🌈 Introducing WERKIN's Top Global LGBTQ+ Founders! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Happy Pride month, everyone! 🎉🌈 At WERKIN, we work tirelessly to empower organisations to create inclusive cultures where everyone can thrive, and our LGBTQ+ community holds a special place in our hearts. That's why this Pride month, we're thrilled to honour and highlight some extraordinary LGBTQ+ founders who have made their mark in the business world.
Being a founder is a unique experience with passion as a driving force, and these founders bring an extra level of lived experience and authenticity to their work. They're not just running companies for the sake of it; they're fueled by a burning desire to make a difference, set an example, and be the change they want to see in the world. Their unwavering commitment to driving change and creating inclusive spaces resonates deeply with us at WERKIN.
WERKIN’s own LGBTQ+ founder Hayley Sudbury knows better than anyone what a truly remarkable journey it can be to build something from the ground up. Her vision and leadership have been instrumental in shaping WERKIN’s commitment to accelerating the careers of underestimated and underrepresented groups, and providing global mentoring and career development programs that focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Join us in applauding the time, effort, and years of hard work these LGBTQ+ founders have invested in building their companies. Together, let's celebrate their achievements, amplify their voices, and continue championing a more diverse and inclusive business landscape.
Listed in alphabetical order.
Alicia Garza - Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter Network
Alicia is an activist, author, speaker, Special Projects Director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and Principal at the Black Futures Lab, a California-based think tank focused on engaging Black communities to get involved in politics. She Co-Founded the Black Lives Matter Global Network after the acquittal of the man who murdered the American teenager Trayvon Martin in 2013. Since then, the movement has evolved into a global organisation in the UK, USA and Canada.
Allie Fleder - Co-Founder & COO at SimplyWise
With an extensive background in startups, Allie co-founded SimpleWise, where she is also acting COO and Head of Business Development. SimplyWise is a “smart filing cabinet” that aggregates data to help people optimize their finances and taxes. This innovative piece of Fintech is aimed at 50+ people and is backed by Deciens, QED Investors, Village Global, XYZ Ventures, and Clocktower Technology Ventures.
Arlan Hamilton - Founder of Backstage Capital
Arlan is a live music production coordinator, tour manager, and also the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital - a seed investment fund that backs overachieving, underrepresented startup founders. With a passion to make the venture capital space more inclusive, Arlan founded Backstage Capital as the first VC firm with a focus on finding and investing in founders from underrepresented groups. Listen to WERKIN’s interview with Arlan here.
Hayley Sudbury - Founder and CEO of WERKIN
Recognised alongside Tim Cook (CEO of Apple), as one of the Top 10 LGBT+ Tech Executives, Hayley Sudbury is a workplace equality advocate and longtime mentor. With an established career in financial services, she co-founded WERKIN as the digital standard for inclusive technology, leadership and workplace culture, with a focus on accelerating the careers of underrepresented groups and communities.
Jenna Lyons - Co-Founder and CEO of LoveSeen
Jenna Lyons is a fashion designer, business personality, interior designer and was the creative director and president of J.Crew, widely known as the “woman who dresses America”. Lyons co-founded LoveSeen, a faux eye-lash brand that centres its products around inclusion for all. She was also recently announced as one stars to be added to The Real Housewives of New York City cast, premiering later this year.
Kara Swisher - Co-Founder of Recode and Co-Host of Pivot Podcast
Kara is a journalist, editor, executive producer, founder and podcast host, having written for The New York Magazine, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the All Things Digital conference. Co-host of the Pivot podcast for New York Media, as well as executive producer of the annual Code Conference, Kara previously co-founded Vox Media’s Recode - a tech news, reviews and analysis site, from the most informed and respected journalists in technology and media.
Kathy Teo - Founder and CEO of Xpointo Media
Kathy is an entrepreneur, investor, LGBTQ+ Equality Advocate, and founded Xpointo Media - a digital marketing company which help brands realise the marketing potential of digital channels. Part digital agency, Xpointo collaborates with clients on exciting digital campaigns integrating social media, search, mobile and more. Part digital labs, the company also builds new media products to solve digital marketing challenges.
Leanne Pittsford - Founder and CEO of Lesbians Who Tech & Allies and SquadJobs
Leanne Pittsford is the entrepreneur and founder behind Lesbians Who Tech & Allies, the largest LGBTQ professional community in the world, with a commitment to visibility, intersectionality, and changing the face of the tech industry. Leanne also founded SquadJobs, to help underrepresented techies level up by connecting them with companies that value their skills & representation.
Martine Rothblatt - Founder of United Therapeutics and Sirius XM
Martine is a lawyer, author, entrepreneur, inventor, and transgender rights advocate. She founded biotech firm United Therapeutics with a mission to find a cure for pulmonary arterial hypertension and other life-threatening diseases. The company was the first publicly-traded biotech or pharmaceutical company to take the form of a public benefit corporation. She also created the satellite radio company Sirius XM and was the top earning CEO in the biopharmaceutical industry.
Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird -
Founders of A Touch More and TOGETHXR
With a mission to ensure clear visibility for women’s sport, US basketball legend Sue Bird and women’s national soccer team star Megan Rapinoe, have launched production company A Touch More, to amplify stories of identity, activism, and underrepresented groups including the LGBTQ+ community, people of colour and women. The company was created in partnership with Togethxr, the media and commerce business also founded by the athlete power couple along with several US sports stars, to promote female voices within sport.
With over 20 years of digital and social advertising experience, Pat was named one of Singapore’s Most Influential Creative Directors for two consecutive years. She was also appointed to the Cannes Lions jury and chairperson to Hall of Fame, one of Singapore’s longest-running advertising award show. Pat founded GOODSTUPH, growing the business from a negative $10,000 loan to a multi-million agency within the first 3 years, then expanding into Jakarta, Indonesia, and Bangkok, Thailand.
Peter Arvai - Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Prezi
Peter became the first visible, openly gay CEO in Central and Eastern Europe. He co-founded and led Prezi during its first 12 years, creating the world’s largest library of publicly available presentations with over 140m users. He co-founded and chaired Bridge Budapest, which reaches half of Hungary’s population with entrepreneurial inspiration yearly. He also co-founded and chaired WAO - a gathering of over 1,100 Central and Eastern European companies that work for diverse and inclusive work environments.
Rachael Rapinoe - Founder and CEO of Mendi
As a professional soccer player and elite athlete with a masters in health and exercise science, Rachael has a deep understanding of performance-related injuries and recovery. She created Mendi to empower active lifestyles by reimagining plant-powered CBD wellness tools. Mendi combines product innovation, brand development, values and a disruptive DTC strategy with a core ethos of true compassion, inclusivity and representation.
Rebel Wilson - Co-Founder of Fluid
Rebel is an actress, director, writer and producer. She co-founded Fluid after her own dating experience on other apps, which required users to categorise themselves by gender. With Fluid, she wanted to provide a dating app for singles of any sexual orientation to match and meet new people, giving them the opportunity to find a “love without labels”.
Sam Altman - Founder of OpenAI
Sam is an entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist and programmer and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023. He learnt to code at 8 years old, dropped out of university to co-found Loopt, was the president of Y Combinator and was also briefly the CEO of Reddit. He co-founded OpenAI with Elon Musk, and when it launched in 2015 it had already raised $1 billion. OpenAI is now one of the world’s most talked about companies.
Tag Warner - CEO of GAY TIMES and Founder of Amplifund
Tag Warner is an award-winning industry leader, media figurehead and CEO of global LGBTQ+ brand, GAY TIMES. He led the transformation of the historic queer title to a diversified global media company that frequently charts as the most trusted, well-known and influential in its field. He also founded Amplifund - an award winning charity partnership with GiveOut supporting vital LGBTQ+ media where it’s needed most; funding work in territories from Iraq, Jamaica to the Middle East.
Tamara Littleton - CEO and Founder of The Social Element and Co-Founder of Polpeo
Tamara founded The Social Element in 2002 and has grown the agency to become a 250+ people strong business that helps some of the world’s biggest brands thrive on social media. Tamara is also co-founder of Polpeo, a crisis software company that creates realistic and immersive crisis simulations that prepare teams to communicate successfully in a crisis. She has previously been awarded CEO of the year by The Drum, was featured in the Outstanding Yahoo Finance Top 100 LGBT+ Executives list and is a Fellow of The Marketing Society.
Todd Sears - Founder & CEO, Out Leadership
Todd Sears spent over 20 years working at the intersection of finance and equality, created the first team of financial advisors on Wall Street focused on the LGBTQ+ community. He founded Out Leadership to advance economic benefits and talent dividend derived from inclusion. The Out Leadership platform connects leaders across the world’s most influential industries to foster business growth, cultivate talent, and drive equality.
Vivienne Ming - Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Socos Labs
Dr. Vivienne Ming explores maximizing human potential as a theoretical neuroscientist, serial inventor and entrepreneur, author, and AI humanist. She’s the co-founder and CEO of Socos Labs, where she explores seemingly intractable problems—from a lone child’s disability to global economic inclusion—for free. This independent non-profit Data Trust—the first-of-its-kind—has a profound mission: you have a civil right to AI acting solely on your behalf.
These founders WERKIN previously highlighted in our Top UK LGBTQ+ Founders List are also running companies across the world that are making global impact:
Benjamin Cohen - Founder and CEO of PinkNews
Benjamin Cohen is an entrepreneur and media expert who campaigns on disability and LGBTQ+ rights. He founded LGBTQ+ news site PinkNews as the “brand for the next generation”, and those who share the core values of Gen Z and Millennials. PinkNews now has 100 million+ global unique users a month across all their platforms.
Christian Angermayer - Founder of Apeiron Investment Group
Christian Angermayer is a founder who invests in life sciences, fintech, AI, psychedelics and cryptocurrencies through his family office Apeiron Investment Group, with a mission to build companies that are “shaping the next human agenda”. His investments are focused on sustainable and responsible capitalism, and centre around the theme of happiness.
Eric Collins - Founder of Impact X Capital Partners LLP
Eric D. Collins is an investor, entrepreneur, author and host of Channel 4's The Money Maker. Eric founded Impact X Capital Partners LLP as a fund that would invest in diverse, underrepresented and undiscovered entrepreneurs across Europe, particularly the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. The fund’s mission is to create the extraordinary and impact the world.
John Amaechi OBE - Founder of APS Intelligence Ltd
Professor John Amaechi is an organisational psychologist, best-selling New York Times author, mentor, public speaker, executive coach and former NBA player. Combing his deep psychological insight and real-life experience, John founded APS Intelligence - a multifaceted strategic consultancy solution, to provide a touchstone for people and companies who want to thrive, achieve, and align their beliefs, values and ethics. Photo: Courtesy of APS Intelligence
Lindsey McInerney - Founder of Black Sun Labs and Co-Founder of Sixth Wall
Lindsey McInerney is a tech visionary who has built hyper-growth startups, advised Fortune 500 companies, the Royal Family and the United Nations, and spends her career helping people understand the impact of evolving technologies and adopt them early. Founder and CEO of Black Sun Labs, she is also Co-Founder and CEO of Sixth Wall, the digital arm of Mila Kunis' Orchard Farm Productions - one of the few all-female crypto teams out there.
Suki Sandhu OBE - Founder of INvolve and Audeliss
Suki is an author and talent, diversity and inclusion expert. He founded INvolve and Audeliss to drive cultural change, create inclusive workplaces and support organisations to help disadvantaged communities. Audeliss is a global executive search firm levelling the playing field for women, ethnic minorities and LGBT+ at senior levels, and INvolve is a global inclusion consulting firm championing diversity and inclusion in business.