15 Jul LGBT @Work

Author: Ali Birouti

You may have noticed, over the past week, the streets of Madrid having a little more color. That’s because last week was Madrid pride week; a week celebrating LGBTIQ equality and rights and living our lives differently, happily, and freely.

As part of Pride Week, the IEOut & Allies Club hosted the annual LGBT @Work conference on July 5th to promote the free exchange of ideas and provide a unique networking platform for LGBT+ students, professionals, and allies. The conference is the longest running LGBT+ work conference in europe, and the 3rd largest business school LGBT+ conference in the world. With speakers and sponsors from Google, Salesforce, the United Nations, and many other major organizations, the event brought inspiration, motivation, and fun to attendees.

One speaker highlighted how technology has helped break down barriers in our communities and enabled people to support one another in overcoming challenges in life that are as emotionally charged as coming out to family and friends. Pedro Pina, who is the VP of Global Client & Agency Solutions at Google, showed a Youtube video compilation of just that. He highlighted that views and shares of coming out videos have tripled since 2016, signalling a positive shift in our world in acceptance, as well as the ability for people to show their love and support to the people in the video.

Along with Pedro Pina, eight other speakers gave the audience hope, laughs, and positivity of a bright future ahead of us, including IE University’s president, Santiago Iniguez. You can see the full list of speakers here.

Finally, the event would not be successful without the amazing work from the IEOut & Allies Club coordinators. Having worked on the event for over six months, they were able to draw in amazing sponsors! The conference brimmed with over 150 attendees, notably with more than 50% identifying as allies, demonstrating the amazing outreach and support the IEOut & Allies club.

Congratulations IEOut & Allies club for another successful year of LGBT @Work!