Ozzie Gromada Meza is Director of Membership and Talent Intelligence at the Latino Corporate Directors Association and has spent 11 + years in the executive recruiting space. He is an advocate for LGBT and Latino causes, and is currently based in Reno Nevada and holds a number of committee and volunteer roles.

Our conversation starts with the role of the Latino Corporate Directors Association and the fact that Latin-x individuals remain seriously underrepresented at Board level. We speak about the progress that is needed in this area, and the small degrees of change that are already happening at state level, particularly in California.

We then turn the conversation to the state of LBGT inclusion, at every level in the workplace, but we note that as in the case of the Latino population, LGBT role models are also sorely lacking at Board level and in other executive roles. We discuss Ozzie’s own journey, which, in his case, had two speeds – one speed in the workplace, where he found a nurturing circle of colleagues who allowed him to be his authentic self. His personal and family life operated at another speed, and we talk about how he reconciled the two.

Finally we talk about the particular difficulty that some LGBT parents have in finding true inclusion in the workplace and Ozzie discusses what supports have been most helpful in raising his twins with his husband.

This podcast was made possible with the kind support of David Mooney, as well as Tom Soto of the Diverse Communities Impact Fund.