By Abe Fangman, MBA2025
A little more than two years ago when I was considering my options for business schools, I had all the traditional factors in mind. How will this school help me reach my career goals? What unique programmes do they offer? Whose class ski trip sounds the most fun? But most importantly for myself and many other LGBTQ+ people I had one question on my mind: will I be able to attend this school without sacrificing my authentic self? Or will I simply feel like a diversity checkbox that then doesn’t feel like I belong the second my payment clears?
Coming from my background as civil engineer for the US Army in the American South I always felt like being gay was a professional liability for me, as both my industry and region were deeply conservative. Despite being out to my family and friends, the only person I was out to in the office was my manager, and even that was only due to feeling compelled to do so in response to homophobic remarks made by coworkers. While he was very supportive then – and remains so as a friend and mentor – I knew it was in my best interest to keep quiet about my personal life in the office despite that otherwise not being the norm for others. Thus, I spent most of my pre-LBS career constantly dodging questions about my personal life, pretending I was single (I wasn’t, which caused strife with my then boyfriend), and generally putting on a façade to come to the office. My coworkers constantly talked about their respective hetero partners and families, and I pretended I didn’t have anyone like that in my life. Over time this wore down on me considerably, as I felt considerable shame for lying constantly just to come into the office, even though I thought I’d left my fear from being closeted far behind.
The key lesson from this for me was that my professional and personal lives are heavily intertwined. I knew if I really wanted to succeed in the former, I couldn’t continue camouflaging the latter.
As such, I spent a significant amount of time reaching out to the student ambassadors for the programme. I was fortunate enough to be connected with the then Out in Business presidents Jay Hamilton and Cameron Martin (both MBA2023). I told them my concerns, and my idealised version of myself that would be brave enough to overcome them. They thoroughly encouraged me, not just through the application process, but also to virtually attend EUROUT that year. I stayed up until 4AM Nashville time to watch their opening remarks and was immediately hooked by the event. It was the first time in my life I’d ever truly seen queer people not just existing in the professional sector openly but thriving and embracing their identity as a key part of their story.
This contrasted other programmes I was accepted to. Some had no LGBTQ+ club at all, others did but weren’t recognised by their university as they were deemed “a political club”. So for me, once my acceptance email came from LBS the choice was obvious.
I started with Out in Business early, months before I set foot on campus, by planning the EUROUT Ball (the best party at LBS) and helping connect other LGBTQ+ classmates with the club whenever I met them. This naturally led to my time leading our Community Engagement team with my friend Cami Munoz (MBA2025) giving us considerable purview to bring people together all across LBS. To me this was exhilarating, being the first time in my life that I felt a sense of belonging in a proper queer community from all around the world. But Out in Business does far more than just social events. We also hosted professional events across a myriad of industries, sessions to highlight our DEI efforts, and phenomenal cross-events with our Inclusion Club peers (Black in Business, Women in Business, & First Generation, Low-Intermediate Incomes). All of this made Out in Business the key highlight of the first year of my MBA.
The culmination of this is EUROUT, the biggest conference LBS hosts throughout the year, and the largest LGBTQ+ business school conference in Europe. It has all the trappings of a great MBA event – prominent companies, different industries, a global audience of attendees – but it is so much more. The passion that is put into it in the 8 months of planning prior is unmatched, encompassing its own team of 30+ students, a dedicated board of directors, and a wide variety of very generous corporate sponsors who make it all possible and affordable. The content of the weekend covers all kinds of business topics, but also the unique struggles we face as queer people and how that impacts business and the world. Hearing Matthew Hodson of National AIDS Map and Stephanie Fuller of Switchboard speak to their decades of experience serving LGBTQ+ community members in need were deeply important to me, and gave the audience a clear vision of how far the fight for queer rights and acceptance has truly come. But what stuck out most to me was the very first question from the audience, from an undergraduate student who said that this was the first time in their life they had ever been in a room with 400 queer professionals. It was the same for me as well and was a deeply empowering experience to feel such a sense of community for the first time in my professional life.
I can say honestly that Out in Business has provided me with some of my lifelong best friends, and a loving community of 50+ that supports one another more than any else I’ve ever found. It is my home at LBS and London more broadly and has made me feel accepted since day 1 on campus. Furthermore, it has given me the confidence I needed to truly succeed in my career and to be a genuine leader.