LGBTQ+ on Boards: An Interview with LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors Canada

By Jeff Buckstein

In conversation with Mark Bonham and Jane Griffith of the LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors Canada Association in Toronto, it was noted that although representation of LGBTQ+ individuals on corporate boards in Canada has improved in recent years, the change has been incremental. It has not reached significant thresholds says Griffith, co-founder and president of the LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors Canada.

While this interview reflects the LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors Canada Association, 2SLGBTQIA+ is a commonly used acronym to encompass the diversity within the sexual and gender diverse community.

“Griffiths notes that actions have encouraged people in equity deserving groups, especially those who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, to identify in their biographies that they are part of the community. As such, we are hopeful that we will see a bump in the statistics,” she adds. Griffith is also the managing partner and founder of Griffith Group Executive Search in Toronto.

“The Association commissioned Dr. Sarah Kaplan of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto to do a report for us,” says Griffith. “Dr. Kaplan and her team analyzed just under 9,400 profiles of board members who sat on public corporations from 2015 through to 2022, and found there were only seven people that identified as being a member of the LGBTQ+ community.”

“So, everybody can do some work to improve the statistics. All sectors, all fields” Griffith stresses.

The LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors Canada Association was established in 2022, one year after the LGBTQ+ Association of Corporate Directors was founded in New York. Its role is to advocate for LGBTQ+ representation on corporate boards and raise awareness of this issue within the LGBTQ+ community and society as a whole, says Mark Bonham, co-founder and secretary treasurer of the LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors Canada Association, and executive director of The Veritas Foundation.

“We are more advocates on this issue than we are activists. The key is creating public awareness around this issue.

“Qualified corporate directors are qualified regardless of how they identify, and it may just happen that some are members of the LGBTQ+ community,” says Griffith. “The way they identify is part of them, but it is not the reason they are on the board.

“We do not want to see a drive towards tokenism or mandatory quotas. We want a more inclusive society where people who are qualified for these positions also just happen to identify us as a member of an equity deserving group,” she elaborates.

Bonham suggested that the Trump Administration efforts to discourage public diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the United States are filtering into Canada, and inter-listed Canadian corporate entities are facing the same political pressures as U.S. corporate entities.

“We are getting feedback, however, that corporations are not necessarily abandoning DEI initiatives but are rephrasing or restructuring the way that they present their discourse on the issues,” for example using broader and more flexible terms like ‘inclusion,’ ‘engagement,’ and ‘cultural belonging,’ Bonham adds.

Furthermore, even as some U.S. corporations have made changes to appease the Trump Administration, “some corporate entities such as Apple Computer and many others are restating their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion,” says Bonham.

Griffith adds that people should openly speak up about being part of an equity deserving community.

Speaking up for equity is part of a larger theme of establishing human rights for everybody, including members of the LGBTQ+ community. To do that, however, there must be an assurance of both psychological and physical safety provided for anybody who identifies as a member of an equity deserving group, she stresses.

“Canadians across the country are proud of being Canadian, and how we differentiate ourselves from the United States” says Griffith.

“In accepting greater diversity on corporate boards, Canada gains a competitive advantage and opportunity to add significant value to the economy through greater profits and greater revenues, greater employee satisfaction, client satisfaction, and so forth,” adds Bonham.