Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance appoints international equality campaigner, Tiernan Brady as Global Head of Inclusion

Leading international law firm, Clifford Chance has appointed Tiernan Brady as its first Global Head of Inclusion. Tiernan brings extensive experience in developing effective equalities strategies, having been integral to the successful campaigns for equal marriage rights in Ireland and Australia. His role at Clifford Chance will focus on tackling the full spectrum of inclusion and diversity issues.

Tiernan was formerly Executive Director of the Equality Campaign where he designed and led the campaign strategy for the successful vote in favour of marriage equality in Australia which passed in November 2017. This followed his role as a Political Director for Yes Equality, the main campaign vehicle for the same vote in Ireland which passed in 2015. Ireland and Australia remain the only two countries in the world to have introduced marriage equality by a public vote.

Tiernan's other roles have included building cross-party political support in Ireland to successfully deliver civil partnerships and supporting HIV prevention, as part of Ireland's leading LGBT+ network, GLEN. He has also held political roles, including as Mayor of his birth town in County Donegal and was the director of election campaigns for Ireland's then Deputy Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Irish Parliament.

Laura King, Global Head of People and Talent at Clifford Chance commented, "We are delighted that Tiernan is joining our team. While we believe we have made good headway on promoting the importance of all aspects of inclusion and diversity in the firm, we know there is a lot more to do in terms of delivering tangible results in a number of areas. Across the firm, there is a very high level of commitment to making progress. With his strong track-record of winning hearts and minds and in driving sustainable and systemic change, we are confident that Tiernan will be able to bring a fresh perspective and invaluable additional impetus to our efforts across the firm."

Tiernan Brady commented, "I am excited to be joining the team at Clifford Chance and look forward to building innovative and engaging campaign approaches to deliver enduring and unifying change. The leadership in Clifford Chance is truly committed to leading and shaping diversity and inclusion, both within the firm and beyond. Diversity and Inclusion is good for our people and their families, our firm and our clients and society in general. My experience of campaigning in both Ireland and Australia showed how influential global firms, and equally importantly the staff in those firms, can be when they take a leadership position on diversity and inclusion. Clifford Chance understands this and is determined to forge that leadership role on diversity and inclusion. Clifford Chance is one of the leading law firms in the world and that is the standard that we seek to set for ourselves on diversity and inclusion as well."

Matthew Layton, Clifford Chance Managing Partner commented, "Achieving our vision of becoming the global law firm of choice is dependent on us being able to recruit, develop, support and engage the best talent. That is critical for our clients and for the future of our organisation. I am looking forward to working with Tiernan and learning from him about how we can challenge ourselves as individuals and as leaders, at an organisational and industry level, to build a culture where diversity of ideas, background and experience are not only welcomed but put at the heart of our success."

Supporting inclusion and diversity has long been part of Clifford Chance's values and strategy. In addition to training, mentoring, reverse mentoring and role model programmes, the firm has well-supported networks for gender balance, LGBT+ and ethnic minority groups in many of its offices globally. Members of the firm have been recognised in recent high-profile awards including in the OUTstanding LGBT+ Allies list (Narind Singh, Eraldo Atri and Nathan Eastwood) and the EMpower Future Leaders list of Black, Asian and minority ethnic role models (Chinwe Odimba-Chapman), both presented by the FT. Clifford Chance was also one of the first firms to sign up to the UN Standards of Conduct for tackling LGBTI discrimination and achieving Mansfield Certification in the US.