Drag Race star to appear at launch on Thursday.
GLOBAL drinks giant Diageo plc is to host a number of events throughout July celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community globally.
It will also host a major launch event in London at its headquarters in central London, on Thursday (9) recognising its partnership with Queer Britain Museum.
The multi-national firm is to host around 80 Pride Progress flag-raising events in different parts of the world during July.
Events will be led and coordinated by the Rainbow Network (an employee resource group within Diageo).
“Celebrating Pride is not just the right thing to do, it’s a way to ensure our employees feel they can bring their whole selves to the workplace, every day”, the company reminded its workforce through their official web page.
Diageo kicked off its Pride activities last Wednesday (1) with the largest Progress Pride flag-raising event ahead of July’s events.
In May, the company formally began its new two-year partnership with Queer Britain – the UK’s first national LGBTQ+ museum in London.
The museum sets out to celebrate 50 years of LGBTQ+ Pride in the UK, and this is the first partnership of its kind.
Queer Britain will engage with archivists from firms like Guinness and Johnnie Walker to upskill volunteers and develop archive best practices to help the museum preserve LGBTQ+ history.
The agreement will see the global beverages firm not only give funds for the opening of the facility but also resources to assist the museum’s archivists in their quest to build a valuable collection of tales and artefacts.
The newly opened museum at King’s Cross’s Granary Square is intended to promote interaction, education, celebration, and connection.
John Williams, Diageo’s global Scotch director explained “Pride is an important moment for Diageo to come together to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community and for everyone to reflect and learn what more we can do as a business and society to create a more equal place to live and work.”
Williams added: “I’m personally looking forward to our amazing partnership with Queer Britain which celebrates the fantastic contribution the community has made to the UK’s history and culture as well as the unmissable Drag Bingo on the 8th of June featuring Ru Paul’s Drag Race fan favourite Alyssa Edwards.”
The North America Rainbow Network in partnership with the Smirnoff Brand Team will be joined by Alyssa Edwards, star of Ru Paul’s Drag Race for a virtual Drag Bingo.
Since taking over as CEO of Diageo in 2013, Ivan Menezes has been committed to increasing the company’s diversity and inclusion.
In 2020, he unveiled ‘Society 2030: Spirit of Progress,’ a new 10-year environmental action plan.
The strategy outlined objectives such as boosting ethnic minority participation in senior roles to 45 per cent by 2030 and increasing the number of Diageo suppliers that are female or minority-owned businesses year over year.
In 2021, Diageo launched its fifth global ‘INC’ week (Inclusive Culture), an employee-led, grassroots programme that encourages workers throughout the world to celebrate diversity.
In the UK, Diageo was an early supporter of the CBI’s (Confederation of British Industry) effort to improve racial and ethnic diversity in business, dubbed ‘Change the Race Ratio’.
Subscribe for our weekly news letter here!
You can unsubscribe us at any time
