How we celebrated Pride Month 2024

Fifty-five years after the Stonewall riots ignited the spirit of Pride Month in New York City, the movement has come a long way. Today, Pride Month is all about celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community and serves as a reminder of the ongoing challenges they face.

At smartclip, inclusivity isn’t just a June thing—it’s a year-round commitment! But Pride Month gives us a chance to shine even brighter.

Here’s how we celebrated and supported the LGBTQIA+ community within and beyond our walls this Pride Month. 

Our CEO spoke about his commitment to fostering diversity at smartclip

Creating an inclusive workplace takes a team effort from everyone at every level. The biggest impact often comes from passionate leaders. Our co-CEO, Thomas Servatius, shared what Pride Month means to him and how he plans to use his role to keep making smartclip an even more inclusive and welcoming place to work.

Members of our leadership team shared insights on making adtech companies more inclusive

While we’ve made great strides in queer rights, there’s still a lot of work ahead, especially in the adtech world where LGBTQIA+ folks aren’t yet fully embraced and treated equally. Our Co-CEO, Thomas Servatius, has been instrumental in championing inclusivity at smartclip. In addition to him, other members of our leadership team—Christian Osterhues (VP of People & Culture), Shira Leffel (VP of Marketing & Product Education), and Gloria Eichler (CPO at smartclip)—teamed up to share their ideas on how adtech companies can create more inclusive workplaces. Dive into the full article here! (Highlights also featured in NewDigitalAge 🇬🇧 and Horizont 🇩🇪).

We invited an expert to speak to smartclippers about LGBTQIA+ inclusion at work

Educating ourselves is key to being good allies, and what better way than learning straight from an expert? That’s why we invited Christian Boß, Project Lead at the PROUT AT WORK Foundation, to enlighten us on queer equality and inclusion at work. Christian highlighted the hidden challenges LGBTQIA+ people face in the workplace and shared specific ways every colleague can help create a more open environment, encouraging everyone to be their true, authentic selves.

Co-CEOs spread Pride and inclusivity with surprise gift packs

Our co-CEOs also surprised every employee with a special Pride gift pack. Inside, they penned a heartfelt letter celebrating Pride Month and highlighting the importance of inclusivity at smartclip. It was a sweet and colourful reminder of their commitment to creating a workplace where everyone can be their true selves. 

More from the RTL universe

We are proud to belong to a company that is just as passionate about diversity and inclusion as we are. Here’s how the rest of the RTL Universe celebrated Pride Month: 

• Executives and colleagues across RTL Group shared what Pride Month means to them in a video shared across social platforms.
  
• RTL Deutschland unveiled a dedicated intranet page brimming with content and updates about the be.queer@RTL network.
  
• be.queer@RTL orchestrated a virtual reading session featuring the book “Pride Began on Christopher Street” written by Christian Handel and Andreas Suchanek.
  
• The Bertelsmann be.queer community marked its seventh anniversary with a special celebration including a meeting with Thomas Rabe, the CEO of RTL Group.
  
• All employees across the RTL Universe received a special invitation to join RTL Deutschland in the Christopher Street Day Parades in Cologne and Berlin. 

At smartclip, we live and breathe diversity! Embracing inclusivity isn’t just a checkbox for us—it’s woven into our daily fabric. While Pride Month may be a blast, our initiatives are here to keep the party going all year long.