Hello and welcome. Clout for Good is a bi-weekly podcast that showcases personal and powerful conversations with prominent LGBTQ plus executives who are out in the workplace. The conversations are meant to create a supportive community and inspire LGBTQ people, their employers, and the allies to build equity and inclusion in the workplace. Today, I'm excited to welcome Drew McCaskill, who's a LinkedIn career expert and is a senior director of corporate communications at LinkedIn.
He's the author of a monthly LinkedIn newsletter called The Black Guy in Marketing, where he offers career resources for professionals of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ plus community. Before joining LinkedIn, he led diversity and inclusion strategy for the global sales, marketing, and public affairs functions at Facebook, and led consumer marketing and global communications at Nielsen before that. Andrew has given consumer and cult... Hold on, let me start. Let me pause.
Got too many, too many words. It's a long bio, I don't know if you need to read it all. No, it's okay. Andrew has given consumer and cultural analysis in the New York Times, USA Today, Forbes, Fortune, Sirius XM, BET, and Adweek. Andrew's also an investor and culture consultant with two early stage tech startups. Andrew, welcome to Clot for Good. Hey, thanks so much for having me, David. Yeah, I'm excited to have a conversation with you today. So let's jump right in.
Let's start by discussing identity and authenticity, which I know is really important to you, but tell us a little bit about how you identify and maybe talk us through your coming out journey in the workplace. Sure. My name is Andrew McCaskill, and I identify as a black gay man. So my pronouns are he and him. And, you know, for me, my journey to sort of understanding where to interject or to intersect my being out was really a long-tailed journey.
I mean, it took a long time for me to be comfortable an out proud gay executive. I think there's a unique politic for being black, gay, and visible at work. For me, I have always been confronted with the fact that racism still exists in corporate America. We like to dress it up in more palatable terms like bias, but racism exists. And I had the luxury, and I do think of it as a luxury, I don't like to say privilege per se, but the luxury of having the option to choose when to come out, right?
Because I do think that there's a modicum of privilege in being able to choose and decide when to come out because so many of our LGBTQ plus siblings don't always have the luxury of being able to decide for themselves and having that power sort of taken away from them.
I think for a lot of black queer folks, grow up in spaces where, you know, we may be, we may have to confront the fact that we risk discrimination for the color of our skin, but also sometimes, you know, discrimination for being queer at the same time, right? And so comfort for me has been the product of time and growing confident in the value of my work. I felt I had to prove myself in professional spaces before I had the luxury of saying, oh, by the way, I'm gay too.
And so I think that is, I think that that's the case for a lot of us for different reasons. I felt like I had to earn my spot or showcase my value before. I had the luxury of saying, oh, by the way, there's one more thing too, that you should probably know. And I mean, I'm a Gen Xer. So I was, I wasn't a product of growing up, you know, thinking I'm going to be out and gay and proud all the time and, or that I'm going to have, or, and that, that is my right to be able to do that.
I grew up in a very different area. I'm a, I'm a product of the seventies. I'm 47 and I recently got married. And my husband is a centimeter younger than I am. And he's from a different generation. Even at the point where we were embarking upon getting married, he had this idea since he was a kid of what his wedding would look like. And I thought, wow, what a luxury to be able to think like that or think about that. Whereas I grew up in an era where that wasn't even a thing or a possibility.
right, even into my 20s, right, that wasn't really a thing. And so, um, my hope is that, you know, I mean, you know, I, I'm encouraged by all the representation that we're beginning to have, but we still need more, you know, Yeah, for sure. Well, and I like that reference to delivering the work. That's step one. And certainly guests on the podcast have certainly reiterated that. And when then, Drew, when then did you make that decision? I feel comfortable. I'm now ready. Tell us about that.
Tell us how that went for you. Okay. So I'm going to tell you about, about it, how I had to stop it. I had a start when I get to pay, when it comes to coming out. I like the other new, new LinkedIn data says that about 75% of queer people, queer professionals have code switched in the workplace. And I was code switching quite a bit when I was in my early part of my career, I was senior vice president at a midsize PR firm. I grew up in an ad agency PR firm world. And, um, I had.
Um, I was the senior vice president. I had a pretty big P and L, but my company had this amazing Christmas party. It's where all of our, you know, our partners would come and it was this big deal. And I'd finally, you know, fallen in love. I had been a very single gentleman. Um, and, uh, I had finally fallen in love and there's something about love that makes you brave. Um, no matter who you are, um, there's something about love that makes you brave. And so I had this.
boyfriend and I was excited about him. I was going to introduce him at the Christmas party. I was so excited. And right before I was going to come out at the Christmas party and bring him as a date and that's going to be my thing. And someone at work said something. I was putting a young guy up for promotion and someone at work said something. They made a statement. They said that he was light in the loafers and they didn't know how clients would handle that.
I realized in that moment, I was like, Whoa, I'm having a conversation about someone's career and their sexual orientation has now become a part of the conversation. And I made the decision right then and there that I would not come out. I said, I'll never come out here. And I worked there for another, you know, almost two years and I didn't come out there. And there were a handful of people who knew or whatever. But I said it my next job.
David, I was like, my next gig, I'm coming, I'm walking in the door, swiping my badge, rainbow flag around my neck. I'm Drew, I'm here and I'm queer, right? And so I got in the process of, I'd been recruited by Weber Shandwin, which was like number two PR firm in the world. And I was in the process and I was saying, oh, well, maybe I, it's weird to come out now in the recruiting process.
That's- And then I was in the negotiation process and I was like, well, I definitely don't want to come out in negotiation process because that could be even more odd. And then we got to orientation after I got the job and I was like, okay, well, it's kind of weird to say, hi, I'm Drew, I'm gay. Right. Um, and so what I realized for me is that authenticity matters.
And for me, um, I was not authentically the person with the rainbow flag tied around their neck, swiping my badge, walking through the door every day. And I was authentic, who I was authentically as an out gay man was I was the guy who put the picture of my partner kissing me on the cheek on my credenza. This is back when you had an office and we are all working from home. And I let and I sort of let it be and I eased into it, David. And that's what worked for me.
Right. And I got a chance to like, when people asked me, I was like, oh, let me tell you about him, you know? And that was my way of just sort of like being, right? But what I learned from that is I learned to give people a lot of grace. Even I, as a person who was not out at work, had a lot of prejudgments about what you were supposed to do or what you were supposed to look like as an out gay professional, right? right.
what I learned from that was I learned to give myself and other people grace around authenticity and figuring out what works for them. And that's so important, right? Um, when I look at our new data around LGBTQ plus folks, um, that feel like 71% of the folks that we talked to said that they felt that they'd been passed over for a promotion or a raise when they were not code switching. And I remember.
Um, you know, I worked in a very conservative industry in the, in the beginning of my career and I was a senior leader and I was in Boston, um, uh, for it to see a client and my uncle who had been an early executive at Polaroid, um, I decided to, instead of going to a hotel and staying with my uncle and I was watching sports center and my uncle knows me and he knows that I wasn't a big sports guy and he said, why are you watching this?
And I said to him, quite honestly, I said, hey, I'm the big black guy. And all of my clients are 40, 50 year old white guys, straight white guys who when they see the big black guy, they wanna talk to me about basketball and football. They're not gonna talk to me about the fact that I just saw Wicked on Broadway. They're not gonna talk to me about all these other things that I'm really, really interested in. And I said, I want to not just survive at work.
I wanna thrive at work because relationships matter. And so I'm doing what I feel like I need to do, which is a form of code switching, right? To be able to relate to my clients because my clients have to like me. And my uncle who, you know, is an older generation, he was like, kid, you're going to make it. That's the smartest shit I've heard all day. He was like, that's exactly what you should be doing.
Right. So I tell my, you know, I tell my millennial husband that exact same story, years later, and he says, oh babe, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. He says, oh babe, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Right? And so generationally, I think that there are some nuances to what we feel like was necessary, but I always caution younger queer professionals to the fact that survive is one thing. Thrive is another.
And there's a certain aspect of relationship building and code switching that many of us will still have to do because your peer group is one thing, but many of the decision makers in your career right now are not your peer group. They grew up and grew up through the ranks of corporate America in a very different way.
And so, And as much as I truly believe that there are places where people can be their authentic selves and thrive, what I don't wanna do is I never want to give young people of color and young queer people this horrible advice about bringing your whole self to work. That is such bad advice. And I say that with caveats, right? My company, does not need 3 a.m. in Ibiza, Drew, at work every day. It does not need bottomless mimosa Drew at work every day.
It does not need Drew five minutes after he's watched the Rachel Maddow show at work every day, right? Cause that Drew will not necessarily be on mission, right? But I do think that the world of work does need our authenticity and needs the benefit of our lived experience and for us to be able to come into our offices and share the perspectives that are unique to us because our differences can be our superpowers. They absolutely can.
But those differences as it relates to being authentic and being honest and being transparent. But I think that the onus is still on companies and corporations and organizations. and allies to create safe spaces for people to be authentic. And authenticity is not necessarily about, you know, about the clothes we put on our back or about those sorts of things.
Authenticity is oftentimes most closely related to our lived experience and what we, and what our identity, how that nuance of our identity shapes our. thinking and our strategy and our problem solving, right? Because that's what our companies need from us most. Yeah, and a couple of things, Drew. One, my first two managers in my career were from the same generation. My first two managers talk about the extreme in code switching. I came out in my first job. Oh, hang on.
It says we're trying to reconnect. You're clear as a bell on my side. So two of my first managers in my career, after I had come out in my first job, I was out in the workplace, not advocating, not leading, but I was out. And my manager gave me two invitations to two holiday parties. This is in Atlanta in the early 90s. And I said, you're having two parties? I mean, is there one for work, one social? And he said, one is my... gay community and one is my straight community.
I think that's to your point about generations and where we are and I think that's surprising. Then my next boss and my next position, he retired and had never come out. After he retired, I find out he's been with his partner for 35 years. His partner is a very successful marketer as well. And so it's not that long ago, I guess, is what I'm saying. And a guest in one of the earlier episodes said, you know, as gay people, we've become experts in reading rooms.
We've become experts in trying to figure out how can we fit in and what and where are we going to share and when. You know, and I think, you know, as you said, finding those safe spaces, you know, some of your data, you know, two in three LGBT identified folks believe hiding their identity helps them. So even though generationally we may have made progress, it's still the numbers are staggering in the fear and the doubt, and will this affect my career, my promotability, et cetera.
What, as you started to talk about safe spaces and otherwise, what advice might you give, or even what tools and resources might exist through LinkedIn and your network, what advice might you give sort of a younger queer professional? someone who may not be younger, but they're, they're starting to say, you know, I've had enough. I want to start to becoming more authentic and showing up more authentically at work. What advice might you give folks that are contemplating that?
Yeah, such a good question. I mean, I honestly think that, you know, the first thing is, I say this to any professional, but particular professionals from underrepresented groups is that you've got to build a professional community. I call mine my personal board of directors, but then also a community outside of that. And you need people from really diverse backgrounds as your advisors and part of your professional community. because you need people who are rooting for you to win.
And oftentimes the people that you have in your professional network are people that you can learn certain things from. So my partner and I are thinking about family planning right now. So there's, you know, there are more dads, particularly gay dads in my professional circle. And I've been really intentional about that because I want to show up as a great partner and I'm still gonna have a good job, you know, so that I can pay for all of this stuff, right?
And I want to have a great career and I want to be a great father and I want to be a great partner. I think that building your network and leaning into your network, you've got to find your people. You find your flock, right? Is what I always say. And having people around you to ask questions, to support, to rehearse it with you if you want, if you think I'm thinking about coming out and people to lean on if it goes well and if it does not go well. So I think that that's one of the things.
I think you've got to be really secure in who you are as a professional. before you make that decision, really secure and understanding who your allies are today and who, you know, and how you build community after you decide to come out, right? I don't think that you should wait until the day you come out to start engaging queer professionals at work, right?
I think that there's a bit of strategy that even comes along with deciding when to come out because the reality is for most of us is that coming out as a journey and not a destination. It's a unique experience for every single person. And I feel like I've come out many times in my career. But so the number one thing is that you've got to find your flock, build a network of people who will be supportive of you and supportive of you in how you decide to do it.
And at what rate you decide to come out, right? The other thing I would say is once you do come out, if there are communities already built in at your office, like employee resource groups, I would say, find your flock at work as well in terms of employee resource groups. The other thing I think is really important is you've gotta figure out how you'll respond and react to the questions that you get, right? Because you will get some questions. That's great advice.
Yeah. start to think through that, right? So that you're not caught off guard or you don't answer emotionally, right? Oftentimes, because it's still work. And so I think that the thinking through what your coming out plan is, I think is really, really helpful and being able to have support at work and it's support at home. But for folks who are thinking, hey, I'm a gay person and I really wanna find I want to be able to figure out how to look for better, you know, for better environments, right?
I think that there's a lot of things that you again, tapping into your network, other queer people will give you the real deal facts on what it's like to be queer at certain companies. Um, I think you can, if you're, if you're on LinkedIn, following other queer voices on LinkedIn, we have LinkedIn top voices, um, of LGBTQ plus professionals and executives. I think looking into professional organizations like Out and Equal or some of the many organizations for LGBTQ plus professionals.
I think about the things that I learned at Lesbians Who Tech last year. I'm not a lesbian, but I'm in tech and I learned so much there. And figuring out how like out leadership some of these organizations that really do have some great examples and blueprints for how to navigate your career as a queer professional.
The other thing I think too is like finding like tools, like if, if inclusion is a, is a core value of yours and you're in the job search, I mean, there are things like our values filter on LinkedIn. If you're searching for a job, you can. I'm going to turn off my outlook. I'm sorry. Sorry about that. I'm just going to say that last part again. Even though it was a long-winded answer, I probably should.
No. There's also, if you're looking for a job, there's also the LinkedIn values feature that allows you to literally search for a job. And it'll only show you jobs from companies that have core values that you've outlined through the filter, like inclusion, like financial benefits, like family planning benefits and things like that. And you've got to know your why. Why now? Why do you want to come out? What's your rationale?
Because once you identify what your why is, it makes so many of the other decisions that you make about coming out easier to make. And it makes so many of the responses and reactions that you get after coming out easier to take when you can go back to your why for me, my coming out was about I was in love and I was, and I didn't want to have to hide that thing.
And I also didn't want to go into my new job and my new environment with this thing that I was waiting for the other shoe to drop on, right? Right, right. no longer felt like being a gay man was going to be a deterrent in my career. And so some of the things that I think are some of the reasons why people say that they don't want to come out at work. Some of us are internalized, right? Some of it is absolutely the environment.
We know that all of the legislation that's out there now that's anti LGBTQ plus legislation, there's a ton of rhetoric out there that is that is anti LGBTQ plus. But sometimes we've internalized these barriers to our being out and being able to thrive at work. And then for me, I'd had a mindset shift around it.
I was at the point where I felt like I am confident in my skills, I am confident in my experience, I am confident in my resume, and I am confident in my ability to find great work, do great work, and thrive. no matter what my identity is. And I don't want to hide. And that was the biggest determining factor for me. I knew what my why was. My why was I just didn't wanna hide anymore. Yeah. Well, and Drew, you know, clearly you decided to do that. You haven't looked back. You you know what?
You started out in roles that maybe didn't have specific D and I responsibility and over your career, you've assumed and led and do today really impact organizations, your own and others through the work you do. Tell us a little bit about once you once you once you figured out that, why you came out. How did that? change your career trajectory? How do you think that impacted where you've now sort of landed today? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I feel like I came up when I came out, right?
Um, I, I looked at my, the things that made me different as assets. And I knew that it could help me solve problems differently. I was a, my voice was a differentiated voice in the room. And once I achieved some modicum of success at work, um, I felt like, how can I start to sort of use the fact that I am a trusted advisor? Um, to not only help people in general, but like to help people who, um, identify in the same way that I identify.
And I also found opportunities to, to connect my, um, my experience and my understanding of the queer experience to business, um, outcomes. When I was at Nielsen, I was a part of the team that, that helped. to add, Nielsen does television ratings and they operate in 106 countries around the world. One of the major things that we were trying to do was to figure out how to better measure viewership for LGBTQ plus professionals. And I grew up in Mississippi on a dirt road, right?
And so part of the, you know, I was on the team that said, how do we get to a place where we can actually measure LGBTQ plus viewership? How do we get that data? And we worked really, really closely with queer advocacy groups.
And, you know, part of my perspective was it's very easy for us to walk up to, you know, a brownstone in Brooklyn or an apartment in San Francisco or, or Los Angeles and ask people their identity and to, and to self-disclose what their sexual orientation is, um, or what their gender journey is. That is not as easy in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. That is not as easy in Jacksonville, Florida. You know what I mean? That is not as easy in Aiken, South Carolina.
And what we had to do, and it took us two years to do it, but we got to, I was a part of the team that brought LGBTQ plus measurement to television ratings. And we did it by being empathetic. We did it by. being really realistic about the fact that the lived experience of queer people is different from the lived experience of heterosexual people and we did not shy away from it. And we had queer people in leadership there, but we were also smart enough to know that we couldn't go at it alone.
And once I saw that, I was like, oh, there's so many other things that we could, you know, that I could do as a leader. I was the executive sponsor, the global executive sponsor for our pride group there for five years. We did so many amazing things, like everything from making sure that PrEP was covered in our insurance, but not only PrEP, but making sure that the testing for PrEP was covered, even if you were not already HIV positive, but just if you were on PrEP and as a prophylactic, right?
So many things that we did for employees to help them be able to thrive, not just survive at work, but thrive. Um, that I was really, really proud of. Right. And so, um, there are a lot of things that, you know, that we saw, I let our work to own, um, just how we engaged, um, communities of underrepresented groups and, you know, I became a leader in that work and, um, I think that part of what was beautiful about being able to. do an amazing job as a marketer, right?
Because I had responsibility for US consumer marketing. And then I said, part of what we needed to do as a hundred plus year old company was we needed to sort of reintroduce ourselves to younger consumers. What I always sort of leaned into was I leaned into the data and I knew that, you know, 48% of millennials were people of color. And So we had to speak to them with specificity and authenticity.
And so once we started to do that, we also started to look at the data and that more people were coming out, more people were being more comfortable, um, with their LGBTQ plus identity. And we wanted to make sure that we were speaking to these consumers with specificity. And that was part of my job. And the biggest thing that was, that gave me a lot of excitement was that our clients started to say, Hey, y'all do this really well. Can you like give me an idea of like how we should approach?
And one of the first things that I said to them when we were talking about LGBTQ plus consumers, I was like, you do realize that gay people are gay all year long and not just in June, right? And I was like, you can't just do your whole gay push in June, right? And Pride is not about, you know, rainbow balloons and feather boas on floats, right? That it's always been a protest.
I mean, celebrate pride by, you know, taking a stand and, you know, instead of spending $20,000 on a float and a parade, maybe make sure that your insurance covers prep and all of the clinical testing for it. Like, tell a great story of what you've done all year round for, you know, for these underrepresented groups and not just, you know, on hallways for 30 days. And that's true for Hispanic heritage month that's true for black history month, right? right.
Well, I mean, the work at Nielsen sounds amazing. And the work that you're doing now, obviously, I think for folks to visit LinkedIn and look at those top voices, I just learned today about this values opportunity. I think that's amazing. Because I think part of this process in navigating your career, as someone who again has been in the workplace for a while is it's eventually, To be honest, from my perspective, it's you realize what you don't want.
So whether it was that situation you found yourself in with a manager questioning one of your employees and talking about their identity, but the experience that you accumulate, you figure out really what you don't want, which allows you to get to your why as you say it. I think it's really, and I think some of these tools can really help get you there sooner, because you've got accessibility to those. Well, Drew, one last question. People love to know the... the answer to this.
People love to see what my guests say about this. But clearly, people are going to take away a lot of really great insights from our conversation. But I'd love to ask you, if you were to host a Clout for Good dinner party, you were going to honor, you were going to invite folks that either just, they inspire you, maybe they've mentored you. Who are some folks you might invite from the queer community, either living or not? Who are some folks you might invite? And why?
Why would you want them at your Cloud for Good dinner party? Yeah, I love this. I love this question. I think the first one that I would invite has to be James Baldwin. James Baldwin's writings really shaped my thinking when I was a college student. And one of the things that Baldwin says really has sort of shaped just how I think about my career too.
And I always tell young people that whether you're coming out or whether you're taking a stand at work, lead with great results, but be authentically you, especially when it's uncomfortable, right? Discomfort at work is oftentimes a gift, and discomfort will drive you to find places where you can thrive as your truest self.
And James Baldwin said something, he said, "'You have to go the way your blood boils.'" And I think that that's where that's been the biggest shift in my career is I've always been a marketer. I've always been a communications leader. Now I have married my purpose and my mission with the work that I do in helping people better navigate the world of work. And that is where my blood boils, right? And so I think that that's one.
The other person that I would add to that is a friend and an author, a guy named Clay Kane. He's the host of the Clay Kane show on SiriusXM, and he is an author. He's interviewed some of the most iconic black artists, as well as folks in the political sphere. He is a out-proud gay man who has recently won awards for a series that he's done on his show. where he speaks to people who have been exonerated by DNA evidence now that the DNA evidence has gotten better.
And Clay is a journalist and he's funny and he does great karaoke. I would add Clay to that. I would definitely add Clay to that list. And then the final one and someone else who I just am marvel at is Bayard Rustin. And he was one of the architects of Martin Luther King's March on Washington. He was an unsung hero for many, many years.
Most people who covered, who have written extensively about the civil rights movement did not understand that Bayard Rustin was this black gay man who really was the architect of the March on Washington. He, when I say architect from beginning to end, like he advocated for it, he wrangled all the right people, he convinced Martin Luther King to do it. And Coleman Domingo. who is also somebody I love, had a dinner party just because he's a marvelous to look at.
And he's an amazing, he's an amazing actor. Um, played Rustin in the new movie on Netflix, um, that the Obama's produced.
And, um, Bayard Rustin was just, I would love to hear the stories that, um, should have been in the epic autobiography that I wish someone had written or biography that someone had written about his life in the in the struggle, his friendship with Dr. King, as well as his very interesting personal life, because there's some interesting things about his personal life that I think would just be delicious to hear about. Well, that sounds like an amazing party.
I, you know, I don't know Clay and we'll certainly listen to his show and learn more. But, you know, Coleman Domingo, obviously outstanding performance. I know that he won the BET outstanding actor award for both that and Color Purple this year, which was pretty fantastic. And, you know, it's pretty amazing as you watch Rustin. It's a story that's just being told now. It's It's amazing that story has been sort of hidden or just untold for so long.
But, you know, and James Baldwin, of course, having such an impact on so many of us that have all read his work and learned a lot about him. So I love it. Well, Drew, thank you so much. Listen, thank you for what you do. Thanks for being on the show. as well. It was great. It was really, really insightful. And I know the listeners are going to get a lot out of your out of your stories and also your recommendations. So thanks for joining. Oh, thanks for having me. This is great. Yeah, thank you.
And to all of my listeners, thanks so much for joining us today. Please tune in every other Wednesday for a new episode of Clout for Good. Follow us on social, visit cloutforgood.com to subscribe to our newsletter. I hope this episode motivates you to use your clout for good to make a difference in your workplace.