Fabrice Houdart Executive Director, Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors

Fabrice Houdart is the executive director of the newly created Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors. Houdart is a member of the L'Oréal Global Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board. He serves on the editorial board of the Women's Forum. Houdart serves as an expert witness for the California Department of Justice (DOJ) on the issue of corporate boards diversity.

Houdart was previously human rights officer at the United Nations in New York from 2016 to 2020, where he worked on Free & Equal, an unprecedented United Nations campaign for LGBTQ+equality. He coauthored and led the United Nations Global LGBTQ+ standards of conduct for business, the largest corporate social responsibility initiative on LGBTQ+ issues in the world.

From 2001 to 2016, Houdart was senior country officer at the World Bank. At the bank, he authored economic development analyses on Yemen, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Tunisia and provided contributions to the 2012 Gender World Development Report (WDR) and the 2011 Conflict, Security, and Development WDR. He holds a BA in economics and management from Dauphine University in Paris and an MBA from American University in Washington, DC.

Houdart volunteers on the boards of Outright Action International, Housing Works, Fondation Émergence (governor), TransNewYork, Witness to Mass Incarceration (president), the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (treasurer), and the Institute of Current World Affairs (trustee). He is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA), and a member of the Impact Guild. He is a member of the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC.

In 2019, Houdart received the Golden Gate Business Association Award, the IGLTA Pioneer Award, and the Alan Turing LGTBIQ Award for his work on LGBTQ+ rights. He was ranked second by Yahoo Finance among LGBTQ+ public-sector executives globally in their 2019 Outstanding list, and listed among Crain's Notable LGBTQ Leaders and Executive 2020 and 2022 and among the 100 LGBTQ+ trailblazers by London-based Attitude magazine in 2021. In 2022, Linkedin named him among its top 10 LGBTQIA voices and theBoardlist named Houdart one of the Top 10 Candidates You’d be Proud to Have in Your Boardroom. The National Association of Corporate Directors listed him among the 100 most influential governance experts the same year. He was interviewed by The Economist and Al Jazeera, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Foreign Policy magazine, and The Guardian on issues pertaining to human rights of LGBTQ+ people and the business and economic case for LGBTQ+ equality.

He lives in New York City with his twin sons, 9-year old Maxime and Eitan.

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