Rikki Arundel
Inclusion programmes are under pressure. Boards want to keep their commitments to LGBTQ employees, particularly trans and non-binary staff, without political theatre or legal exposure. The hard part is moving past awareness slides into managers actually behaving differently when a colleague comes out, a customer complains, or a policy is challenged.
Rikki Arundel is a UK speaker and trainer who helps organisations turn trans and non-binary inclusion from policy language into everyday behaviour, drawing on an MSc in Gender Research and more than two decades of lived experience.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Rikki Arundel
- A category-defining UK voice on trans and non-binary inclusion at work, with the rare combination of an MSc in Gender Research from the University of Hull and twenty years of lived experience as an openly trans speaker.
- Inaugural recipient of The Speaker Awards Lifetime Achievement Award (2024) and a PSAE Speaker Hall of Fame inductee, signals that this is a senior practitioner, not a first-person-story booking.
- Founder and first president of the UK and Ireland Professional Speaking Association, which means a level of platform craft that allows hard subject matter to land with executive audiences without defensiveness.
- Practical content for managers and ERG sponsors: what to say when someone comes out, how policy holds up under challenge, and where unconscious bias actually shows up in promotion and customer-facing decisions.
- A track record across police forces, NHS trusts, financial services and government, including Sussex and Surrey Police, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, Fidelity International and the UK Atomic Energy Authority.
Biography highlights
- Founder and first president, Professional Speaking Association (UK and Ireland).
- MSc in Gender Research, University of Hull.
- PSAE Speaker Hall of Fame, Professional Speaking Association.
- Inaugural Speaker Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, 2024.
- Named one of 50 LGBT Icons in the 2017 UK Pride 50th anniversary list.
- TEDx speaker, including “Why is Gender Identity so Important?” at TEDxFidelityInternational.
Biography
Most organisations have a trans inclusion policy. Far fewer have managers who know what to do when an employee comes out at work, when a customer files a complaint about pronouns, or when a journalist asks how the company will hold its position. Rikki Arundel’s work sits in that gap between policy language and operational practice.
The credibility for that work is unusually layered. Rikki founded the Professional Speaking Association in the UK and Ireland and served as its first president, then publicly transitioned in 2002 and rebuilt a speaking career around gender and inclusion. An MSc in Gender Research from the University of Hull underpins the content, and a PSAE Speaker Hall of Fame induction reflects the platform craft.
The substance is practical. Rikki separates sex from gender for non-specialist audiences, walks managers through the moments where inclusion is actually tested, and addresses how policy holds up when challenged externally. The aim is behavioural change inside teams, not awareness for its own sake.
Recognition has tracked the work. The Speaker Awards named Rikki the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in 2024, and Rikki was listed among 50 LGBT Icons during the 2017 UK Pride 50th anniversary. Clients include Sussex and Surrey Police, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, Fidelity International, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, and Atalian Servest UK and Ireland.
Key speaking topics
- Trans and non-binary inclusion in the workplace
- Sex, gender and social identity
- LGBTQ discrimination and harassment
- Unconscious bias in recruitment and promotion
- Inclusive leadership for managers
- ERG enablement for Pride and LGBT History Month
Ideal for
- CHROs and DEI leads designing inclusion programmes that need to survive external scrutiny.
- ERG and Pride network sponsors planning LGBT History Month, Pride and Trans Day of Visibility events that have to do more than mark a date.
- Line managers and people partners in regulated sectors, including policing, healthcare, financial services and government.
- Boards and executive teams seeking a credible briefing on trans inclusion before a public position is required.
Audience outcomes
- A working separation of sex, gender identity and gender expression that managers can use in real conversations.
- Specific scripts and behaviours for the moment a colleague comes out as trans or non-binary at work.
- A clearer view of where unconscious bias actually shows up in hiring, promotion and customer-facing decisions.
- A framework for ERG leaders to plan inclusion content that is substantive rather than performative.
Talks
A keynote that gives managers and executives a working understanding of trans and non-binary identity and what it means for everyday workplace decisions.
Key takeaways:
- A practical separation of sex, gender identity and gender expression for non-specialist audiences.
- The moments where inclusion is actually tested, from coming-out conversations to customer interactions.
- What good looks like for managers, ERG leads and senior sponsors after the talk ends.
A TEDx talk delivered at TEDxFidelityInternational that frames why gender identity matters for individuals and for the organisations they work in.
Key takeaways:
- Why gender identity is a workplace issue, not a personal one.
- The cost to organisations of getting trans inclusion wrong.
- A reframe that helps non-specialist audiences engage with the subject without defensiveness.