By Genny Hom-Franzen Grace Figueredo, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Aetna In 1995, Aetna Inc. was one of the first companies to set up domestic partner benefits. In 2009, it was the first major health benefits company to add gender reassignment procedures as a benefit for its employees and to add LGBT language to
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Jonathan D. Lovitz, an advocate for LGBT equality who has served as a spokesman for GLAAD, Queerty Inc. and StartOut, is now the vice president of external affairs at the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and director of NGLCC’s New York chapter. “I am so incredibly honored to join team NGLCC as the
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Radio Program Attracts 500k Listeners The Focus Group's Co-Host John Nash Tim Bennett and John Nash were childhood friends, navigating microscopes, frog dissection and lab tests together while sophomores in high school biology class. Little did they know that, some 30 years later, they would be the co-hosts of the first-ever original
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Affinity Inc Magazine debuted at the 2012 National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Business & Leadership Conference in Chicago. During the span of three years, it seems that everything has changed — but, has it really? The United States Supreme Court has ruled in favor of marriage equality. Other federal, state and local legal
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By Brenda Matamoros Mark Mason, chairman, president and CEO of HomeStreet Bank, along with his wife Tracy and daughter Chloe, joined more than 90 HomeStreet employees who marched in the recent Seattle Pride parade to show their support of the LGBT community. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has had much to
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Recognizing the business imperative to embrace diversity, the U.S. Small Business Administration and National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce launched the first initiative of its kind focused on LGBT business owners. LGBT Business Builder will bring together expertise and resources from staff at SBA district and regional offices, NGLCC’s 38 U.S.-based affiliate chambers and
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In this issue of Affinity Inc Magazine, we focus on the profound benefits of partnership and cite many examples of how it’s working across the business equality community. At the federal level, the U.S. Small Business Administration and National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce have created LGBT Business Builder to connect their wealth of
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COVER STORY In 2012, John Taft, CEO of RBC Wealth Management-U.S. and great-grandson of President William Howard Taft, joined more than 50 current and former CEOs to publicly oppose a constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage in Minnesota. For Taft, marriage equality makes sense economically and personally. Economic impact Diversity and
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By DeVere Kutscher, Publisher, Affinity Inc Magazine. Happily, today more companies than ever, and even government agencies, welcome — and in fact seek out — lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender-owned businesses as part of their supply-chain diversity strategy. LGBT business enterprises are increasingly joining the ranks of other diverse suppliers such as women, veterans, Hispanic, disabled
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By Melissa Lowery Wassel Lewis, AFLAC Wassel Lewis, director of strategic sourcing at Aflac Inc., is on a mission to welcome more LGBT-, women- and minority-owned businesses to the insurance company’s supply chain. He is responsible for category management and sourcing activities, with an emphasis on information technology, operations and group insurance. He
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