Out Leadership and Out for Undergrad (O4U) announced a new strategic partnership intended to build and enhance the LGBT+ talent pipeline, bridging the experiences of undergraduate students and recent grads with the participants in OutNEXT, the talent accelerator for the next generation of LGBT+ leaders.
The partnership was first announced at the O4U Business Conference hosted by Goldman Sachs. It will include the development of a new leadership curriculum facilitating mentorship across the cohort, creation of new research into LGBT+ students and professionals’ career expectations and experiences, and seek to support the pathways by which high-performing LGBT+ students enter the professional ranks.
“We are celebrating the start of this dynamic and strategic collaboration to catalyze the next wave of development in the LGBTQ+ talent pipeline,” said Cindi Love, Executive Director of Out for Undergrad. “We think our partnership is the perfect marriage, connecting our tenured work with high-performing LGBTQ+ undergraduates with Out Leadership’s well-regarded global business network and OutNEXT, its community of high-performing LGBTQ+ professionals. We both help organizations realize the economic growth and talent dividend derived from effective inclusive hiring and retention. The strategies of yesterday cannot be the strategies of tomorrow. We believe that the outputs of LBGTQ+ talent supply chains drive competitive advantage; they are not a cost of doing business. Organizations have to connect their talent strategies to their business strategy to improve competitiveness. We help them do that best and now we will take it to the next level.”
“We at Out Leadership could not be more excited to see this long-envisioned partnership come to fruition,” said Todd Sears, Founder & Principal, Out Leadership. “There couldn’t be a more natural fit – each of our organizations has a shared mission to help organizations find Return on Equality®, in so doing empowering LGBT+ talent to reach their highest potential. We share 22 member companies, and hundreds of O4U graduates have gone on to become OutNEXTers. By building the world’s first LGBT+ talent pipeline, we have the opportunity to reimagine the way young LGBT+ leaders take the vital first steps of their careers.”