Reflecting on OL’s Europe Summit

While each year has brought some amazing leaders together to create change, I have to say this Summit was by far both the busiest, and the most inspirational!  I’m so grateful to ALL the leaders and companies who have made our work in Europe possible for so many years—especially right now. For those of you who couldn’t attend, or didn’t watch the livestream of the entire Global Trans & Nonbinary Summit (almost 10 hours between London & New York!), here are some highlights:

We kicked off the week with the 2nd annual Out Leadership Trans & Nonbinary Leadership Summit—this year was literally Trans-Atlantic thanks to Deutsche Bank, and started in London and then ended in NYC—all on the same day! I’m pretty sure that’s a global first!

The Trans Summit built off the foundation we laid at last year’s inaugural Trans Summit (which was hosted by Hachette and sponsored by Amazon & Microsoft—thank you!). But my true gratitude goes to four amazing trans #outleaders Mila Jam, Devin Norelle, and Hannah & Jake Graf, who created the content themselves, and worked tirelessly for the past year (and last year!) to bring this vision to life.

Finally, a VERY special thanks to Jon Tili and Deutsche Bank for sponsoring and hosting this Summit in their gorgeous offices in London & New York. I hope you all take time to watch the replays of all of our amazing speakers who truly did such a beautiful job celebrating trans and nonbinary joy—on #TransDayOfVisibilty, no less! And don’t forget to download DJ Lina’s special playlist created just for the Summit!

You can check out the trailer below.

This project and campaign took us a full year to build in collaboration with our friends at GenderCool. When you visit the site at joinhearusout.com, you can watch all 19 mini-documentaries that we filmed and produced of some phenomenal #outleaders—from CEOs to students— all sharing their stories.

But a key part of the campaign is YOU, telling YOUR story in a 90 second video you take, whether you’re trans or a friend, and tagging it on social media. So many folks shared their stories last week, and if you haven’t yet shared your own “HearUsOut” story, I encourage you to do so on TikTok or Instagram using #HearUsOut – whether this week, next month, or every month! This is a FULL YEAR campaign to build as many stories as we can so the world can recognize that there are trans people they already know and love, and create more space for empathy and allyship!

The next morning, I had the privilege of attending the NEXUS LGBTQ+ Breakfast, where I was able to personally thank Dan Ricard for his decade-long leadership in creating a network that brings leaders together. I also had the special chance to reconnect with my friend Birgit Neu, whose son Kai has been my kiddo since he was 6 years old. I got to see him on this trip for the first time since Covid, and now he’s graduating high school 

That evening, we hosted an incredible Self-ID Dinner thanks to the support of Reed Smith. It was so fun to catch up with Tamara Box on the terrace overlooking all of London, and we are so grateful to Reed Smith for hosting these conversations for the last three years. I was especially proud that one of my mentees, Jack Guest, led the Self-ID session after I did the introduction. He totally killed it, and can’t wait to see all of the great things he does in the future.

We ended the day with an incredible sunset CEO & Senior Leader Dinner at DLA Piper‘s gorgeous brand-new London office, hosted by my good friend, and long-time supporter of Out Leadership, Jon Hayes, Global Co-Chair at DLA. And thanks to Sharon Lewis, from Hogan Lovells, I even got to meet the Dad of Sebastian Croft from Heartstopper, John Croft who joined us for dinner. Did you know that Sebastian started his own UK charity called the b kinder foundation?? It’s so cool, and I’m so proud of him. And I’m really excited for us to do more with them as another of our Father/ Son conversations…..stay tuned! 😉

We also got to hear a few rockstars share their journey, including Bruna Gil, who has been at LinkedIn for 10 years, and Howard Ou, my new Chief of Staff, who shared his story about his career in government and working for the Biden administration. I even got to speak to the audience to hear what they want to world to know about them, and my favorite moment was getting to chat with two youngsters, one of whom is the kiddo of our amazing photographer Karen, who has been shooting our Europe Summit for years.

From the moment you walked in, you were surrounded by history. And for this former English major (with a concentration in medieval literature and poetry!), it was just truly mind blowing. To get into the event space, our guests got to walk through the museum, complete with guides in full Elizabethan dress, sharing LGBTQ history!

Just like the other events, there’s too much to share in one email, but here are a few highlights:

First, I had the honor of recognizing 10 incredible leaders in London (business, nonprofit and activists) who have made a difference in the LGBTQ+ community across London, Europe, and the world. As with so many folks who do this work, it’s not often that they get thanked by other organizations, and receive the recognition they deserve—everyone’s too busy doing the work! So I was thrilled to call them all on stage, share the story of their work (and our OL/friendship connection), and give them each a hand-crocheted Green Carnation that I’d picked up in Covent Garden (one of the many secret codes that gays throughout history have used to identity ourselves to each other) — to honor the legacy of one of my heros, Oscar Wilde.

As I said in January, 2025 is the #OLYearOfGratitude for all the leaders and companies who have supported our work for 15 years (#OL15!).

Below you can see the pic of these great #outleaders who joined us, and I called onstage:

Ryan Atkin, the FA’s first openly gay referee, Dominic Arnall, CEO of Open for Business, Hannah & Jake Graf, trans activists, Darkwah, multi-disciplinary artist, performer, and brand architect, Sharon Lewis, Partner and Co-Chair at Hogan Lovells, Tia Counts, Chief Responsibility Officer at MSCI, Inc., Cynthia Fortlage, Inclusive Leadership Speaker and Founder and CEO of The Fortlage Collective, Michael Gunning, Former Professional Swimmer and TV & Media Host, and Simon Blake, CEO of Stonewall UK.

The first thing my Mom said after she answered though, was “Who’s that beautiful woman behind you?” Why, that’s our drag DJ Barbara, of course! But what brought a lot of folks to tears, including me, was her response when I asked her what she wanted to say to everyone in the audience. “Just keep going,” my amazing Mom said.

Which is what we’re doing, folks, we are just going to keep going – we are unstoppable.

I’m counting on our leaders in Congress, on both sides of the aisle—who I know are hearing from their constituents across the South and the Midwest—to remember their core values, and what our Constitution stands for – and I truly hope they will.

This isn’t about Republican or Democrat – it’s about right versus wrong.

We will all get through this—if we can all come together, which is my goal. But in the meantime, we must take care of ourselves, limit the damage that’s being done every day (including the erasure of LGBTQ data and healthcare from the federal government just yesterday!).

And most importantly, we are relying on our Allies, who are stronger than ever, are everywhere, and are doing things behinds the scenes that no one knows about. 

Happy Spring my Friends, and for those who celebrate like me next week, Happy Easter!  Wylie and I are sending our best from the Pines where I’m trying (unsuccessfully, lol) to take a few days off!

Thanks to everyone who made the Europe Summit such a success!  #returnonequality

Todd Sears
Founder and CEO
Out Leadership