What being part of BP Pride means to me: Eddy’s story
Key to BP’s drive for inclusion, safe space training courses are open to everyone at the company. Eddy was inspired to become a part of this process
Eddy joined BP in 1997. Since then he’s seen a lot of things change
Day to day he works as a service portfolio manager in Identity and Access Management – this means he’s responsible for on-boarding new employees onto BP’s internal systems. But his real passion lies in driving the diversity & inclusion agenda as co-chair of BP Pride, one of BP’s internal employee groups. In the last 10 years, BP’s diversity and inclusion agenda has taken off. As Eddy puts it, “you can make a difference and you are respected for who you are”.
Joining BP Pride
Four years ago, Eddy attended a safe space training course organised by BP Pride. Key to BP’s drive for inclusion, these courses involve workshops, presentations and discussions, and are open to everyone at the company. Eddy was inspired to become a part of this process.
“I believe that a lot of the inequality and discrimination that we see in society comes from misunderstandings and people just not knowing”, he says. “BP Pride is about educating people, helping them to learn more about LGBT+ topics and showing them what it feels like to be excluded”.
After co-presenting his first session, Eddy hasn’t looked back and has been working as part of the team ever since. BP Pride aims to reach as many people as possible and Eddy’s work comes with a lot of responsibility.
The team organises events, coordinating activities related to flagship events such as London Pride and Transgender Week, and is focused on sharing information internally.
Pushing for progress
In particular, Eddy is proud of BP Pride’s work formalising BP’s transgender transition guidelines. The guidelines, which give advice to line managers about how to work through the transition of a transgender person, have been officially adopted by the company. For Eddy, “some of the work we are doing in the transgender space, we couldn’t have dreamt of five years ago”. This is what inspires him to keep advancing towards equality.
Another of his focus areas is on progress outside of the UK, specifically in Asia Pacific. “My vision for the future is that in every region, you can be who you are at BP regardless of your sexual orientation or gender identity. The dream is for me not to be needed anymore!” he says.