Ivy Wong is trying to make workplace diversity the most important driver of positive change for LGBTQ people in mainland China
Ivy Wong is the ultimate ally. The Shanghai-based co-founder of corporate advisory and training consultancy Diversity and Inclusion Consulting, her work involves educating companies about the importance of LGBTQ inclusion, driven by a belief that the workplace is emerging as the most important safe space for LGBTQ people in mainland China.
A native of Hong Kong, she admits that she came to LGBTQ equality fairly late, while she was a student at the University of Hong Kong.
“As a person growing up in Hong Kong, I didn’t know what LGBT was,” she says. “At university I studied psychology and sociology, and part of that was gender concepts. It really just opened my mind. I was kind of fascinated: that people aren’t just straight or gay, but on a spectrum. This kind of concept reversed what I thought about society. I had a lot of curiosity. I wanted to learn about something that was super different from me, so I immersed myself in the LGBT community.”
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The concept of combining business and social impact fascinated me