Lord Browne raises questions over City 'homophobia He made the comments ahead of this week's Out on the Street summit, where he is due to speak on the subject alongside Brian Heyworth, global co-head of financial institutions at HSBC, and James Leigh-Pemberton, Credit Suisse's UK chief executive. The summit, the first of its kind in London but which follows two similar events held in the US, is designed to raise awareness of issues surrounding homosexuality in banking and related professions. In a series of candid comments, Lord Browne, who chose not to publicly disclose his sexuality until a former lover took the story of their affair to a tabloid newspaper in early 2007, said that he does not know whether he would have risen to the top of BP if he had been "out" earlier. Asked what impact being homosexual had on his career, he said: "I don't know, because I hid it - therein lies the problem. I hid it in part because I thought it would damage my career, but it is impossible to tell what actually would have happened. The summit will play host to several hundred senior bankers from institutions including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, as well as related professions including KPMG and Clifford Chance. It is designed to raise awareness and increase opportunities for mentoring and other schemes, as already occurs with both gender and race awareness programmes. "To remedy this [lack of openly homosexual FTSE CEOs] we need to provide education and role models, and to make LGBT people feel welcome and included in the corporate environment," said Lord Browne, now a partner of energy-focused private equity firm, Riverstone. Asked what would help to make a difference to homosexual staff already working in the City, he continued: "More role models in the upper levels of a company; getting behaviour right when it comes to inclusion, not doing things that obviously send signals of exclusion; and educating the leadership on how to do this. Mr Leigh-Pemberton said that this is not just something for those who are homosexual: "Both straight and gay bankers have an important part to play. It isn't acceptable that anyone should be disadvantaged for any reason outside of their performance when trying to move their career forward. Julia Hoggett, head of EMEA short term fixed income and covered bonds at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said that gay and lesbian rights is one area in which banking is taking a lead. "This will send a message that the banking industry does care rather deeply about its work force, a great deal more than people realise," said Ms Hoggett. "If there are other industries which do a lot less in this area, which I know there are, then continuing to drive forward and set the tone for how these issues should be dealt with," will be helpful across the board, she continued.