Fiftyfaces Focus 2024 Pride Special Aoifinn Devitt

Fabrice Houdart is Executive Director of the Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors as well as an Advisor to Fortune 50 companies and a former staffer at the World Bank and UN.  He is an adjunct professor at Columbia University and Georgetown University, where he lectures on LGBT inclusion within international development. He is a consultant to the Asian Development Bank and a Board Member of the Canadian Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors, as well as numerous other board roles.  We start with Fabrice’s upbringing in France and the somewhat accidental route he had into international development.  The nature of this work, including a role with the World Bank and the time at which he was engaged in it led him to not be “out” at work initially.  His travel with the World Bank took him to a series of countries where that would not have been welcome – or even legal.  Later in his career he became an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and has led affinity groups and also this aspect of human rights action around the world. We discuss what the “cost” of homophobia is – what economic growth a country forgoes by failing to include this segment of the population and failing to attract tourists from the LGBTQ+ community. We speak then about role models and their importance, and how, once Fabrice was comfortably out at work, he realized the strain that his “fear” of revealing his authentic self had placed him under.  He recommends that we replace fear with faith, in the humanity of our work colleagues and in the right for every LGBTQ+ person to be included where they work.  Our fourth Pride series is supported by JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase has long been a supporter of equality in all forms, including for the LGBTQ+ community. Starting with the very first PRIDE business resource group in 1996, they recently strengthened their commitment by creating the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs and a full-time, dedicated team to deliver on a global LGBTQ+ agenda. The Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs partners closely with stakeholders across the firm to promote intersectionality and leverage its combined resources to deliver equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees, clients, partners and communities, worldwide.

Lindsey Young, is the founder of Quiet Wealth LLC, which she started to provide a comprehensive set of financial advisory services that successful LGBTQ+ professionals and their families need.  She previously spent 15 years in Silicon Valley finance, primarily as a investment banker working on M&A, IPOs, leveraged finance and other transactions for technology companies. She also advises a series of non-profits, and is Board President of FreeState Justice, the leading statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization in Maryland. Lindsey transitioned somewhat later in life and we talk about how she chose her timing.  It coincided with her starting her own financial planning business and she decided that it would be more sensible to time her transition for before striking out on her own.  We move then to discuss the experience of inclusion she saw – pre-transition – in the high performing world of tech and finance, and the pace she is now aiming for in her own financial advisory firm.Our fourth Pride series is supported by JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase has long been a supporter of equality in all forms, including for the LGBTQ+ community. Starting with the very first PRIDE business resource group in 1996, they recently strengthened their commitment by creating the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs and a full-time, dedicated team to deliver on a global LGBTQ+ agenda. The Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs partners closely with stakeholders across the firm to promote intersectionality and leverage its combined resources to deliver equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees, clients, partners and communities, worldwide.

Mark Segal is a social activist and author, who participated in the Stonewall riots and as one of the original founders of the Gay Liberation Front where he created the Gay Youth Program.  He was the founder and former president of the National Gay Newspaper Guild, and has won various journalistic awards.  He is a lifelong activist who organized the first Gay Pride parade in 1970 and remains an active advocate today.  This rollicking story of a life in activism is one you won’t want to miss, from his introduction to activism by his Suffragette Grandmother at the age of 13, to his awakening in NYC of the 1970s. Mark’s journey as an activist was bold and brave – he garnered national attention for the gay rights movement by some unorthodox methods – such as interrupting a live TV news broadcast. It is thanks to him that many of the rights taken for granted today received attention and he is reflective when we discuss how far we have come – but equally what still remains to be done.  Our fourth Pride series is supported by JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase has long been a supporter of equality in all forms, including for the LGBTQ+ community. Starting with the very first PRIDE business resource group in 1996, they recently strengthened their commitment by creating the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs and a full-time, dedicated team to deliver on a global LGBTQ+ agenda. The Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs partners closely with stakeholders across the firm to promote intersectionality and leverage its combined resources to deliver equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees, clients, partners and communities, worldwide. 

Marci Bair, CFP® has spent over 30 years working with women in leadership, LGBTQ+ couples and progressive business owners to align their investment portfolios with their values and provide fee based financial and retirement planning. Based in San Diego, she was previously Chairperson of the South Bay Alliance and a Board Member of the Greater San Diego Business Association.  Our conversation traces Marci’s early career, her attitude that enables her to “bloom where she is planted” and her early authenticity.  We discuss her interests in sports and the coaching that brought two sons to collegiate level athletes. We move then to discuss her financial planning practice and the inclusive culture that she creates.  We also discuss what it means to invest in accordance with values and discuss how values and implementing them are evolving as concepts in the financial planning industry.You can read more about Bair Financial Planning on their website www.BairFinancialPlanning.com  Our fourth Pride series is supported by JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase has long been a supporter of equality in all forms, including for the LGBTQ+ community. Starting with the very first PRIDE business resource group in 1996, they recently strengthened their commitment by creating the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs and a full-time, dedicated team to deliver on a global LGBTQ+ agenda. The Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs partners closely with stakeholders across the firm to promote intersectionality and leverage its combined resources to deliver equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees, clients, partners and communities, worldwide..

David and John Auten-Schneider are a married couple who have branded themselves the Debt Free Guys, and host a popular podcast and website full of tools to help listeners and clients to “live fabulously, not fabulously broke”. They have a proprietary Wealth Builder’s Pyramid tool that they use as a multi-pronged approach to financial freedom, a solid credit score and debt-free living.  Their mission is to help their clients particularly, but not exclusively, members of the LGBTQ+ community to live happy, healthy and wealthy.Our conversation takes a quick tour through the background of each of David and John, which was quite divergent in its inclusiveness and tolerance of LGBTQ+ lifestyle, and we hear about David’s strict relious upbringing in which coming out was not at all easy. We hear how they met, and the epiphany around sustainable spending that led them to pay down their combined $50,000 in debt and commit to doing the same for other members of their community.We dig in a little to the root cause of some lack of financial stability among some of their peers and some of it derives from ostantious spending in order to win acceptance and approval. Providing a non-judgemental environment that is inclusive and provides practical supports allowed them to develop an important niche within the landscape of financial planning.  You can learn more about The Debt Free Guys here: https://debtfreeguys.comOur fourth Pride series is supported by JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase has long been a supporter of equality in all forms, including for the LGBTQ+ community. Starting with the very first PRIDE business resource group in 1996, they recently strengthened their commitment by creating the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs and a full-time, dedicated team to deliver on a global LGBTQ+ agenda. The Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs partners closely with stakeholders across the firm to promote intersectionality and leverage its combined resources to deliver equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees, clients, partners and communities, worldwide.

Dani D’Amico is a partner at McKinsey in their financial services practice. She has previously worked at Oliver Wyman in New York, where she was also a partner, and started her career in various consulting roles.Our conversation starts with Dani’s early years in Italy and how she devised various distractions to outrun her authentic self – while she always felt she was a female trapped in a male body, she couldn’t at that time conceive how she could live authentically. As a marathon runner, she uses the analogy of trying to outrun the reality that was catching up with her, until she could outrun it no more.Dani made the decision to transition after she already had had notable achievements in her career, and she is quick to note the position of privilege that that gave her.  She notes that not all transgender people are so lucky to have the financial resources, access to medical care and career capital at the stage that they choose to transition, and this disparity reveals the inequity in play across the LGBTQ+ community that often gets overlooked. Dani draws upon her risk management background to explain how she planned out her transition – including scenario analysis and decision trees. Once again we are told of how leadership and peer support was exceptional and surprised on the upside – a recurring theme throughout this series, when it comes to coming out at work.Our fourth Pride series is supported by JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase has long been a supporter of equality in all forms, including for the LGBTQ+ community. Starting with the very first PRIDE business resource group in 1996, they recently strengthened their commitment by creating the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs and a full-time, dedicated team to deliver on a global LGBTQ+ agenda. The Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs partners closely with stakeholders across the firm to promote intersectionality and leverage its combined resources to deliver equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees, clients, partners and communities, worldwide.