The Corporate Governance Closet: A Queer Analysis

By Pr. Darren Rosenblum, Full Professor & Associate Dean (Graduate Studies), McGill.
Introduction by Pr Vincent Forray, Professor, Sciences Po Law School.

Corporate America’s top echelon is a party, brimming with unimaginable wealth and fueled by the most lucrative jobs in all civilization. But this is one party where out LGBTQ+ folk are not welcome. When we talk about corporate LGBTQ+ leaders, most of them are not visible. They remain in the closet, which allows them to rise the straight ladder up the corporate hierarchy. At the same time that the closet retains so much power over the corporate elite, Nasdaq, the world’s second-largest stock exchange, adopted a comply-or-disclose rule to encourage board diversity that included “LGBTQ+” people, specifically people from “queer communities.” Why is the closet so powerful, and what does queer theory have to say about inclusion? These questions drive this Article’s agenda. Through robust engagement with queer theory, social science and corporate governance literature, this Article argues that inclusion is less about checking boxes and more about changing corporate culture. Rather than focus solely on including people who openly identify as LGBTQ+, efforts instead should focus on weakening the heteronormativity that undergirds corporate governance.