With her shiny blond hair, nails polished pink and personality radiating pure vivaciousness, Pippa Bunce breaks like a ray of sunlight through the cloud that has been hanging over the Swiss bank.

«Expression is so important,» Pippa Bunce said, perfectly done up for our 30-minute zoom interview.

From the age of five, she didn’t want to stick to dressing only as a boy. «Luckily, my family was accepting, where home was a safe environment in which I could show who I was and how I felt,» she said.

Coming Out at Work

Then came work, and coming out in the IT department of a bank was another thing altogether: «I was fed up with living a lie, I didn’t want to pretend to be someone else anymore,» she said.

Seeing gender-fluid and non-binary friends take their lives because they weren’t able to cope with a binary environment, in which they did not feel included or accepted, also «made me determined to stand up to make things better,» she said.

A Credit Suisse program launched in 2014 to foster LGTB+ and allyship among employees, encouraged her to come out at work as gender fluid and non-binary, both part of the wider trans spectrum of identities.

«First, I thought it was a scary thing to do, not knowing how people would respond to my new appearance and what the consequences would be for my career,» she said.

Empathy and Humility

Instead of simply turning up to work one day dressed as a woman, she approached human resources first and together they figured that the best way to come out would be to talk to her work colleagues in advance to prepare them. 

What followed «blew me away,» she said. Confronted with so much support, empathy and humility from colleagues, she asked herself why she hadn’t picked up the courage earlier.

By showing vulnerability others opened up, giving Bunce the feeling that she belonged. «Being your true self at work and being accepted for it is key to doing a good job,» she said.

High-Level Support

This sense of belonging is a value that Credit Suisse is trying to uphold in its policies and training programs aimed to educate managers about inclusive leadership.

The programs get people to take a step back to learn about how important actions, behavior and language have, she says.

Bunce hasn’t looked back once since making the decision to be open at the bank which led her on what she calls a «transformative and humbling journey,» which she treasures along with the support she received from her employer, including from the bank’s chief financial officer David Mathers, to become the role model she is today.

Win-Win

A journey recognized by the British Diversity Award, which Bunce received in the category of inspirational role model earlier this month.

She is delighted about the award. It is also a testimony to the importance of banks' diversity programs.