Neiman Marcus CEO uses his personal journey to promote LGBTQ inclusivity at the luxury retailer

It’s a reaction seared in Neiman Marcus CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck’s memory.

“You will not be a father and you won’t get married,” he said, describing what one of his closest friends told him when he came out as gay during graduate school.

Those words went on to shape his career and his identity.

The journey of coming out can be daunting for anyone who identifies as LGBTQ. For the leader of a luxury fashion chain, it’s an intensely personal story that he’s sharing to influence others to be true to themselves, especially during Pride Month.

Van Raemdonck, 49, calls it being his “authentic self.” He considers it liberating to blend his identity as a gay man with his work leading the Dallas retail chain.

The fashion industry is known for its acceptance of all lifestyles. Van Raemdonck wants Neiman Marcus to become known as a leader in offering inclusive benefits to its over 9,000 workers.

“When you accept who you are and you put it out there, there is nothing to defend,” van Raemdonck said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. “People can decide not to accept you, but that’s their problem. I am not defending who I am. What you see is the authentic self.”

Now in his fourth year at the helm, van Raemdonck led Neiman Marcus into and out of one of the darkest periods in the storied company’s history: bankruptcy. It emerged after shedding $4 billion in debt that constrained the company for years.

With financial woes in his rearview mirror, van Raemdonck turned his attention to matching the company’s benefits to his own identity.

“We live in a world where we need diversity of thought and backgrounds,” he said.

The need for diversity

As a young professional studying for his MBA at the University of Chicago, van Raemdonck describes a night in his personal journey when he met a man and spent the evening in engaging conversation. He considers it “one of the most beautiful moments of my life.”

It was the “most natural thing — that’s when I realized this is who I am and this is who I connect with,” van Raemdonck told employees and other attendees at a recent Neiman Marcus Pride celebration.

In 2016, he married interior designer Alvise Orsini in New York City. The couple moved from Paris when van Raemdonck got the Neiman Marcus job.

Van Raemdonck said he spent a lot of his life defending who he is, and sometimes hiding his identity. During the company’s bankruptcy, he and Orsini faced a barrage of criticism when a luxury publication featured their contemporary $2.3 million home in Dallas’ Lakewood neighborhood that Orsini decorated. It’s where the couple raises their twin sons.

In the past three years, van Raemdonck said, Neiman Marcus has looked to give more women leadership roles. Of the company’s seven-member board of directors, four are women. The company’s executive team is 48% women and 100% of Bergdorf Goodman’s leadership team are women. The company’s overall workforce is 70% women.

“It’s really a one-way street,” van Raemdonck said. “We are going to commit to a journey.”

Van Raemdonck said he admires the retailer’s founders for being “inclusive” leaders during the company’s inception in 1907, when the first store opened in Dallas.

“It’s been part of the DNA,” he said. “We are a company that was co-founded by a woman” — Carrie Marcus Neiman.

In 1950, the board selected Carrie Marcus Neiman as its chair, alongside CEO Stanley Marcus and executive vice president Edward Marcus. Moira Cullen, a colleague of Carrie’s, was the company’s first buyer, paving the way for more women to enter leadership roles at Neiman Marcus.

Todd Sears, founder and CEO of OUT Leadership, which works with companies on inclusion efforts for LGBTQ identities, said developing sound recruitment and retention strategies must accompany top executives speaking out.

“The business community is the strongest force for equality,” Sears said.

OUT Leadership produces a business climate index that measures state laws and attitudes on LGBTQ issues. The lowest a state can score on the index is 25% and the highest is 100%. In 2020, Texas received a 38% rating. That improved to 45% this year. Texas ranks 41st in the nation.

Adding benefits

In honor of Pride Month, Neiman Marcus is launching several initiatives to support its LGBTQ employees.

One is an effort to improve the company’s score on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, an annual ranking of policies, practices and benefits pertinent to LGBTQ employees. More than 1,142 companies nationally took part this year.

There were 767 companies at the top of list with 100% scores, giving them bragging rights as best places to work for LGBTQ equality. North Texas-based companies American Airlines, McKesson Corp., Texas Instruments Inc. and others made the list. So did van Raemdonck’s former employer, Ralph Lauren Corp.

Neiman Marcus estimates it will score around 85% when the index is released for 2022.

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