Do you have to be straight to get ahead in business? BP boss Lord Browne thought so – then he was outed by his first boyfriend. He talks about power, politics and homophobia When Lord Browne was in charge of BP, had anyone told him he would one day invite a journalist into his home to discuss his sexuality, he would have said they were insane. Homosexuality was the last thing he expected to talk about in public; after all, he never spoke of it even in private. The former CEO spent half a century in the closet, so terrified of letting his secret slip that he never…
Radio 1’s Scott Mills talks to Lord Browne about coming out in the corporate world – video
BBC Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills interviews former chief of BP, Lord Browne, about his new book The Glass Closet and the challenges facing the LGBT community in the business and corporate world….
The glass closet: why coming out is good business
Lord Browne of Madingley, Member of the House of Lords and former Chief Executive of BP
Chaired by Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge
Wednesday 8 October 2014, 7.00pm
Madingley Hall, Cambridge
Abstract
Today gay men and women in the Western world enjoy greater acceptance and legal protections than ever before. Yet an alarming number of businessmen and women choose to remain closeted at work. Lord Browne, the former chief executive of BP, will discuss his book The Glass Closet, in which he explores what holds them back. Drawing on his experiences as a closeted gay man in the oil industry, and the experiences of other prominent executives from around the world, he argues that coming out is best for employees and the companies that support them.
“Edmund John Philip Browne, Baron Browne of Madingley, FRS,FREng (born 20 February 1948) is an English businessman. He is best known for his role as the chief executive of the energy company BP between 1995 and 2007. This period has been described as the company’s “golden period of expansion and diversification”.Browne was much lauded during this period, as he engineered a merger with rival Amoco, and gained access to Russian oil reserves with the creation of TNK-BP. Hailed as the “Sun King”, he also received praise for increasing BP’s interest in renewable energy sources. He resigned from BP in controversial circumstances after he was found by a judge to have lied in court about the details of a personal relationship (though charges of perjury were never brought).” Continue reading on Wikipedia
Around the Internet
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The former Chief Executive of BP has opened up about his “double-life” in the closet while running the company, in a book discussing homophobia in business. Crossbench peer Lord John Browne resigned from BP in 2007, …
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Drawing on his own experiences, Lord Browne, the former chief executive of BP, is writing a new book entitled ‘The Glass Closet’ on the need to end homophobic discrimination in the work place and in corporate life.
UK Parliament – LGBT2020 Diversity Data | Gay Market News.
http://www.gaymarketnews.com/
Excerpts will also be included in a new book by Lord Browne – The Glass Closet, Why Coming Out is Good Business – to be published May 29, 2014. Further details of the LGBT2020 research can be obtained by contacting …
Lord Browne: ‘I’m much happier now than I’ve ever been …
http://www.ginnydougary.co.uk/
For the first time, Lord Browne talks about the day he was outed, losing his job and falling in love again Photo: Phil Fisk Lord Browne of Madingley rebukes me in the gentlest way when I make the mistake of asking a question the wrong way round. … In fact, Browne, as he later corrected himself in a witness statement, intensely lonely after the death of his mother and with little experience of finding a companion after decades in the closet, had contacted Chevalier …
Former BP CEO Lord Browne to write new book on homophobia in …
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/06/13/former-bp-ceo-lord-browne-to-write-new-book-on-homophobia-in-business/
Drawing on his own experiences, Lord Browne, the former chief executive of BP, is writing a new book entitled ‘The Glass Closet’ on the need to end homophobic …
