Founder & Principal, Out Leadership
Todd Sears is the Founder and Principal of Out Leadership, the global LGBT+ business advisory company that partners with the world’s most influential firms to build business opportunity, cultivate talent, and drive equality forward.
More than 430 global CEOs have engaged in Out Leadership’s work, and the organization counts more than 65 major companies as members. Thousands of LGBT+ and ally executives share insights and best practices at Out Leadership’s annual Summits in New York, London, Hong Kong and Sydney. Many more engage with its global talent initiatives including OutNEXT, the first global development program for the next generation of LGBT+ executives; OutWOMEN, its groundbreaking effort to connect and celebrate Out LBT+ women in business; and Quorum, the first effort to place senior LGBT+ executives on corporate boards.
A former investment banker, Todd specialized in wealth management at Merrill Lynch, creating the first national team of financial advisors on Wall Street focused on the LGBT+ community, which brought over $1.4 billion of new assets to the firm. Todd then moved into diversity leadership, as Head of Diversity & Strategic Initiatives at Merrill Lynch and then at Credit Suisse, where he served as Americas Head of Diversity and Inclusion.
A graduate of Duke University and Woodberry Forrest School, Todd is also an active philanthropist and community leader. He is the founding co-chair of Jeffrey Fashion Cares, a fundraiser supporting LGBT+ civil rights, youth and HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, which has applied an innovative cost-structure to raise millions of dollars since its inception.
Todd serves on the non-profit boards of The Williams Institute of UCLA, The Palette Fund, and Lambda Legal. In 2014 he received Aid for AIDS International’s My Hero Award; in 2015 he received the Minority Corporate Counsel Association's Paula L. Ettelbrick Award for achievements in advancing LGBT attorneys.