Geffrye Parsons

Geffrye Parsons – Inclusion Imperative Founder and Speaker

Geffrye Parsons (he/him) is an experienced and highly respected keynote speaker who focuses on adding value for organisations by leveraging his extensive experience and expertise.

Geff spent 35 years as a gay, client-facing executive in global financial and professional services organisations all around the world. This executive experience allows him to:

• share, and draw meaningful lessons from, his career path from the 1980 into the 2020s;
• bring a pragmatic, real-world perspective – translating theory into practice, especially for those in leadership roles; and
• Ensure that inclusion ambitions dovetail with corporate strategic priorities.

Geff is adept at addressing: the ways in which minority characteristics (like being LGBTQ+) can interact with topics like psychological safety, inclusive leadership, allyship, unconscious bias, teamwork, wellbeing and imposter syndrome, to promote a more inclusive environment; and how such inclusion can make teams and workplaces more successful and resilient, by unleashing the inherent value of diversity, whether demographic, personality-based or acquired through life experience or achievement.

Apart from his lived experience and career, Geff’s LGBTQ+ and business credentials include:

accolades from:

• the British LGBT Awards (which named him as the Inspirational Leader of the Year in 2019),
• the annual Pride Power List of the UK’s 100 most influential LGBTQ+ people (in which Geff has been ranked twice), and
• Nvolve’s annual list of the top 100 LGBTQ+ business executives in the world (in which Geff has been ranked three times)

In addition –

• taking both his former employer, Macquarie Group (in 2022, as long-standing Chair of its award-winning Pride ERG), and subsequently his client, Linklaters (in 2024, as an external consultant), to #1 in the annual Stonewall rankings of the most LGBTQ+ friendly workplaces in the UK
• being formally designated a ‘Top Voice’ on LinkedIn for each of Leadership, Culture Change and Executive Management, drawing on the MBA in International Management which he holds from the University of London.

These days, alongside running his boutique consultancy practice, The Inclusion Imperative, which focuses on culture transformation and leadership development (and specialises in LGBTQ+ inclusion in the workplace), Geff holds several fractional Board-level roles with charities and association promoting LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion

SPEAKING TOPICS

Geffrye Parsons mission is about making the world a more inclusive place, one organisation at a time – by building leadership capabilities and harnessing the power of inclusion as a key strategy for wellbeing, an organisational and individual learning culture, and consequently superior business outcomes

Topics include –

• All matters related to LGBTQ+ inclusion
• Psychological safety– what it means, why it matters and how to create it
• Inclusive leadership– at all levels: the importance, value and practice of authenticity and empathy
• Allyship and advocacy– what it really means and involves in practice
• Imposter syndrome– what it really means, and how to manage it positively
• Conscious inclusion– including practical unconscious bias management
• Mental health and wellbeing– how it affects and is affected by workplace inclusion
• Intersectionality– understanding it, the importance of holistic inclusion, and allyship
• Micro-aggressions– understanding them, their impact and how to manage and repair them
• The business rationale underpinning an inclusive workplace culture

Note – Geff is splits his time between Canada and the UK