How a job at Lloyds helped Aaron, 28, get out of the business

For Aaron Miller, a high-profile job in finance “was never part of the plan.”

“I grew up in north London, in a small building with a big family,” the 28-year-old business support manager tells SentidoG, reflecting on his journey from a closed-off teenager struggling to find his place in the world. To a thriving professional at Lloyds Banking Group. “I had no connections to finance, and no one in my family worked in finance.”

Haroun, who describes himself as a “theater kid,” admits that he felt like an “outsider” during his childhood and adolescence. “You could never pronounce it, but you knew you were different compared to the other kids, especially boys, you were spending time with,” he recalls.

“I was very afraid, I hadn’t really grown up with anyone in my life who was openly gay that I was particularly close to. You know, you had the internet and the media, but it always felt completely distant and irrelevant to my day-to-day life.”

It was not until he was 19 (at which time he began his apprenticeship in investment banking) that Aaron felt able to talk to his mother, followed soon after by the rest of his siblings and family. With supportive family members and a thriving career, it might be easy to assume the rest will fit right in, but it would take more than half a decade before Aaron felt comfortable at work, something he attributes to a fear of “standing out” at work. Environments where integration appears to be encouraged.

“The places I used to work, unlike Lloyds, were like, ‘Do your job and get out,’” Aaron recalls. “You don’t really talk about your personal background, you don’t talk about your feelings, you don’t talk about your identity. It’s very simple: “Get on with your job and get on with your life.”

“There was really no way in, and almost no community or any group gave me that ‘permission’… to myself to say, ‘There’s a group of people I can talk to,'” he adds.

Aaron joined the Lloyds Banking Group team about two years ago and says the difference in company culture was evident from the start, which ultimately gave him the confidence to fully embrace and celebrate every aspect of his black and gay identity in front of his colleagues.

“One of the first days I came in, the directors made it very clear: ‘Hey, we have all these partnerships and they’re very important; “We try to get all our colleagues involved.” And it was like, “Oh, people really care about you as an individual, not just you as a worker (and) the work you can produce.” (It’s) “What are you really contributing to making the lives of your other colleagues more comfortable?”

“I think I found my safe space.”

Rainbow, Lloyds Banking Group’s network of LGBTQ+ colleagues, is committed to connecting, developing and supporting LGBT employees across the business, as well as using their lived experience and skills to inform the bank’s customer-facing inclusion work. . With over 5,000 members and followers, it is one of the largest networks of its kind in the UK.

“It’s a space where I’ve gotten to know some colleagues well, but I’ve also used our shared background and understanding to help other colleagues feel comfortable, whether they’re LGBT+ or not,” says Aaron enthusiastically.

“I always tell myself: ‘I could have used a network like this when I started out.’ “I think I would have felt more comfortable being who I am much sooner.”

“You can totally be gay and work in banking,” he adds.

However, the Lloyd’s Rainbow network is not just having a transformative impact on internal staff: a key part of the bank’s ethos is allowing its diversity to be reflected in its services, which has included introducing pronoun badges for people working across branch networks and becoming the first UK-owned company to expand Its special medical benefit includes gender confirmation therapy.

Through long-term co-sponsorship of the SentidoG Awards and volunteer and fundraising efforts supporting charities such as Mermaids, MindOut, Albert Kennedy Trust, Opening Doors London and Waverley Care, the real-world impact is being felt.

“The bottom line is we’re trying to make this the best place to work for all of our associates as well as the clients we serve,” says Aaron. “Because there are going to be customers who look like me and talk to me or look like me too, and we need to make sure we meet their needs.”

“Because, at the end of the day, we are not really a bank without our community,” he adds.

Having found his own professional tribe at Lloyd’s, Aaron stresses the importance of presenting himself as an ally to others who may still be fighting their own battles in the workplace and beyond, especially for the trans and non-binary community, whose lives continue to be disproportionately disproportionate. They dominate the media cycle.

Now a proud leader in equality, diversity and inclusion, Aaron Puentes highlights a series of insightful sessions with trans colleagues as one of his proudest achievements with the Lloyd’s Rainbow Network.

“It was just a conversation with them about their career, their journey, what they do, their history and things like that,” he explains. “It was very much… ‘This is who I am as an individual, this is my perspective, this is how I feel about certain things,’ and (you can) listen to a trans person instead of someone who seeks to marginalize them, and you can form your own opinion from that.”

As someone who spent the early years of his career not feeling empowered to talk about his true identity at work, Aaron knows firsthand how important it is for allies to create a space for his colleagues to talk about their life experiences.

“I can talk about being gay, I can talk about being black…but making sure that you’re an ally especially to a very marginalized group, I think that helps a lot with mental health, helps with everyday struggles,” he says.

“If you feel comfortable, talk about things; you’ll be surprised who listens to you. “The concept of partnership means it’s easier for all of us to bear that burden.”

“Look out for your people, and everything will be fine,” he concludes.