Steven Friel
Steven Friel (Jesus, 1996) is Chair of the Cambridge University LGBT+ Alumni Association.​
Previously partner at two of the biggest law firms in the world, Steven is now Chief Executive at Woodsford, a global collective redress business. He seeks to hold the world’s biggest companies to account when there have been catastrophic breakdowns in corporate governance.
Steven has appeared in every annual ranking of the world’s top lawyers by the independent directories Chambers & Partners or Legal 500 since 2007:
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“He seems to have limitless energy to explore things, and he’s extremely sharp... held in high esteem... very impressive. He has a razor sharp legal mind, is intellectually curious, and has strong business sense.”
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Since graduating from Cambridge in 1999, Steven has at times been in the vanguard of LGBT+ advocacy within law and finance, for reasons that were not always his choice. One example is instructive. As the first, and for a long time the only, openly gay partner at one of the UK’s biggest law firms, his firm’s insurers demanded that he take a HIV test before they would include him in a ‘key person’ insurance policy that covered the highest billing lawyers at the firm. The demand was apparently prompted by the change in his marital status from single to ‘in a civil partnership’, in the year when Steven and his husband became one of the first gay couples in England to take that initial step towards marriage equality. No other partner at his firm had ever been asked to take a HIV test.
Steven records:
“Of course, it wasn’t the HIV test in itself that was the problem. I encourage all sexually active people to know their HIV status. It was the combination of being singled out as a gay man, and the certainty that a positive HIV result would lead the insurers to refuse cover, which in turn could prejudice my career, that made me angry. So I refused, and I led a campaign among a number of City firms to threaten to pull business from the insurer unless it changed its policies, which I considered homophobic. A few sternly worded letters and heated meetings later, I celebrated my tiny contribution to better treatment for LGBT+ people in the City”.
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Steven and his husband were one of the first gay couples to enter a civil partnership, and one of the first to ‘upgrade’ to marriage when it became possible seven years later. They were also part of the first wave of gay couples to legally adopt children in the UK. Steven co-founded P3, now one of the UK’s biggest organisations dedicated to supporting LGBT+ parents.
Steven was listed as one of the 'PwC – Top 10 Inspirational leaders' by the British LGBT Awards, and as one of the ‘Top 100 Gamechangers’, in partnership with Citi, which recognises 100 inspiring people who are helping to change the game for LGBT+ diversity, equity and inclusion across the global financial services industry.