I’ve been graciously invited by Working Mother magazine to give the keynote speech at their first-ever L-Moms & Allies Breakfast on January 21 in New York City. If you live in the greater New York City area, you are more than welcome to attend. I’d love to meet you there.
The only catch is that the event is aimed at employees of large corporations, law firms, etc., and there is a $150 admission fee. If you work at a big firm and have an LGBT employee group or a diversity committee, see if they’ll sponsor you. You can attend as an individual, too, but you’ll have to pay the fee yourself.
Working Mother, if you don’t know them, puts out an oft-cited yearly list of Best Companies for moms, and has been a strong leader in diversity. I’m very pleased they are reaching out to our community.
I’ll be speaking about ways that companies who are already broadly supportive of LGBT rights can take the next step in support of their LGBT employees, in particular, lesbian moms and bisexual women parenting with another woman. If you have any thoughts about the topic, please leave a comment.
More details and registration info are on the event Web site. Here’s the official event description:
Join us at the first ever L-Moms & Allies Breakfast on January 21, 2009 hosted by KPMG and co-sponsored by Johnson & Johnson at 345 Park Avenue in NYC. This event is designed especially for lesbian working mothers – L-Moms – as part of Working Mother Media’s Balance Seekers and Diversity Initiatives. This event will provide your L-Moms and pre-moms with extensive networking and learning opportunities and will explore a variety of issues faced by L-Moms. A panel of corporate L-Moms will share strategies for achieving professional and personal success. Topics will include:
- How companies can support their L-Moms
- What it takes to raise a family, be professionally successful and be out
- How to address the fact that you are one of TWO moms [or, as I pointed out, a single lesbian mom —DR]
- The micro-inequities L-Moms face in the workplace
- Legal and healthcare issues specific to L-Moms
Who Should Attend?
L-Moms, pre-moms and allies of L-Moms – including diversity professionals, price networks, managers and families.
Other speakers include:
Angela Avant. Partner in the Advisory Services practice of the Washington, DC Office of KPMG LLP. Angela is the Co-Chair of KPMG’s formed National African-American Network Steering Committee (AANSC) and a member of the National Diversity Advisory Board, created to provide National visibility and oversight to all of KPMG affinity network programs supporting diversity.
Rhys Eppich of KPMG’s national Tax Technology Practice department, and co-project manager on several of KPMG’s tax compliance software tools. Rhys, her partner Cate, and their twin 6.5 year-olds live in Florence, Massachusetts.
Lora Yates, Director, Therakos Integration and WW Operations for Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson Company. Since 2005, Lora has served as national co-chair of the GLBT employee Affinity Group, GLOBAL (the Gay & Lesbian Organization for Business And Leadership) at Johnson & Johnson. In 2008, she was a finalist for the Out & Equal “Trailblazer” Award and earned a Standards of Leadership Award from the Chief Diversity Officer of Johnson & Johnson.