The 23 most powerful LGBT executives in the world in 2015

Bickell heads the FTSE 350 Real Estate Investment Trust and is also a board member of Freehold – the LGBT group for real estate professionals. He is a member of Property Week’s OpenPlan diversity panel and an ambassador for gay charity Stonewall.

Swaffield was given the accolade for being in charge of one of the major business success stories of the past year as well as talking openly about his sexuality. He restructured Monarch, which is projected to turn around a profit of £100 million ($155 million) this year from a £94 million ($146 million) loss previously.

Furnish gained a lot of power after becoming legendary musician Elton John's partner, and he used his influence and his position at Rocket Entertainment Group to champion LGBT rights in a number of ways. This included pushing for marriage equality. Furnish and John became one of the first gay couples in Britain to get a civil partnership.

Clarke, speaking to OUTstanding, said "WH Smith adopts a clear results-driven culture, where individuals succeed on merit alone irrelevant of sex, age, disability or sexual orientation. Openly gay people are therefore promoted on merit every bit as much as everyone else. As a result, being gay at WH Smith is simply not an issue."

Schultz leads growth marketing, analytics, and internationalisation for Facebook and is involved with the group's LGBT product initiatives. He joined the company in 2007 and is also active in Facebook’s LGBT Employee Resource Group.

Wood is not only one of the most senior employees at Bloomberg, he also takes time to mentor LGBT staff and has spoken at a number of events, panels, and conferences about being an openly LGBT leader in business. He was awarded an MBE in 1995.

Burgess heads one of the 20 largest banks headquartered in Florida. In 2006, aged 34, Burgess became one of the first openly gay investment bankers at Morgan Stanley to be promoted to Managing Director and then in 2014, became the first openly gay CEO of a publicly traded bank in the US.

Gooding is one of the most senior directors at Aviva Group. Not only is she responsible for the leadership, oversight and governance of brand and marketing strategy worldwide she is also a sponsor of the LGBT employee network Aviva Pride, and was elected Chair of Trustees of Stonewall in May last year.

Vega is one of the most senior executives at the Dow group and works with most of the countries senior leaders as part of his Chief of Staff role. He also advocates workforce equality and represents Dow’s Gays, Lesbians & Allies at Dow (GLAD) employee network as management sponsor.

Grenfell-Gardner was until recently the only openly gay CEO of a public company in the US. He has consistently made sure his workplaces are welcoming to the LGBT community and installed corporate non-discrimination policies and health and family benefits.

Dijk is one of the executives that manages a large international team across 43 countries. He is also one of the most influential LGBT advocates as part of his role as Global Executive Sponsor of Google’s LGBT employee resource group dubbed the “Gayglers.” OUTstanding noted that under Dijk’s direct leadership, Google released a form of advertising that had a global impact – it was of a story of a transgender individual.

Evangelisti reports directly to CEO Jamie Dimon at one of the world's largest investment banks. He has the hard task of heading all media relations and corporate communications worldwide for JPM as well as playing a key role in the company’s Global Diversity Initiative.

Bingham is the most senior LGBT partner in the UK & Ireland accountancy firm of EY. She is an influential advocate of LGBT rights inside and outside work. She was awarded an OBE for her work in developing LGBT equality in the workplace this year.

Van ‘t Noordende is a major employer, with 9,000 employees under his watch. He has also been out since he first started at Accenture in 1987. He is seen as a role model because he is involved in expanding the company’s LGBT networks around the globe.

Watson became the first British Citizen and first non-American citizen to be appointed to the Board of Directors of GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBT media rights advocacy organization, in October 2013.

Bailey is responsible for over 11,000 employees at the iconic British fashion brand Burberry. He has won various fashion accolades, including Menswear Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards, and is a vocal supporter of LGBT rights and equality.

Brooke-Marciniak is seen as a champion for LGBT issues after she came out in an "It Gets Better" video in 2011. She has spoken at a number of events related to LGBT rights and has also been named as one of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women eight times by Forbes.

Reed is the executive sponsor of BP’s Pride Affinity Network and according to charity Stonewall, this enabled BP to rise up the rankings from 250th, to 22nd in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index.

Brind-Woody is one of the most senior executives in one of the world's largest companies –IBM. She is also the Global Co-Chair for the IBM LGBT Executive Taskforce. His work in creating a number of successful initiatives to promote best practice at companies concerning LGBT rights has been shared and replicated across the world across corporations and sponsors 41 diversity network groups across 30 countries.

Rothblatt is the joint leader at a $3 billion bio-tech company. She is an openly transgender leader who has extensively talked about her transition to raise awareness. She also authored the book "Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender."

Simoes, a former Goldman Sachs banker, was awarded the 2013 OUTstanding LGBT role model of the year award. He has spoken publicly about "diversity and authenticity, linking this to his leadership experience of being an out gay man in banking," said OUTstanding.

Joyce became the leader of Qantas in 2008 and under his watch the group became one of the first companies to officially support Australian marriage equality.

Beale is the first female CEO in the insurer's 327 year history in 2014. She is also openly bi-sexual has been instrumental in the launch of Pride@Lloyds – an internal LGBT employee resource group.