Career Advice from 8 LGBTQIA+ CEOs and Founders

Despite how it may look, given the parades and the parties and the glitter, Pride Month is a bittersweet occasion. While yes, of course it’s important to get out there and celebrate how far we’ve come, it’s just as important to remember what it took to get here, as well as how far we still have to go.

With regards to the workplace, representation in upper management still falls well below where it should be. As of 2024, approximately 9.3 percent of the population identifies as LGBTQ+, according to Gallup. Of the 5,400 board seats within the Fortune 500, less than 1% are occupied by LGBTQ+ people. The state of the C-suite isn’t any better. Numbers don’t lie: marginalization is still an issue to combat.

That’s why I wanted to take the time this Pride Month to track down some of the best career advice from the business world’s small-but-mighty population of LGBTQ+ CEOs and founders, to share their wisdom.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, on doing what you love:

“My advice to all of you is, don’t work for money—it will wear out fast, or you’ll never make enough and you will never be happy, one or the other. You have to find the intersection of doing something you’re passionate about and at the same time something that is in the service of other people. I would argue that, if you don’t find that intersection, you’re not going to be very happy in life. There’s a big difference between whether you fall in love with some work that is just for profits or revenue versus work that is in the service of others.”  —Speech at University of Glasgow, February 8, 2017

Robyn Grew, CEO of MAN Group, on being fearless

“If you’re given an opportunity to do something that’s different and new, my philosophy [is to take it]. I have loved the different opportunities and the stuff I didn’t know. I ran towards that rather than running away from it. And there’s not been an opportunity that has come across my desk, which I haven’t wanted to sort of grasp and run with. It’s just a little bit of who I have been throughout my career.” —Thirty-Minute Mentors podcast, June 3, 2025

Julia Hoggett, CEO of London Stock Exchange, on perspective

“Two things [I’ve learned from my mentors]: firstly, to take what you do incredibly seriously, but to take yourself far less seriously. And secondly, to really understand the weight of the responsibility you have in your role, but not to be weighed down by it.” —Out Leadership, November 1, 2023

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, on taking risks:

“It is really important to actually think hard about where you think you can make the biggest contribution that you're good at and the world needs, and that you enjoy. And then go meet people to work with, go learn as much about that field as you can, and then have the courage of your convictions to actually take a risk and focus on it, and go do something there. And that it's okay if you fail. And if you do fail … you can go try the next thing. But I think it's really important to be willing to go take a risk and make some amount of sacrifice to be able to try to impact the world in some way that you really care about. And I think the sooner you get to work on that, the better you'll be.” —Resources for Humans blog from Lattice, October 27, 2016

David Shelley, CEO of Hachette Publishing, on creativity

“I would challenge everyone: Can you find more time daily for creativity? Whether it’s being creative or engaging with someone else’s creative work. Either way, it will benefit you.” —Authority Magazine, May 9, 2025

George Arison, CEO of GrindR, founder of Shift and Curb, on thinking big:

“Most people who work with me will know I operate with a ‘nothing is impossible' mentality, which I definitely got from being an immigrant who had a pretty impossible story of coming to the U.S. and becoming a founder in the first place. So I tend to think, like, if all of that was possible, what else could be? And just go big with what you’re aiming for because you can always (and probably will have to) scale things back; it’s much harder to try to scale out once things are already running.”  —Authority Magazine, February 24, 2020

Alicia Garza, Co-founder of Black Lives Matter, on changing the world

“Figure out what you really care about. Find other people who care about the same things that you do. Join them. And once you do, keep bringing other people along with you.”  —Forbes, Jan 15, 2021

Beth Ford, CEO of Land O'Lakes, on being well-rounded

“Please go on life’s journey. Life is bumpy, and messy, and hard, and sad, and joyous, and all of it—you need to embrace all of it. Be intellectually curious … Don’t be so linear, or just so focused on one thing—it’s not interesting. The broader you can make yourself, the more you continue to invest in yourself and … in using your intellectual curiosity, the better you're going to be, and the more joyous your life is.” —Duke University Distinguished Speaker Series, December 8, 2021