An enlightened approach to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is good for the bottom line, but it’s also the right thing to do, says TD Bank CEO Ed Clark.
Clark gave key speech at the WorldPride Human Rights Conference in Toronto on Wednesday in recognition of TD’s early advocacy of LGBT issues.
TD first began embracing Pride publicly in the 1990s and it's taken a while to change the corporate culture.
"You have to start and say this is just the right thing to do. This is about human rights, this is about being a good corporate citizen, this is about being a good person citizen," Clark said in an interview
Clark said he regards TD’s approach to the LGBT community as a cornerstone of its business strategy rather than a way of cultivating a particular community or building the TD brand.
Clark said he consciously began trying to make the culture at TD inclusive for all employees in 1994 by offering same sex benefits to his employees. He said he was shocked when only 55 signed up, a startlingly low number for an institution with 55,000 employees.
Clark said he was upset to realize that people were afraid to reveal their sexuality to colleagues and began a personal initiative to change the culture inside the bank.
Clark said he learned that in order to change the culture internally, the bank had to also present a public face in support of LGBT issues.
Clark recalled that one executive told him the bank was losing customers to rivals because it was so openly supportive of gay issues. He said he told him to go work for a competitor if that's what he felt.
Clark said ultimately the way the bank embraced diversity has been good for business.
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