Gunnlaugur Bragi Björnsson, the President of Reykjavík Pride, rang the Icelandic Stock Exchange bell at 9.00am on Thursday morning to celebrate a new collaboration between the two organisations, Vísir reports. The aim of the partnership is to get a conversation going around the status of LGBTQIA people in the business world, as recent studies published in the US have shown, for instance, that gay men are less likely than straight men to become senior executives.
“The goal is to start a conversation, to start an informed conversation that will then lead to increased awareness about the status and rights of LGBTQIA people, [as well as] ways to improve the circumstances of LGBTQIA people and in so doing, improve the business world overall,” remarked Páll Harðarson, president of NASDAQ Iceland.
Although the issue has not really been taken up in Iceland thus far, but the so-called “gay glass ceiling” has already become a topic of discussion in places like the US and UK. “…[T]he situation is not what it should be,” said Páll.
“Studies in the US show that gay men are more likely to become middle managers than straight men, but they are, on the other hand, much less likely to become high-level executives,” said Gunnlaugur Bragi.
