BBVA participates in the first edition of the LGBTI Atlantic Conference
Ízaro Amilibia, discipline manager at BBVA’s Talent and Culture area, attended the LGBTI Atlantic Conference held in Bilbao to explain the bank’s initiatives in this area. The event gathered activists and experts from across the world to discuss the international reality of this community. Supporting LGTBI people is one of the pillars of BBVA's commitment to diversity and inclusion.
The first LGBTI Atlantic Conference aimed to increase the visibility of projects, experiences and initiatives that help understand the situation of this community from a human rights standpoint across the world. The event also focused on discussing business and occupational practices aimed at advancing the inclusion of LGTBI people in the workplace.
One of BBVA's goals is to ensure a diverse and inclusive work environment that accomodates to people’s heterogeneous needs to be able to deliver a comprehensive service to its customers. With this purpose, the bank has launched several projects, including ‘Be Yourself’, where various BBVA employees raise awareness about some of the hurdles that less represented groups may face in the workplace at the time of getting hired or promoted.
Ízaro Amilibia is one of the promoters of the project that emerged within the bank to advocate and defend the rights of LGBTI people. Speaking at the Atlantic Conference, Amibilia emphasized that "companies need to identify the needs that LGTBI people really have."
She also explained that BBVA addresses LGTBI diversity through a self-organized group of employees, with full support from the management team, to create an environment that encourages everyone to be themselves. The goal is to, through authenticity and personal development, allow employees to "give their best and fully realize their potential at the workplace to break down invisible barriers".
In this line, the entity has pledged to uphold the “Standards of Conduct for Business, tackling discrimination against LGBTI people” promoted by the United Nations and joined the Spanish LGTBI Business Network for Diversity and Inclusion (REDI). Similarly, BBVA participated in 'Visible and empowered women in the company', a conference held during Lesbian Visibility Day.
BBVA’s industry-leading commitment to diversity has, earned the bank a spot in Bloomberg’s Gender Equality Index 2018. In addition, the entity is one of the in world’s Top 200 companies listed in Equileap’s 'Gender Equality Global Report & Ranking' and one of the top-30 companies in Spain in terms of best practices in diversity and equality, according to Intrama’s ‘Variable D’ 2019 report.
BBVA is already working on the next steps to keep making progress in this front. "We’ve designed a model to ensure that job openings use inclusive language, and are already analyzing our Equality Plan, diversity policies and working to create a network of allies and support programs for all our LGTBI co-workers who need it," he said Amilibia
The first edition of the LGTBI Atlantic Conference
Experts from across the world gathered to celebrate the event and discuss different areas of focus to ensure that the human rights of the LGTBI community are respected.
The speaker panel featured Frank Mugisha, executive director of 'Sexual Minorities Uganda; Iñaki Viñuela, representative of Gaylespol, who spoke about sexual affective diversity in Law Enforcement Agencies; or Toño Abad, head of the LGBTI-UGT Confederal Area, who focused on LGBTI-phobia at work.
The Atlantic Conference on equality, diversity and inclusion provided an ideal occasion to learn how to build diverse communities that take full advantage of their population’s potential.