Just ten years ago, there were no openly LGBTQ Fortune 500 CEOs. That wouldn’t change until Apple CEO Tim Cook came out as gay in October 2014.
“I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others,” Cook penned in an essay for Bloomberg, published just eight months before the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage a constitutional right. Cook, who is infamously guarded about his personal life, hadn’t previously disclosed his sexuality publicly. “If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.”
Now, nearly nine years later, three additional openly LGBTQ executives sit atop Fortune 500 companies: Dow Chemicals CEO Jim Fitterling, Macy’s CEO Jeffrey Gennette, and Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford. (French-American beauty company Coty, helmed since 2020 by Sue Nabi, who is transgender, has not appeared on the Fortune 500 since its 2021 rank at No. 426.)
These Fortune 500 execs are joined by other openly LGBTQ CEOs at major global companies. Anne Richards has led the U.K.-based investment management firm Fidelity International since December 2018, and entrepreneur Martine Rothblatt, who is transgender, is the founder and CEO of United Therapeutics, a publicly-traded biotech company that brought in $1.94 billion in revenue in 2022.
While corporate America has made strides, albeit meager, toward LGBTQ representation in the near-decade since Cook’s Bloomberg essay, it’s far from an inclusive space for these employees. A recent Indeed survey on the LGBTQ worker experience found that only 30.7% of respondents are fully out at work (defined as out to everyone in the workplace). Those who aren’t out cited fear of discrimination as a top reason for not disclosing.
While it’s not a fix-all for LGBTQ inclusion in the workplace, many CEOs have recognized the significance of disclosing their LGBTQ identity. "I made a decision long ago to live an authentic life, and if my being named CEO helps others do the same, that's a wonderful moment," Land O’Lake’s Ford told CNN in 2018, the same year she became CEO.
Below are the four openly LGBTQ CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies:
Tim Cook
Company: Apple Inc.
Tenure: Since August 2011
2023 rank: No. 4
Cook has said he has “no regrets” about coming out in 2014. In the years since, he’s spoken on LGBTQ issues and publicly expressed concern over anti-LGBTQ bills. Apple has also lobbied against recent anti-LGBTQ laws in Iowa, Florida, and Texas.
Jim Fitterling
Company: Dow Inc.
Tenure: Since September 2018
2023 rank: No. 75
Fitterling was named CEO of the material sciences company in March 2018, following its spinoff as an independent company from the Dow DuPont merger in 2017. A Dow employee since 1984, Fitterling first came out to close colleagues after a cancer diagnosis in 2008. He then came out to all employees in 2014. “I was going through several surgeries, a year’s worth of chemo,” he told Bloomberg in 2019. “I started to look around and say, ‘You know, I’m going to have to make some changes in my life.’ And one day, I was thinking about a lot of stresses that I needed to reduce and one of them was trying to live two different lives.”
Jeffrey Gennette
Company: Macy’s, Inc.
Tenure: Since March 2017
2023 rank: No. 158
Gennette has been out professionally since his first day at Macy’s on July 5, 1983. He recalls people warning him that being openly gay could be a “deterrent” to his career and received advice from a mentor to “be less transparent” about his sexuality if he wanted to get ahead in his career. He refused to heed the advice and still rose through the ranks, becoming chief merchandising officer in 2009 and president in 2014, before his current title. Gennette announced earlier this year that he plans to retire in February 2024.
Beth Ford
Company: Land O’Lakes
Tenure: Since August 2018
2023 rank: No. 213
Ford became the first openly gay woman to lead a Fortune 500 company upon her appointment as CEO of the Minnesota-based food and agriculture company in August 2018. She was previously chief operating officer at Land O’Lakes and held executive roles at Scholastic, Hachette Book Group, and International Flavors and Fragrances. Ford, married to Minnesota State Board of Investment executive director and chief investment officer Jill Schurtz, has been out her entire professional life. She’s been named to every Fortune Most Powerful Women list since 2018, coming in at No. 31 last year.
