A compelling look at the challenges facing LGBTQ+ people as they navigate their careers - with advice from senior professionals who have smashed their own rainbow ceilings.
*2025 Axiom Business Book Award winner and a Forbes Top 10 Business Book of 2024*
A compelling look at the challenges facing LGBTQ+ professionals as they navigate their careers - with advice from many senior figures who have smashed their own rainbow ceilings.
There are currently only four LGBTQ+ CEOs across all Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies who are out at work, and just 0.8% of Fortune 500 board positions are filled by LGBTQ+ people. This deficit, occurring across sectors and around the world, reveals a diversity gap playing out in today's workplace: LGBTQ+ people are less likely to reach the top jobs. But what is holding LGBTQ+ people back at work - and what can be done?
Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling explores the hidden differences that cause LGBTQ+ people to be underrepresented at the most senior levels of professional life. Combining data with personal insights from over 40 prominent LGBTQ+ trailblazers, from CEOs to Ambassadors, Layla McCay reveals the challenges that LGBTQ+ people commonly encounter as they find their way in work environments, and provides the practical strategies that can help empower LGBTQ+ people to reach their full professional potential.
The book explores how everyone - from boards, CEOs, managers, HR professionals and colleagues, through to LGBTQ+ people navigating their own career paths - can recognize and address the barriers, achieve their career goals, and build a more inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive and succeed.
In the decade since Lord Browne published
The Glass Closet it's disheartening to see LGBTQ+ folks on both sides of the Atlantic enjoy fewer protections than they did 10 years ago and still encounter inequalities in the hiring process and in the workplace. Layla's research is therefore both important and timely: more than ever we're relying on corporations to step into issues of social justice, and today's managers need more guidance than ever before. My hope is that this book will help more LGBTQ+ folks rise to positions of leadership, and in turn inspire the next generation.
