Media Releases

Out on Bay Street promotes diversity in Canada’s business community with new organization and annual conference

September 23, 2010

TORONTO, ON — For the fourth year in a row, the Out on Bay Street con­fer­ence will bring LGBTQA uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents in busi­ness, eco­nom­ics, law and engi­neer­ing togeth­er with inclu­sive firms from cor­po­rate Cana­da. Named after Toronto’s Bay Street, the sym­bol­ic cen­tre of busi­ness in Cana­da, the con­fer­ence fea­tures edu­ca­tion­al work­shops on a vari­ety of career-ori­ent­ed LGBTQA top­ics includ­ing men­tor­ship, legal issues, and diver­si­ty, as well as a career fair, and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. The event will be held on Sep­tem­ber 23 to 25 at the Court­yard by Mar­riott in down­town Toron­to.

But the con­fer­ence will also be the kick-off for the launch of Out on Bay Street as a non-for-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion which will pro­vide year round ini­tia­tives with ded­i­cat­ed pro­grams in net­work­ing, lead­er­ship and men­tor­ing.

“Our vision is to cre­ate pro­grams that will fos­ter growth in all aspects of our member’s pro­fes­sion­al careers,” says Lucy Zhao, the inau­gur­al pres­i­dent of Out on Bay Street and con­fer­ence chair. “We will cre­ate a nation­al pro­gram that will encour­age uni­ver­si­ties and busi­ness to be more inclu­sive and will allow all stu­dents to come to a place in their edu­ca­tion and pro­fes­sion­al careers where they can ful­fill their poten­tial.”

New to the con­fer­ence for 2010 will be the launch of Out on Bay Street’s Women Ini­tia­tive with a pan­el dis­cus­sion fea­tur­ing female cor­po­rate lead­ers to be held on Sep­tem­ber 23 at Lola’s Com­mis­sary. “We have the pow­er to estab­lish our­selves as a tru­ly diverse orga­ni­za­tion and the Women’s Ini­tia­tive will play an impor­tant role in address­ing women’s issues in the work­place from a LGBTQA per­spec­tive,” adds Zhao.

A gala din­ner will close the con­fer­ence with keynote speak­er Scott Bri­son, the Lib­er­al Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Kings-Hants (Nova Sco­tia). He is a key Lib­er­al Par­ty spokesper­son on eco­nom­ic issues and cur­rent­ly serves in the Offi­cial Oppo­si­tion Shad­ow Cab­i­net as the Lib­er­al Par­ty Crit­ic for Finance.

TD Bank Finan­cial Group is the title spon­sor of the event with thir­ty one addi­tion­al spon­sors from the worlds of law, media, mar­ket­ing, pub­lic health, mar­ket­ing, pack­aged goods, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and finance pro­vid­ing sup­port.

The con­fer­ence is orga­nized by a team of busi­ness and law stu­dents, under­grad busi­ness stu­dents, and recent grad­u­ates from uni­ver­si­ties in the Toron­to area.

Com­plete con­fer­ence details, includ­ing reg­is­tra­tion details for stu­dents, are online at www.outonbayst.org.

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
416.946.3818
mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca