Send gay staff to Russia – says former oil CEO

LARGE corporations should send their gay employees to Russia, says oil giant BP’s former CEO, to change opinions in a country that has taken an increasingly hard line stance against homosexuality.

Lord John Browne, who worked at BP for 41 years — 12 as its chief executive — made the comments in his new book, The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out is Good for Business.

In the book, Browne encourages young people to do what he didn’t — come out early in their careers because: “I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through what I went through.”

While staying in the closet may have prevented some people from “forming unflattering opinions about me,” Browne said he was “no longer convinced” those opinions mattered.

“Coming out does not mean your life will be peace and serenity,” he wrote in The Guardian.

“You will still face challenges big and small, meaningful and trivial.

“But you will be better able to cope with all of them.”

Browne turned British-based BP into one of the world’s largest companies yet was unable to handle revelations about his sexuality.

In 2007, he resigned in disgrace after admitting to perjury in an attempt to cover up a tabloid exposé about his relationship with former boyfriend Jeff Chevalier.

Speaking at Britain’s Hay Literary Festival, Browne said large companies could “slowly move things forward” overseas by sending their LGBTI employees to countries where homosexuality was frowned upon.

“Should BP send gay people into Russia? I think yes you could do that,” he said in a report in Britain’s Telegraph.

“Provided that you are very aware you are sending them into a place of extreme risk.”

“What you need is attitude change and corporations… set norms of behaviour in other countries. By example they are slowly moving things forward.”

However, Browne managed to raise the hackles of UK gay rights group Stonewall after suggesting Russia’s anti-gay legislation was more to do with political posturing than a specific anti-LGBTI agenda.

Stonewall’s Richard Lane told The Independent: “Whatever Mr Putin’s motives, the results are devastating to those fighting for fundamental human rights.”

Browne, who is now the chairman of shale gas exploration company Cuadrilla, said he was in agreement with Stonewall’s comments.

He dismissed suggestions he had now become a rights activist.

“There are people who’ve done some extraordinary things as activists, such as Peter Tatchell,” he said.

“I’m not in the same class as them.”