9 LGBTQ CEOs and Entrepreneurs You Should Know

From technology to activism, these pioneering LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs have shattered career glass ceilings to help tomorrow’s LGBTQ founders pick up where they left off.

While the movement towards greater inclusion and diversity gains momentum in the business world, a Proud Ventures report highlights the many barriers that LGBTQ+ founders still face in the startup ecosystem. . The LGBTQ+ Founders Report found that 75 percent of LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs and founders hid their identities from investors at some point in the funding process.

To see the value and innovation that LGBTQ+ people bring to the business world, we’ve compiled a list of nine of the most influential LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs and CEOs.

Sam Altman – OpenAI CEO

Sam Altman is the co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, known for introducing ChatGPT and making generative AI accessible to the world. Before working on AI, Altman was the president of Y Combinator, a well-known startup accelerator. His entrepreneurial journey started early, when he was 19 years old he co-founded Loopt, a location-based social networking app.

Altman was recently fired from OpenAI, then joined Microsoft, and returned just days later as head of OpenAI following a corporate revolt, making him a hot topic at the top. In even better news, Altman just married her partner Oliver Mulherin in a seaside ceremony. Even if one of you uses ChatGPT to write the pledge, there is nothing to say.

Tim Cook – Apple Inc. CEO

The president of Apple is one of the most prominent LGBTQ+ business leaders in the world. Tim Cook took over the reins of Apple in 2011, months before Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer.

Cook came out as gay in 2014 and has been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ rights ever since. Under his leadership, Apple remained a leader in innovation and became the first U.S. company to reach a market value of $1 trillion.

Martine Rothblatt – Founder of United Therapeutics and Sirius XM

Martine Rothblatt is a futurist, entrepreneur, lawyer, and author. She founded companies such as Sirius XM Radio and the biotech company United Therapeutics. Rothblatt came out as transgender in 1994 and has been an advocate for transgender rights ever since. Money isn’t everything, but Rothblatt was the highest-paid CEO in the biopharmaceutical industry in 2017.

Leanne Pittsford – Founder and CEO of Lesbians Who Tech

Leanne Pittsford founded Lesbians Who Tech in 2012 after noticing the gap between lesbian women and non-binary people in the tech industry. Lesbians Who Tech is a community-based group committed to visibility, intersectionality, and changing the face of technology. This community has grown to over 70,000 LBTQ+ women and supporters from 100 countries and offers coding scholarships and mentoring programs.

Peter Arvai – Co-founder of Prezi

Swedish entrepreneur Peter Alvay founded the cloud-based presentation platform Prezi in 2009 with Peter Halacy and Adam Somraj Fischer. Alvai served as the company’s CEO until his retirement in 2020, and continues to serve as executive chairman. He came out publicly in his 2015 Forbes feature and has been advocating for LGBTQ+ visibility in STEM ever since.

Alicia Garza – Black Lives Matter Co-Founder

Alicia Garza helped found the Black Lives Matter movement following the 2013 acquittal of the man who murdered American teenager Trayvon Martin. Since then, the movement has developed into a worldwide organization in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada. A decade later, the BLM movement has helped pave the way for today’s modern feminist movement.

In addition to being an activist, Garza is an author, speaker, and director of the Black Futures Lab, a California-based think tank focused on involving the Black community in politics.

Joel Simkhai – Co-founder and former CEO of Grindr

Joel Simkhai founded Grindr in 2009 with Scott Lewallen. The app currently has over 11 million monthly active users and is the most popular gay dating platform in the world. Simkhai left Grindr in 2018 after the company was sold.

He has since launched a new queer dating app called Motto. This is intended to prevent some of the toxicity and discrimination associated with his original work. Simkhai told NBC News in a 2022 interview that his new venture was an opportunity to “course-correct” the pitfalls of the app-based dating culture he had helped create.

Jenna Lyons – Co-founder and CEO of LoveSeen

Jenna Lyons is a famous fashion designer and former director of J.Crew. After she left J. Crew in 2017, Lyons founded LoveSeen, a false eyelash brand whose products center around inclusion of all people.

Lyons did not begin his career as an LGBTQ+ entrepreneur and was infamously fired in 2011. new york post published an article reporting that he had been seeing a woman several weeks after filing for divorce. Lyons said. the cut 2021: “I don’t think it’s my job to reveal to other people what’s going on with me sexually or romantically.”

Suki Sandhu, OBE – Co-founder and CEO of Audeliss and INvolve

Suki Sandhu is the founder and CEO of Audeliss, an executive search firm focused on placing LGBTQ+, ethnic minorities, and women in executive and non-executive positions. In 2018, Sandu founded her LGBTQ+ membership organization, INvolve. INvolve annually publishes a Role Models list that recognizes key LGBT+ and ally executives and future LGBT+ leaders. He is also an ambassador for Stonewall.