Sam Altman is the co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, the company that gave the world ChatGPIT. (Getty Images)
From technology to activism, these leading LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs have broken barriers in their careers so that tomorrow’s LGBTQ founders can pick up where they left off.
While the movement toward greater inclusivity and diversity in the business world is gaining momentum, a report from Proud Ventures highlights that in the start-up ecosystem, LGBTQ+ founders still face many barriers Is. The ‘LGBTQ+ Founder Report’ found that 75 percent of LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs and founders hid their identity from investors at some point during the funding process.
To affirm the value and innovation that LGBTQ+ people bring to the business world, we’ve created a list of the 9 most influential LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs and CEOs.
Sam Altman – CEO of OpenAI
Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Sam Altman is the co-founder and chief executive of OpenAI, the company best known for bringing ChatGPT and allowing the world access to generative AI. Before his venture into AI, Altman was the president of Y Combinator, a renowned startup accelerator. His entrepreneurial journey began at the age of 19 as co-founder of Loopt, a location-based social networking app.
Altman has been in the headlines recently – after being fired from OpenAI, then joining Microsoft, then returning as head of OpenAI just days later following the company’s revolt. Even more exciting news is that Altman recently married her partner Oliver Mulherin in a beach ceremony. No word if either of them used ChatGPT to write their vows.
Tim Cook – CEO of Apple Inc.
After the death of Steve Jobs in 2011, Tim Cook took over the reins of Apple Inc. Took over the post of CEO. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The Apple boss is one of the world’s most prominent LGBTQ+ business leaders. Tim Cook took the reins of Apple in 2011, just months before Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer.
Cook came out publicly as gay in 2014 and has since been a vocal supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. Under his leadership, Apple continues to be a leader in innovation and became the first US company to reach a market value of $1 trillion.
Martine Rothblatt – Founder of United Therapeutics and Sirius XM
Martine Rothblatt founded both Sirius Radio and the biotech firm United Therapeutics. (Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images)
Martine Rothblatt is a futurist, entrepreneur, lawyer and author. He founded companies such as Sirius XM Radio and biotech firm United Therapeutics. Rothblatt came out as transgender in 1994 and has been a supporter of trans rights since then. While money isn’t everything, Rothblatt was the highest-paid CEO in the biopharmaceutical industry in 2017.
Leanne Pittsford – Founder and CEO of Lesbians Who Tech
Leanne Pittsford is the leader of Lesbians Who Tech, a community focused on lesbian and non-binary visibility in the tech sector. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)
Leanne Pittsford founded Lesbians Who Tech in 2012, after noticing the gap between lesbian women and non-binary people in tech. Lesbians Who Tech is a community-based group committed to visibility, intersectionality, and changing the face of technology. The community has grown to over 70,000 LBTQ+ women and allies from 100 different countries and offers coding scholarships and mentorship programs.
Peter Arvai – Co-founder of Prezi
Peter Arvai co-founded Prezi in 2009 to compete with Microsoft PowerPoint. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
Swedish entrepreneur Peter Arvai founded the cloud-based presentation platform Prezi in 2009 with Peter Halassi and Adam Somlai-Fischer. Arvai was the company’s CEO until he stepped down in 2020, but still serves as its executive chairman. He came out publicly in a Forbes feature in 2015 and has since been a supporter of LGBTQ+ visibility in STEM.
Alicia Garza – Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter
Alicia Garza co-founded Black Lives Matter and is also a community activist. (Paras Griffin/Getty Images)
Alicia Garza helped create the Black Lives Matter movement following the acquittal of the man who murdered American teenager Trayvon Martin in 2013. Since then, the movement has grown into a global organization in the UK, USA and Canada. A decade later and the BLM movement has helped pave the way for today’s modern feminism movement.
In addition to being an activist, Garza is an author, public speaker, and principal of the Black Futures Lab – a California-based think tank focused on engaging black communities in politics.
Joel Simkhai – Co-founder and former CEO of Grindr
Joel Simkhai has a new gay-focused dating app called Moto. (Patrick McMullan/Getty Images)
Along with Scott Lewellen, Joel Simkhai founded Grindr in 2009. The app now has over 11 million monthly active users and is the most popular gay dating platform in the world. Simkhai left Grindr in 2018 after the company was sold.
He has since launched a new gay dating app called Moto, which aims to stop some of the toxicity and discrimination associated with his original creation. Simkhai told NBC News in an interview in 2022 that his new venture was a chance to ‘right-correct’ the harms of the app-based hookup culture that he had a hand in creating.
Jenna Lyons – Co-Founder and CEO of Lovescene
Jenna Lyons J. Was the former creative director of Crew and now runs Lovescene. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
Jenna Lyons is a famous fashion designer and J. Is the former director of Crew. In 2017, J. After leaving Crew, Lyons created Lovescene, a false eye-lash brand that focuses its products on inclusivity for all.
Lyons didn’t start her career as an LGBTQ+ entrepreneur, she was outed in 2011 after being stigmatized. New York Post Published an article reporting that he was seeing a woman a few weeks after filing for divorce. Lyons said cut In 2021: “I don’t feel like it’s my job to explain to anyone else what’s going on with me sexually or romantically.”
Suki Sandhu, OBE – Co-Founder and CEO of Audalice and Involve
Suki Sandhu was awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to diversity in business. (Audalice)
Suki Sandhu is the Founder and CEO of Audalice, an executive search firm dedicated to placing LGBTQ+, ethnic minorities and women into executive and non-executive roles. In 2018, Sandhu founded INvolve, an LGBTQ+ membership organization that publishes an annual Role Model List recognizing prominent LGBT+ and ally executives and LGBT+ future leaders. He is also the ambassador of Stonewall.
Source: www.thepinknews.com
