGBTI people are much much more likely to be bullied at school in their business lives sometimes even in their private lives but they are much more often treated unfairly all that in some countries they even have their lives at risk so I think having to hide their identity and orientation we know that that very negatively impacts people's well-being their performance their relationships I've had someone in our bank who's actually a young man who always has the picture of his of his sister on the desk because he doesn't want to be seen as gay so what I think our responsibility as as leaders is is that we create an environment where people know and they can have the trust that they're safe and that they can be what they are and I think that's our responsibility to create this room of psychological and unfortunately in some countries even physical safety and I guess that's what I would like to leave you with I very strongly believe that these topics are important and if we can contribute to that I think we have done something very good thank you very much Carl and I think you also both agreed with Michelle that we're not there yet as the title suggests we have some time for Q&A if I can see a show of hands if you still need some time to gather your thoughts we received by email a question earlier from a from a fellow journalist to basically the whole panel it's from Hugo Greenhalt he is working and writing for openly that's the LGBT LGBTI platform of the Thompson Reuters Foundation and his question is with an increasing number of reports on abuses how can media ensure reporting accurately about LGBTI now obviously none of you are journalists but I think the culture aspects that you mentioned before speak very much to that as well and maybe you can share your thoughts on Hugo's question who wants to take a who wants to take a stand well I think to some degree you could almost put the question to the audience because I think we have a number of journalists there but I think as always I find well if the media managed to stay as fact-based as possible and neither tried to scandalize the one side or the other then I think we well we can look at the facts of the issues and then I think it's very important and I think we've all said that before that what senior company leaders that senior state leaders that senior societal important people step in and make statements I think also what is important for people and for companies but also for people and I guess I hope so for governments is to understand that this is an issue of numbers is a people with stories with things that are happening to them so to show people stories it can be very helpful I mean to show it in different ways I mean in my country there was a huge discussion and a lot of groups of people were against you know to promote we were promoting a qualitative marriage and so on and but then there was this Chilean film that won the Oscar that is called and a fabulous woman and the the actress is a trans and and she is do it try to see the movies very good and and she shows I mean she is the actress but she's also trans and she acts like a trans and she shows what happens to trans women and how the brutality can be but on the other hand how she's a fantastic human being so I think we need to be very factual as you say but also we need to see what really happens to people that are real people there are people that can be our colleague our neighbor our brother our sister and that we need to think on how we give them the dignity and respect that is they reserve I know that the media had much more experience on this but I do believe always that to talk in abstract doesn't help we need to put faces to the situation of the people thank you yes we have a question there if you could wait for the microphone and say do you name an organization please yes my name is Steve Aaron's Bloomberg news I have a question to you when you say you know it's obviously an advantage if a bank or any other employer is it's it's a good thing for millennials I think I think you said 70 or 82 percent would prefer to work for company does this ever come up actually in a job interview I mean inclusion practices of a bank can you something absolutely I mean that's a that's a topic inclusion practices of course for people concerned is something that they're interested in but also for others I think we see among the candidates that we're interviewing we see much more interest in in in cultural aspects and that includes inclusion topics and that's we get very concrete questions on that maybe to add to that this comes up before the job interview because what do you do before you apply for a job you go look on the website and if you see on the website bunch of white guys with red ties and that's all you see you're not gonna apply so the policies and the statements of on equality and inclusion are I mean they're out there and I would suggest any company if you haven't put them out there because people will look for them and if they're not there people will not apply for your company and they won't even get to the 78 percent or what it was so I mean I think it's a real it's a real issue it's a and you need to be you need to be out there because the millennials are looking for that they're looking for your purpose and they're looking for your work environment and if your purposes make a lot of money for shareholders and your work environment is we like this type of people whatever the type of people is don't think they will apply thank you there's a question from the gentleman on the left there thank you yeah hi my name is Marco Ingman from German Newswire DPA FX just one clarification from Mr. von Rohr the study you mentioned is that the study or survey Deutsche Bank conducted okay and to everyone on the panel you all say you're not there yet to how how much are you there to which degree can you give us a is there ever the possibility of getting there do you have a measure what you can apply to the to the question well to give my fellow panelists some time to think I would start with the simple fact that the forum has about 1,000 partner member companies and we have represented in this partnership less than 10 so I think that's maybe a clear indication that there's there's definitely room for improvement but I'm sure my fellow panelists have much more to add on well when I said we're not yet that is because 226 companies are sort of signed for the standards but one thing is to sign for the standards and other is to implement it but what we also have seen is that you you sometimes you know them headquarters of the of the companies do implement very well but if you go to the local to local level is not implemented and we had the experience when we when the standards were launched in 16 different places in the world in in in one place in Africa none of the companies came to the launch because because in that country it was it's a very controversial issue is against the law and of course and we understand understand them don't don't pretend to to I would say to to tell the companies they cannot evaluate the risk in different countries but on the same time we believe that companies not only had to go out on because of the millennials and so on but also because and one of the standards that what it says is I mean the standards mainly have five key point is no and show respect for human rights eliminate discrimination provide support and prevent other human rights violation and act in the public sphere so it's more to the companies go and act in the public sphere that's why you were mentioning they should be visible commitment and also because companies can be very important when in their engagement with governments to try or with parliament parliament to try to insist on stopping bills that discriminate people and trying to include laws that really include people all human beings so that's gonna want to add yeah maybe to put some thoughts in your mind what we are there would mean everybody wherever they are in whatever country they are whatever company they work for when they go to work in the morning they find an equal workplace now think about that we have seven billion people in the world let's say half of those people and maybe a bit more are the working population so that's four billion maybe five billion people we may be we may be with all these companies well the multinational companies let's say the top hundred companies in the world we have maybe now 50 million people working for us that's probably generous now then we have many good let's say a hundred million people wake up in the morning and go to work and they find the workplace with the cultural equality and even I would say in Accenture as Michelle alluded to we are not perfect we also have our challenges so we're in terms of are we there yet I think we're just scratching the surface and that's why we need to keep at it and that's why we are here and that's the intention of the project that we're launching today to do that thank you very much since we're a Swiss organization and mindful of the time if there's no further questions at this point let me just add one more thing maybe from from the forum's perspective we had a lot of emails from the community in last days that were asking us why a certain public figure speaking here that have been outright hostile to the community I think let this be a clear sign by the World Economic Forum that the allies that's under mentioned are here at the World Economic Forum and we're trying to support the community and I want to thank everybody here on the panel for showing their support everybody here in the room for being here and everybody for watching thank you very much