Todd Sears is the Founder and Principal of Out Leadership, a certified B Corp and strategic advisory firm dedicated to extending equality and access to opportunity for LGBT people worldwide. In 2011, Sears launched Out on the Street with support from 6 of the world's top financial institutions. Since then, Out Leadership has grown to include 66 of the world’s most influential businesses as members, and leads four additional global initiatives: Out in Law; OutNEXT, the first global leadership development program for emerging LGBT leaders; Quorum, which seeks to increase the representation of openly LGBT directors on corporate boards; and OutWOMEN, which connects senior LGBT women in business.
Todd began his career as an investment banker before moving to Merrill Lynch to become a Financial Advisor, where he created the first team of financial advisors on Wall Street to focus on the LGBT community and brought $1.5 billion of new assets to the firm. Todd then moved into diversity leadership, pioneering equality initiatives first at Merrill Lynch and then at Credit Suisse.
Sears serves on the non-profit boards of the Williams Institute of UCLA, The Palette Fund, the Global Equality Fund of the United States Department of State and Lambda Legal; he was the founding chair of Jeffrey Fashion Cares, which he ran for 10 years.
