Stephanie Battaglino: Inclusivity Speaker
Workplace DEI speaker and transgender leadership expert Stephanie Battaglino helps organizations build inclusive, high-performing cultures through lived experience, strategic insight, and transformative LGBTQ+ workplace education.
Quick Facts:
- Highlights:
- International keynote speaker on DEIB and LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion
- Founder of Follow Your Heart, LLC
- First transgender executive to transition at New York Life
- Recognized as a LinkedIn LGBTQIA+ Top Voice
- Formats: Keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, DEIB consultant, and executive trainer
- Audiences: Corporate leaders, HR and DEI teams, employee resource groups, and organizations committed to inclusive workplace transformation.
- Outcomes:
- Greater understanding of transgender and non-binary inclusion in the workplace
- Practical strategies for building belonging and psychological safety
- Stronger leadership alignment around DEIB values and action
- Travels from: Palm Desert, CA
- **Fee range: On Request
Talent Services
Keynote Topics:
Reflections from Both Sides of the Glass Ceiling
Finding My True Self in Corporate America
- Male privilege is a very real thing – it pervades all aspects of society, especially in the workplace, but what happens when you do not have it anymore?
- Stephanie was the first transgender person and appointive officer to come out – on the job – in the 160+-year history of New York Life – and in so doing had that happen to her
- Suddenly the glass ceiling is a very real thing. Is it because I am transgender? Or is because I am a woman in the workplace?
- The Good News is that she was accepted as a woman in the workplace, and the Bad News is she was accepted as woman in the workplace
- Stephanie’s unique and very personal experience provides a powerful trailblazing story of inspiration, self-discovery and perseverance
- Uniquely relevant in the #MeToo age
Reflections You Can’t Rest on Your D&I Laurels - Moving From “Policy to Practice”on Vulnerability and Privilege
- There are many companies that already feel they have “punched their ticket” with respect creating a workplace that is welcoming to LGBTQ+ individuals of all stripes – in particular the transgender community.
- But as Stephanie uniquely points out, this work is far from over, in fact it is ongoing.
- Stephanie takes you on a journey on how to move your enterprise’s inclusion efforts from policy creation to literally imbuing your company’s culture with the principles it needs to embody this inclusion – each and every day, with each and every employee and with each and every interaction
The (R)Evolution of the Transgender Workplace Equality Conversation
- This information – packed talk informs your audience about all the necessary information and key issues that face the transgender community – inside and outside of the workplace
- Stephanie, through her own unique brand of personal storytelling, leads your audience through each of these areas with a sincerity and passion that can only be delivered by someone who has navigated the journey of discovery to her truest self.
Talent Short Bio
Stephanie Battaglino is an internationally recognized speaker, author, trainer, and workplace diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging consultant. She is the founder and owner of Follow Your Heart, LLC and a leading voice in LGBTQ+ workplace equality, with a particular focus on transgender and non-binary inclusion.
Stephanie brings more than four decades of senior leadership experience within Fortune 100 companies, including her groundbreaking career as a corporate vice president at New York Life Insurance Company, where she became the first transgender person to transition on the job in the organization’s 165-year history. Her work bridges executive-level business strategy with deeply human storytelling that resonates across industries.
Known for her warm, candid, and engaging delivery, Stephanie helps organizations confront complex DEIB challenges while offering practical, actionable pathways to create truly welcoming workplaces. Her speaking and consulting work supports leaders, HR teams, and employees navigating gender identity, belonging, and organizational transformation.
Read Full Bio
As the founder and owner of Follow Your Heart, LLC., Stephanie Battaglino is an internationally recognized speaker, workshop presenter, trainer, author, coach, and workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant.
A major voice in the LGBTQ+ workplace equality movement with emphasis on transgender and non-binary individuals, Stephanie casts a bright light on all of the pertinent Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) issues that companies and organizations must face to successfully transform their workplaces into a truly welcoming environment for all of their employees.
Stephanie’s warm and personal style has engaged and enlightened her audiences wherever she speaks.
She currently sits on the Board of PFLAG National, where she also serves as the Chair of the organization’s Business Advisory Council. She has proudly served on the Boards of the following organizations: the LGBT Community Center of New York and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF).
Stephanie Battaglino has been named to LinkedIn’s inaugural group of LGBTQIA+ Top Voices and GO Magazine’s 100 Women We Love 2022 list which celebrates women who’ve made significant achievements in their respective fields.
Stephanie’s new book, Reflections From Both Sides of the Glass Ceiling: Finding My True Self in Corporate America chronicles her life as a corporate vice president at New York Life Insurance Company, where she was the first transgender person to transition on the job in the 165-year history of the company. It is part memoir, part cautionary tale of what it is like to experience a career on both sides of the gender divide. Stephanie Battaglino frank, honest and vulnerable storytelling paints a vivid picture of what the intersection of gender and gender identity looks like from a decidedly unique point of view.
Stephanie possesses over 40 years of management and leadership experience in marketing, advertising and communications within the Fortune 100. Stephanie Battaglino holds a BA in Communication from the University of Delaware and an MBA in Marketing from the Samuel L. Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
She is also a graduate of the prestigious UCLA Anderson School of Management’s LGBT Leadership Institute. She resides in Palm Desert, California with her wife, Mari and their cats, Aengus and Fionna.
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