LGBTQ

Sir, Thank you for your article ‘How LGBTQ friendly is fmcg?’ (11 November, p28). It isn’t. End of. I know this through my own experience as a gay man.

I wanted to be in fmcg because of family connections and my genuine passion for the industry. When I started I found the culture very ‘macho’, which, along with the rise of ‘alpha females’ and non-existent HR departments, made for an incredibly stressful, lonely experience. You had nowhere to turn. Fast forward 20 years and, with a few exceptions, the culture seems to remain the same. Yet professional and financial services have become far more LGBTQ-friendly during that period. I know this as part of my later career.

I can’t explain this discrepancy as, in the end, we all need to eat and drink. Fmcg companies have customers of all genders, races, abilities, sexual orientations and ages - it’s called diversity. It’s time the workforce truly reflected this.

Casper Gorniok

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