London Stock Exchange names first-ever out gay CEO in its 300 year history
Julia Hoggett is the new CEO of the London Stock Exchange. (Youtube/Bank of America)
Julia Hoggett has been appointed the first-ever out gay chief executive of the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
The LSE poached Hoggett from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), where she has worked since 2014. She will start her new role in 2021.
In a statement Tuesday (8 December), she said: “I am delighted to be joining London Stock Exchange plc, and the wider group, at a time when London’s role as a global financial centre is so important.”
Hoggett is the first out LGBT+ leader of the exchange in its more than 300-year history. She is the second woman, following Dame Clara Furse, who ran the exchange between 2001 and 2009.
The incoming chief has long been a champion for diversity in the financial services sector. In a previous interview with the LGBT+ business network Out Leadership, she said: “The thing I love about banking is it’s a meritocracy. If you are good, you succeed. I have not felt being a woman was an obstacle or being gay was an obstacle.”
She credited being LGBT+ with making her “more fearless”, adding: “In some ways, fewer things phase you after overcoming the very real fear of coming out.”
Her career has included stints at banking giants such as JP Morgan, DEPFA Bank and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. While at JP Morgan, she is reported to have organised the first gay and lesbian recruiting event in the City of London.
Last year, JP Morgan joined a boycott of Brunei-owned hotels after the country introduced death by stoning for gay people.
New London Stock Exchange CEO Julia Hoggett is daughter of ex-Supreme Court president Lady Hale.
Julia Hoggett has also campaigned to reduce barriers for women returning to work after childbirth. She is a mother herself, sharing two children, Patrick and Amelia, with her ex-wife Anne.
The new LSE chief currently commutes between Dublin, where her children live, and London, where she lives with her partner Wendy. They live on the same road as her mother, the former Supreme Court president, Lady Brenda Hale.
The London Stock Exchange’s previous CEO, Nikhil Rathi, left earlier this year to take up a senior position at the FCA. Denzil Jenkins has been acting as the interim chief executive since then, and will continue until Hoggett takes up the role.
Murray Roos, Group Director of Capital Markets at the LSE group, said: “I look forward to working with Julia as we continue to build on our position as a leading financial markets infrastructure business and the world’s international exchange.”
