Gilead’s Pride Alliance spans 17 countries and is an important driver of inclusion, helping create a workplace where employees can thrive and contribute their best. Through advocacy and partnership, the ERG has helped advance inclusive policies and benefits, including gender-affirming care, surrogacy and fertility coverage regardless of gender identity, and a Transition and Gender Affirmation Workplace Guide that supports employees, managers, and teams. Pride Alliance goes beyond policy by elevating diverse voices, celebrating lived experiences, and creating opportunities for connection, allyship, and belonging across the company. Programs such as the Gilead Ball and Loving Families panel help employees build community while fostering understanding and inclusion. Together, these efforts reflect Gilead’s commitment to reducing stigma, advancing health equity, and creating a healthier world for all people. Eight consecutive years of a perfect Human Rights Campaign score and the 2026 theme, “Stand Proud,” underscore a sustained commitment to inclusion, advocacy, and ensuring every employee has the opportunity to succeed.

HSBC has turned a two-decade-old Pride network into a genuinely global infrastructure, historically engaging more than 15,000 colleagues across markets worldwide, and executive sponsorship that actively shapes business decisions. What sets HSBC apart is its willingness to measure belonging directly. Its Inclusion Index tracks psychological safety and fairness, beyond just representation, giving leaders a real read on whether people feel included rather than simply counted. That rigor extends outward: HSBC is a signatory to the UN Standards of Conduct for Business on LGBTQ+ discrimination, and its “24 Hours of Pride” campaign connects employees across time zones around a shared, year-round message. Their proof points are consistent: a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index for multiple years running, Equality 100 recognition, and sustained international benchmarks across Hong Kong and Australia. HSBC treats LGBTQ+ inclusion as infrastructure built to last through change. 

Kantar has built LGBTQ+ inclusion beyond their culture into the very structure of their business. A layered global governance model connects a dedicated Inclusion & Diversity team, regional steering committees, and local market champions, while ERG leadership itself has been formalized into a real career pathway: defined tenure, performance objectives, coaching, and executive access. That structure powers a global Pride ERG (awarded ERG of the year at the 2025 Outies) and a multi-year research partnership with DIVA Charitable Trust and the Curve Foundation, exploring LGBTQIA+ experience across allyship, family, and safety. Kantar has also translated that research into the Brand Inclusion Index, giving organizations a way to connect inclusive advertising to commercial growth. The result: measurable gains in belonging and authenticity inside Kantar, and a research-driven model other organizations now use to shape their own inclusion strategy. Recognitions include the VOICES London Award for Employee Experience and ranked as #1 in Inclusive Companies’ Inclusive Top 50 UK Employers list for 2025/26, evidence that Kantar’s approach to belonging truly performs.

Since launching in 2009, Bank of America’s LGBTQ+ Pride has grown into one of the largest employee networks of its kind: 57 chapters, more than 38,000 members, and spanning across every major global region. What stands out is the network’s consistency at scale: 82 events delivered by the end of May 2026 alone, alongside nearly 11,700 collective volunteer hours in community service. Bank of America’s own history as one of the first financial institutions to offer domestic partner benefits gives this network a long runway, and it continues building on that foundation through senior executive sponsorship and an advisory council that brings leaders from across lines of business into strategic conversations. Intersectionality runs through the network’s programming by design: joint events with the bank’s military, Hispanic/Latino, and women’s networks show how the group contributes to the organization’s broader efforts to foster connection, belonging and opportunity for all. Sixteen years after launching with a handful of chapters, LGBTQ+ Pride has scaled to tens of thousands of members while keeping that same throughline intact, demonstrating that a network can grow in size and stay consistent in what it delivers.

There is a light in each of us that doesn’t ask for permission to shine. Bristol Myers Squibb’s PRIDE Alliance spent 2026 proving that when you give that light something to pass through, real people, real places, real need, it breaks into every color, reaching further than it ever could by itself.  

Built on three pillars, a thriving and inclusive culture, advancing patient and community impact, and driving innovation beyond BMS walls, PRIDE Alliance anchored this year around one declaration: You Belong. You Belong Here. Not a slogan. A promise that met colleagues exactly where they were and gave them something steadier than the noise.  

That commitment showed up in the science too. When clinical trial investigators sought guidance for patients in active gender transition, PRIDE Alliance convened a cross-functional team across legal, medical, and regulatory to provide it. Delivering truly inclusive healthcare requires amplifying LGBTQIA+ patient voices and experiences across the full spectrum of care, so that every decision BMS makes is more intentional, more informed, and more human.  

And the light traveled beyond BMS entirely. In Italy, PRIDE Alliance founded the first cross-company LGBTQ+ alliance in the country’s pharmaceutical sector, uniting five organizations around shared standards and shared purpose. Inclusion as innovation. Belonging as business strategy.  

Culture, science, and industry leadership, advancing together. A prism made of people.  

Facing organizational disruption, Labcorp PRIDE rebuilt and redesigned. The group consolidated from 23 chapters to 15 stronger, better-supported communities, expanded its global board to include dedicated strategy, education, and advocacy roles, and shifted engagement to a digitally enabled model that increased participation by more than 80%, opening access to frontline and shift-based employees who had previously been left out. That structural discipline translated into tangible policy influence: gender-neutral facilities, a co-authored Gender Expression and Inclusion policy with HR, and expanded trans-inclusive healthcare benefits in the UK. PRIDE’s cross-ERG collaboration model, built through consistent partnerships with groups representing women, disability, and caregivers, has provided a foundation that has strengthened cross-ERG collaboration. With more than 1,300 members and continued growth toward a 1,500-member goal, Labcorp PRIDE demonstrates what it looks like to turn a moment of uncertainty into a stronger, more intentional foundation.   

UBS Pride & Allies Americas is a leading employee resource group dedicated to advancing LGBTQ+ inclusion, allyship, and belonging across the firm. With more than 1,700 members and allies, the network fosters connection, professional development, advocacy, and community impact while helping create an inclusive culture where employees can thrive. Following the integration of Credit Suisse, Pride & Allies successfully united ERG communities and best practices from both organizations, expanding its leadership team, strengthening regional engagement, and creating new opportunities for employees to lead and connect.   

The network delivers a robust portfolio of programming focused on education, allyship, volunteerism, and leadership development. In 2025, Pride & Allies welcomed nearly 300 new members, hosted 93 events across the Americas, and mobilized employees to support LGBTQ+ organizations through volunteer service and community engagement. The group also plays a key role in advancing UBS’s Global LGBTQ+ Ally Program, creating meaningful pathways for employees to move from awareness to action and helping foster a culture of visible, active allyship.   

Pride & Allies is recognized for its commitment to intersectionality, transgender inclusion, and industry leadership. Through partnerships with other employee networks, nonprofit organizations, and external industry groups, the network creates opportunities for learning, advocacy, and collaboration that reflect the diverse experiences of LGBTQ+ employees and allies. Beyond UBS, Pride & Allies helps advance workplace equality through leadership in industry forums, community partnerships, and volunteer initiatives, extending its impact across the broader financial services sector. 

Throughout his 25-year legal career, Wesley Bizzell has transformed advocacy into lasting structural change, advancing inclusive practices while serving as a visible champion for LGBTQ+ equality.  Since co-founding Altria’s LGBTQ+ ERG in 2012, he has worked with internal stakeholders to make significant strides in support of LGBTQ+ inclusion—from adding policy protections for gender identity and expression and expanding same-sex family-building benefits to include surrogacy and IVF, to designing Altria’s voluntary Self-Identification program from the ground up, a system that informs how Altria tracks LGBTQ+ recruitment, retention, and advancement.  Wes’ impact extends well beyond the company: as President of the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, he led the effort to make Virginia the first southern state to ban the LGBTQ+ “panic” defense and has successfully advocated for similar legislative changes in multiple other states.  Because of his sustained impact, he has been recognized as a Top 100 LGBTQ+ Executive Role Model for nine consecutive years and as an LGBT+ Equality Lawyer of the Year.

Since helping launch proPRIDE in 2014, Philip Maziarz has grown it into a 400-member global community across 10 countries. He has used that platform to bring people together across communities and to elevate LGBTQIA+ voices, including his own — through thematic Pride Month celebrations, panels and speaker series featuring outside experts, and sustained collaborations across seven of Protiviti’s employee network groups. He has also driven the everyday-visibility work that makes queer employees feel seen at work: pronouns, SOGI self-disclosure, and workplace transition guidance. What distinguishes Philip is his ability to translate lived experience into leadership-level action without losing the human story behind it. His influence reaches beyond his own organization: proPRIDE has served as an inspiration for peer networks including Robert Half’s BELONG, which now matches proPRIDE’s membership size.

Across 36 years in Human Resources at Huntington National Bank, Fran Wahrman has treated inclusion as infrastructure that has to survive organizational change, not a program that pauses for it. Through more than three major acquisitions, she strengthened a structured onboarding and engagement framework that introduced thousands of incoming colleagues to Huntington’s inclusion councils, business resource groups, and communities of practice from day one, ensuring belonging wasn’t left to chance during periods of disruption. Her most recent contribution was to implement Huntington’s Cultural Awareness and Engagement Hub, which centralizes communication, event calendars, and educational resources across all inclusion network groups, increasing visibility for all inclusion programming, including LGBTQ+ programming while encouraging intersectional collaboration. Fran also built Huntington’s partnerships with Out & Equal and Out in Finance. What sets her apart is the through-line across three decades of banking and HR expertise: consistently proving that inclusion strengthens retention, culture, and business performance, especially in moments of change.