A group of general counsel who have joined forces to support greater ‘meaningful’ diversity have today launched an ‘innovative inclusion’ programme to champion the LGBTQ+ community.

The General Counsel for Diversity & Inclusion says the purpose of the OUT@work programme is to make the workplace more equitable and inclusive for the LGBTQ+ community and provide the community with tools for growth, development and visibility in the professional sphere.

Topics being discussed at a conference in central London today include the legal profession as an accelerator of LGBTQ+ inclusion internally and externally, being an authentic LGBTQ+ role model and the power of allyship.

The General Counsel for Diversity & Inclusion group, representing the in-house legal functions of several major corporations, was set up in 2019 to support greater ‘meaningful diversity and inclusion across the legal profession, whether in our own in-house practices, or in the law firms that we work with, wherever we may be located’.

The group's board comprises Donny Ching, legal director at Shell, Caroline Cox, chief legal, governance and external affairs officer at BHP, Richard Price, group GC at Anglo American, Tom Shropshire, GC at Diageo plc, Nassib Abou-Khalil, a former chief legal officer at Nokia, Maaike de Bie, group GC at Vodafone, and Matthew Lepore, group GC at BASF.