 Hello, my name is Sarah Kate Ellis. I am the president and CEO of GLAAD, which is one of the world's leading LGBTQI advocacy organizations. I am pleased to be your moderator today. A warm welcome to all those tuning in globally from around the world. What a wonderful day it is to have you here to talk about LGBTQI people in our community. I am beyond thrilled to share the stage with this esteemed panel who you will meet very shortly. As we sit and discuss LGBTQI issues in the forums job reset summit. So now we're gonna put up our engagement protocol. Most importantly to know that this is a 30 minute session. It's going to be live streamed. And then we will leave the live stream and go into a breakout meeting for forum members. Please, the most important thing on this list is to please make sure that you mute yourself. So that's great. Let's get started. This session will tackle how the LGBTQI community are disproportionately affected health-wise and economically by COVID-19. We wanna consider through this great reset how business leaders, civic society and government are going to be able to help the LGBTQI community reset. Now, we have these wonderful and insightful panelists. First, we have Alfonso Davis, the president of the Human Rights Campaign. We have Shannon Klinger, the chief legal officer of Novartis and Randall Tucker. Chief inclusion officer of MasterCard. So let's get started. Alfonso, we're gonna start with you. Is there an issue? Has the LGBTQI community been disproportionately affected by COVID-19? Is there a specific impact on our community? Can you talk a little bit about that and help us level set and set the stage for this discussion? Yes, indeed. Hello, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where you are. It is my pleasure to be here today. To answer your question, yes, COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on LGBTQ people, both in the United States and globally. At the onset of the pandemic, not too long ago, earlier this year, the Human Rights Campaign released a brief for policymakers in the media on the elevated risks facing LGBTQ people during the pandemic. We identified clear economic and health vulnerabilities that LGBTQ people face. For example, LGBTQ people are more likely to work in industries impacted by the pandemic, restaurants, hospitals, education, retail, and to be a little bit more specific, 40% or more of the LGBTQ population in the United States work in those industries. In addition, we determined that LGBTQ people and their families are more likely than the general population to live in poverty. What does that mean? One out of five LGBTQ people live in poverty and COVID-19 exacerbated this economic challenge. Also, LGBTQ people disproportionately lack access to adequate medical care, paid leave, and basic necessities. One out of five LGBTQ people have not seen a doctor in the United States because they could not afford one. And the community is also disproportionately suffering from chronic illnesses. So building on that research, the Human Rights Campaign partnered with PSB Insights to track the economic impact of COVID-19 and the LGBTQ community moving forward. And we use polling data from thousands of adults in the United States. And we've released monthly reports that really show that we're losing our jobs at a greater rate than our non-LGBTQ peers. Our work hours are being reduced more frequently. Our compensation is going down. And those who live at the intersection of multiply marginalized identities are even more impacted. So I'll just give you one last statistic. The Human Rights Campaign data analysis shows that a shocking 58%, you heard me, 58%, of transgender people of color have reported losing work hours. And 26% of transgender people of color have reported becoming unemployed during the pandemic. Now, while this data reflects the impact of COVID-19 on the LGBTQ community in the United States, I must note that this is a very limited body of work globally about the experience that COVID-19 is having on LGBTQ people. We have to compile more data and unfortunately advocacy organizations rather than government in most cases are in the driver's seat of really compiling this data for the community. That's fantastic. I mean, the information is fantastic. It's staggering the effect though. Thank you for doing that and for sharing that. I wanna turn, we're gonna come back to actually, how do we collect this information toward the end? Because I wanna have a conversation about that. Shannon, I wanna turn to you because Alfonso did mention there's global ramifications here, right? And Novartis is a multinational company. There are nearly 70 countries where LGBTQI people are still criminalized and countries and regions where cultural acceptance is very low. The private sector plays a huge role in protecting LGBTQI companies sort of taking the space of government, if you will, in these places. How can the private sector continue to support LGBTQI people in these places? And what challenges will you face as you approach, as you build back better? Yeah, so Sarah, thank you for the question and I too, just amazed by the statistics that Alfonso shared with us. You know, for Novartis, we operate in 26 of those countries where it's still criminal to be part of the LGBTQI community and that covers 7,600 of our associates. And so this is a question that we grapple with consistently and it is made more relevant because of what we've seen in the pandemic, the isolation and community that already felt isolated but even further isolated now is as people have been working from home. Because the first thing we've tried to do in those countries in particular where it's not accepted or even illegal to be part of this community is to become an embassy company. That is within the four walls of the Novartis campus and the countries in which we operate, we want everybody to be able to come and be their best and true selves and to promote LGBTQI equity internally in a way that people feel safe. In the pandemic, that's translated internally to things like continuing our work to have gender-neutral policies and policies that make very clear that they don't discriminate on the basis of gender or sexual orientation. We announced last year parental leave, 14 weeks of parental leave for both parents at the birth of a child and we're adapting that in all of the countries to allow parents however that term is defined to take advantage of our leave policies. We've created discussion groups to really reach out to the LGBTQI community internally through our employer resource groups as well as appointed senior sponsors to lean in even more heavily. But as much as we can do internally, that doesn't change the reality that people face when they step foot outside of the campus of Novartis. And so while complicated and while progress is slow going, partnering with NGOs, with governments, riding a new appreciation for human rights and equity around the world broadly defined, we're working to shape those ecosystems where we operate slowly but surely to create an environment we hope in the future where we're not answering this question but we're talking more broadly about what have we done to accomplish even more equity going forward. That's fantastic. Randall, I'd like to turn to you. So given these disparities and given embassy corporations, which I love that term, I think that's really notable, given the disparities of the LGBTQI community is facing economically during COVID-19, how can private sector play a role in building back specific to our community? How do you take into account the disparities that Alfonso laid out in building back your workforce and building back your company and thinking of new ways to do business? So thanks for that. And I'm really happy to be part of such an esteemed panel. Alfonso mentioned that the weight is heavier for those that are in the margins. And the LGBT plus community is a part of that community. And it's just not that community. It's part of my community as well. And what we're looking at many organizations in the absence of society and the chaos that's going on, a lot of people are looking to organizations to show up as that moral compass. And MasterCard, we're one of those organizations that we believe in creating a world beyond cash, but also doing well by doing good, which is our decency quotient. And part of being decent is creating a level playing field for people to work for our organization to be our suppliers as well as to buy our products and services. And so in the combination of all of those things, very similar to what's been said before over at Novartis, we believe that we can do more and that we can do better. At the end of the day, we're trying to make sure that we are the employer of choice, the brand of choice, as well as the community of partner of choice. And quite honestly, part of that is our 100% score on the CEI, so the HRC survey and making sure that we have that corporate index that kind of shows across the board that our commitment to inclusion and diversity isn't just a one siloed event, but it's across the way that we operate as an organization. The piece that I want to bring up outside of the parental leave is that we're really excited about the launch of a true name, which was an opportunity for us to lean in many different areas of the organization from senior leadership to our business resource groups and understanding and meeting the need of our customer by allowing them to put their chosen name on their card. So I know that's really hard for them to figure out a lot of the paperwork that they have to go through and what we saw was a business need because we want to see them as a viable customer of ours as well as we believe in doing the right thing. So that is, there's many different components. It's not just one thing, but in totality, it shows that our organization is trying to move forward in the right way. That's fantastic. And just to follow up on that, is that, was that what you launched with Citi? Did you partner with Citi on that? So Citi is our second. You brought it up. So can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, yeah. So Citi is our second institution that we are partnering with and we're really excited. So it's fun that, you know, from our place of doing well by doing good, creating a product that makes sense to a certain community within the LGBTQ plus, which probably more transgender and non-binary community. And then having institutions putting that product out and saying, institutions, do you want to join us in our effort to make our lives easier for folks? And Citi has been a partner in which we're really excited about and give kudos to that team for picking up the banner and the baton. That's fantastic. Congratulations. So I want to go to Shannon again and Randall. And then I want to come back to you, Alfonso, to sort of tie this in a bow. Alfonso brought this up earlier. How have you gone about measuring LGBTQ inclusion in your own workplaces around the world? And we'll balloon that into a larger discussion around being counted as the LGBTQI community. But I'd like to start with that narrow view on it if you could. Randall, you want to start? You want me to start? I just spoke a lot. I want you to start. I yield the floor to you for a second. I appreciate that. So, you know, sir, Kate, this is I think one of those topics where it always has a beginning and I'm not sure that it has an end in terms of how do we measure inclusion because there's so many different perspectives from which one can look at that. For us, we start, of course, with employee engagement and cutting the employee engagement surveys that we do every quarter across a wide range of demographics to see what we can know. But that only works if you understand the demographics that are present within your employee engagement survey. We spent a lot of time asking other companies, actually, how have you tackled the problem of self-identification to augment employee resource groups, to augment allies and advocates internally, to really help drive and build a community where people feel safe, physically and psychologically, to come in, come out and be part of what we're doing. And talking a lot with IBM, in fact, and how they ran a self-identification program around the world, that's where we're going to lean in in the second half of this year. Really trying to create a space where people broadly defined in the diversity spectrum, but certainly the LGBTQI community can come in and be counted. Because once we can count more concretely, we can do even more targeted listening and understand a little bit more what our data and our metrics are. But one of the simplest things that we're still doing in the absence of that self-identification being completed is just listening. During the pandemic, one of the unexpected gifts for me and for many of our senior leaders has been to zoom in to countries to have conversations with our LGBTQI ERGs, to ask them, how are you doing and how can we help? I think the isolation and loneliness that we all feel has been amplified in this community, particularly in countries where it's very difficult to be out other than when you're at work. And it's amazing the stories we've heard. It's caused us to bring those stories together and start retelling them inside Novartis to have a mother who's watched the journey of her son coming into his own as a transgender youth and listening to his courage and knowing how much more courage we all need to have that if a 12-year-old can sort that out and can stand up for what he lives in, how can we all do that also internally? We also had Gareth Thomas, who many know as a famous former rugby player who came and spoke at our Pride event where we had more than 3,000 associates all turning in virtually, interacting in our chats, highly engaged to hear him talk about the fact that coming out was not a burden, but as he put it so eloquently, when I came out, just think of how much faster I could run and how much higher I could jump without the burden of hiding on my shoulders. And I think that if I had one sentence or one theme for what COVID and the engagement at Novartis has been over the last six to seven months, that's it for me. And I think that's inspirational for all of us. That's amazing. Randall, do you wanna add to that? Yeah, what's in my head is that there are a number of opportunities where there would be women or the black community or even this community, the LGBTQ plus community is that we kind of take a step back and say the world was not created with that perspective involved. And so what we try to do at MasterCard is think about and how do we become, again, that employer of choice, that brand of choice and community partner of choice. And we kind of look at it in a few different ways from an employer side. That could be, do we have a business case for why someone from the community would actually want to work for our company? To when we're in talent review, are we talking about, do we have the LGBT talent that we need at all levels of the company? And is that next class of leaders, do they include this group? As well as from retention effort that has already been set from our engagement perspective. But we see it broader than just the people HR because it's, I think that when we look at an inclusive strategy, you also have to look at the branding as well as the philanthropic effort. So from a branding perspective, understanding what is your current market share for the community? What are the products that are needed just like true name that we put out there? Is there anything else that we're leaving on the table that we're not doing? And then from a philanthropic area, looking at, here are all the communities in which we operate and does LGBT show up within that? Are the organizations that we're partnering with LGBT friendly? And do they have a specific focus on helping that community advance just like everyone else? So it's the only thing I'll add to that, there's not just one component, but there are many things you have to think about because the LGBT person was not considered in many of the systems that currently exist. So we're trying to make sure that we're embedding it. That is a great segue for Alfonso to bring this one home, which is, throughout this pandemic, we have seen that data quantifying LGBTQ people who are infected just doesn't exist and is actually not prioritized. This is very common for our community. I always like to say, if you are not counted, you do not count. This has some pretty big implications globally. Alfonso, what can be done to push governments around the world who do better at counting up? The very big question, you're right. It is. I think I'll start with business. And both of my colleagues reference this, Human Rights Campaign has an assessment tool called the Corporate Equality Index. And we have more than 1,000 businesses to participate in that index. Why is that important? It's important because it creates inclusive workspaces, which then, by default, allows LGBTQ people to feel more comfortable coming out at work because they feel that they have an environment that would be supportive. And if we have businesses, which are incredibly important in terms of advancing public policy, supporting inclusive workspaces, participating in the Corporate Equality Index, we could potentially also inform our government functions. We need government to collect more data on LGBTQ people, to help create smart solutions for the obstacles that are faced by our community. So I'll talk about it both nationally, here in the United States and also globally. We need government to collect data, to understand the health disparities, especially on how this COVID-19 is affecting the LGBTQ community. The Human Rights Campaign, along with a few other public health advocates, sent a letter to the Trump administration asking them to provide us with data they have failed to do so. We also need data to track the fatal violence that we're seeing against members of the transgender community so that we can try to craft meaningful government solutions to that problem. With respect to the global issues, we also need to make sure that we have inclusive data collecting tools. I know that in the UK, they're starting to collect sexual orientation and gender identity data in their census, but we also need health and economic data to really support international development, philanthropic efforts. We need that data to really inform how we develop policies and how those policies directly affect LGBTQ people. So to make this more granular, I know in many countries there, they have the equivalent of what a census taking tool is. You need to know how many people are living in a specific jurisdiction. You need to know how many people are living in your country. Why? Because then you allocate resources based on where people are, but it also informs whether or not the specific populations have adequate representation in government. If we can advocate not only through business, but through advocacy organizations to have government really be inclusive in how they track us, because they're tracking all of us. Government is tracking us, but they're not tracking LGBTQ people. They're not tracking how illnesses, how certain disproportionate negative events impact LGBTQ people, and that's what we need. We need to make sure that we have the data that informs the policy, because the policy then directly affects our lives. I was gonna add something to that from the corporate perspective is, we have the systems in place. We've done the legal work of trying to figure out, what can we track, and what can we track around the world? But our employees in many different organizations that I've worked in, not just MasterCard, our employees are afraid. They're afraid to actually count themselves. And that's why it's so important to have leaders at the top that are of the community to voice themselves that they are part of the community. So it gives a signal to everyone else in the organization, it's okay to be who you are. And I think that's why it's so important that the work that we do at HRC, and Novartis, and at MasterCard, it's so critically important, especially at the top of the house, for their buy-in, is because lives are at stake. And as many opportunities that we have to count folks, the more resources and tools that we can give them in order to have a better life. And on that point, I speak with a lot of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies all the time. And one of their biggest challenges and their biggest question is how do I ask people to identify in countries where it is against the law, where they are endangered for their lives? And I'd love to turn to you, Shannon. I've made you the global guru. So I'll turn to you on that because I know it's a real issue on Novartis. I'm gonna talk to Bob's about it and tell me, how are you handling that? How do you approach that? Yeah, I would say with care and with consultation. What do I mean by that? With care, because it's one thing to build the relationship and I fully agree with Randall that it has to come from senior leaders who are part of the community, who are out and who make it psychologically safe for people to say, I see someone who's like me and I'm gonna take a step further into my own transparency. And it's another thing for them to believe that their government will respect any privacy rights that a company may have and collecting its own data. And so we do balance very carefully and talk to the community that's directly impacted about how they feel about collecting data and about self-identification. And we're considering other categories that are a little more nuanced that allow people to step into diversity without necessarily having to step into the particular slice that they would claim if they had complete freedom of choice and freedom of speech. So carefully, and that I think this is a stepwise process cautiously because we are not naive to believe that anything we collect, we can fully keep to ourselves and we owe our associates a duty of care, but doing so with a commitment. And I think this is really important. For us, when we signed up to the UN Standards of Business Conduct to combat discrimination in the LGBTQI community, it was a moment for Novartis as the first pharmaceutical company to step in, not just externally, but internally to put a big sign up there that says, we are turning the page and this is becoming incredibly important to us. As you know, Sarah Kate, it hasn't been a long journey for us. Our journey is two and a half years old. We need to do more. We need to continue to move forward. But those sorts of commitments that your associates can see you're holding yourself accountable internally and externally can make a tremendous difference in starting to create that trust and allowing people to self-identify and come in to the community. Sarah, Sarah Kate, if you wouldn't mind, I just want to piggyback on what Shannon just said. I grew up in Liberia, West Africa and where it is unfortunately against the law to be LGBTQI recently went to Ghana, which is a very, very different. Well, they still have challenges in Ghana, of course, but it's a little more accepting in certain circles to be LGBTQ where people are LGBTQ. They certainly face harassment and discrimination, but they're not necessarily being thrown into prison and they're not in most cases subject to death. And how businesses are operating in Ghana versus Liberia is very real as you think about nuance and how do you create policies that are very inclusive of LGBTQ people where they feel comfortable to come out and they're not exposed when they walk outside of the building. At some point after COVID-19, we will go back to offices, I suspect, but right now while people are working at home, in some cases they're even more exposed. If they're communicating in their home with family members who may not know that they're LGBTQ and they're on the Zoom call and it's disclosed, that could compromise their livelihood and also compromises their ability to actually remain safe. That's fascinating. So I am asking everybody, please put questions in the chat room. We have a few more minutes here, just a couple of more minutes. I'm gonna start with the commercial for governments and corporate leaders that you can't do this alone. Call myself an Alfonso. We partner with both of the people that you're talking to right now, Shannon and Randall. We partner with corporates, we partner with governments. We are here to help you through this. You don't do this alone. With that, I'm going to ask for a lightning rod round here of what is one action that people can take that you would recommend one or two, but we're tight on time and we're gonna move into the private session in about two minutes. And we'll start with you, Randall. Okay, so I think that many different people around the globe are at different points in the journey. And so I'm kind of a country boy from Virginia and gay, so all of that. So if you're crawling at this, the advice that I would give you is if you don't know how to treat someone, ask them because they will always tell you how they want to be treated. If you are in a walking pace, I would tell you to do the audit work around understanding your HR, your branding and your philanthropic areas. And then if you're actually running, I would say that you should share your best practices with others. Beautiful, Shannon. I would say practice radical curiosity. And it builds on everything Randall just said, ask, listen and act and it will make a difference. Wonderful, and I'll find so. If you're a corporate head, please create an inclusive workspace. If you're an LGBTQ person, please look to see how you can get resources from the Human Rights Campaign from GLAAD, from other organizations to assist you. If you're anyone, please vote, vote for pro-quality candidates, because that is really important. We need government that actually will represent the interests of all of our communities. And that starts in many countries at the ballot box. So I would ask folks to really vote and exercise if they do have that constitutional right to vote, to vote. We have a small election going on here. Just a small one. I'd have heard about it. Thank you. This was fantastic.