Mohsin Zaidi Keynote Speaker

Author of award winning book, A Dutiful Boy (Penguin, 2020),
Advocate for LGBT rights, BAME representation and social mobility
Named a top future LGBT leader by The Financial Times, and featured in The Lawyer Magazine Hot 100

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Mohsin Zaidi's Biography

Mohsin Zaidi is an award-winning author, commentator, qualified lawyer and keynote speaker on diversity, inclusion, mental health and justice.

Mohsin’s memoir, A Dutiful Boy (Penguin, 2020) won the Polari Prize, the Lambda Literary Award and was named Guardian, GQ and New Statesman Book of the Year. The Guardian described his book as ‘a profound meditation on the power of the human heart to transcend the contradictions of diverse cultures and create something new…utterly compelling…providing a lesson of acceptance for us all, and for the future of our multicultural society’ and The Times called it a book that will save lives.

Mohsin is an advocate for LGBT rights, BAME representation and social mobility, and he sits on the Stonewall board. Mohsin regularly features on Sky News, and contributes to media publications including CNN Style, Bustle, Mr Porter and Newsweek, among others. He was listed by The Financial Times as a top future LGBT leader and in The Lawyer Magazine Hot 100.

Mohsin was the first person from his school to go to Oxford University, and subsequently qualified as a lawyer at Linklaters. He is a management consultant at advisory firm Hakluyt. Previously, he worked at a UN War Crimes tribunal in The Hague and as Judicial Assistant to Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson at the UK’s Supreme Court.

Mental Health

Mohsin addresses the stigma around mental health within ethnic minority communities and draws a parallel between it and a cultural stigma around discussing mental wellbeing at work. Through very personal and at times harrowing tales, Mohsin articulates the case for honesty in personal identity within yourself but also at work and amongst colleagues.

Social mobility

The single most pressing issue of diversity facing society and businesses is the one to which we give the least attention. While measures of equity on race/gender/sexuality move in the right direction, the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Through personal experience of growing up in a council house and going to school ridden with gang violence (a school from which he became the person to go to Oxford University), Mohsin addresses the issue of class bias and discusses what we can do about it.

D&I / Intersectionality

None of us are just one thing and Mohsin is the personification of an intersectional life. On race, Mohsin has the facts and figures to back up the experiences of ethnic minorities we so often hear about in the news. On class, he speaks candidly about the difference between the world he came from and the world he now lives in. On sexuality, he describes the struggle to accept yourself in the face of cultural stigma. But the strength in his experience lies in the intersectional tale it tells.

The power of representation

Through eye opening stories in a professional and personal context, Mohsin explains how diverse representation in key roles doesn’t just demonstrate a commitment to being an inclusive organisation but adds value to it.