Interview with Bethmara Kessler

Bethmara Kessler is the Managing Director of The Fraud and Risk Advisory Group, Inc., a management consulting firm specializing in fraud vulnerability risk assessments, enterprise business risk assessments, fraud waste and abuse detection, fraud and risk mitigation action planning, fraud waste and abuse detection, internal audit and compliance consulting, and on-site customized fraud training. She is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA).

Prior to her work with The Fraud and Risk Advisory Group, Ms. Kessler was the Senior Vice President of Enterprise Business Risk Management at Limited Brands, Inc. and has held various leadership roles in audit, risk management, information systems, and corporate investigations with EMI Group, PLC, Avon Products, Inc., RJR Nabisco, Inc., and Ernst & Young.

Ms Kessler has served as a Commissioner on the Columbus Community Relations Commission in Columbus, OH, co-founded a local proactive educational outreach initiative called Project P.E.A.C.E (Parents Encouraging Peace and Cultivating Equality), and has served on the Board of Directors of The Point Foundation. She and her partner Lynne live in Melbourne, FL.

Ms. Kessler serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

“WE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO WORK SO HARD TO BE WHO WE ARE”:
Why Bethmara Kessler is Important
by Lauren Neal

Bethmara Kessler takes a cue from Lord Alfred Tennyson, in that she describes herself as being “a part of all that [she has] met.” She posits that every person’s career-finding experience is a journey, not a destination. The same is true for her in terms of love and the process of self-discovery. Ms. Kessler notes, “Everybody wants to do something other than what they become, and then [they] become something and [they] realize [they] were meant to do that all along.”

Ms. Kessler’s optimism is positively infectious, and her description of the progress made from the time of her youth through the present encourages extraordinarily hopeful sentiments. Still, such progress should be a reminder of the work, passion, and sacrifice of groups and individuals necessary to engender and catalyze change. Such progress should serve as a reminder of how much work is left to be done, and that the work, the tasks, before the LGBTQ community are not impossible. Nor are these tasks left to self-described activists or those who work directly for human rights or other non-profit organizations. Ms. Kessler reminds us that work in favor of social justice not only can be done in the business meeting, the courtroom, the hospital, the bank, the classroom — in addition to more ‘traditional’ activist work –; here, work in favor of social justice must be done.

Bethmara Kessler “did” what she was meant to do, professional, “because [she] didn’t know what [she] wanted to do.” She allowed the natural course of her learning and self-discovery to land her exactly where she needed to be… and makes it a point not to forget from whence she came.

Matthew’s Place interviews
BETHMARA KESSLER
July 30, 2009

MP: I am putting together an interview repertoire of LGBT professionals, athletes, and other successful people, almost as a stock of role models for LGBT youth. I would appreciate it if you would begin by talking about what sort of professional dreams and aspirations you had in your youth.
BK: That’s a loaded question. Everybody wants to do something other than what they become, and then you become something and you realize that you were meant to do that all along. So what did I want to do when I was younger? I was one of those kids that was very much a dreamer. I wanted to do something in music, but behind the scenes. I didn’t want to be out in front, I didn’t want to be a performer; I wanted to be in the music business. I would watch the Grammys every year, and I would say, “One day I’m going to be there. I swear I’m going to be there.” When I started college, I picked a major that I thought was like the closest thing. I didn’t know how to get into the music business. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know what I needed to do. There was a major called Broadcast Management. I figured, okay: over the radio, they broadcast music. I thought it sounded like what I wanted to do. But pretty quickly I decided I didn’t want to do that. It actually took me quite a while to go on my journey of figuring out who I wanted to become. I ended up normalizing my degree and became a Business Management major. I took a course, Accounting for Non-accounting Majors. I was acing this class, but I was terrible at math so I hadn’t thought I would do very well in it. One day the professor asked me to stay after class and he said, “What are you majoring in?” And I said, “Business Management.” He said, “What do you want to be?” I said, “A business manager.” He said, “Of what?” And I said, “A business.” He asked me to stay after school and meet the chair of the Accounting Department because they wanted to talk to me more about my career and what options I might have.

MP: Wow.
BK: Yeah, it was actually really amazing. I met with these guys. They explained to me that I would need to stay in college a little longer than I had planned because the course curriculum required that I take certain prerequisites before I could take other classes.

MP: Sure.
BK: And because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I did it. I have to tell you, Lauren, it was the most amazing beginning to my journey. Not only did I graduate with my degree in Accounting, have a very successful run with public accounting and then work for some large corporations; about four jobs into my career, I became head of internal audit for a major record and music company. And for five years I got to go to the Grammys. I realized down the line that it wasn’t really what I wanted to do, but I was so glad for the five and a half years I got to spend in the music business. That was sort of my career journey.

MP: That’s phenomenal.
BK: It really was. Did you ever see the movie “Sliding Doors?”

MP: No, I haven’t.
BK: You need to see that someday. It’s a cool movie. I think Cameron Diaz is the lead in it. She’s in London and she’s running to catch the subway. In one scene, she catches the subway, and in another she misses the same train. It takes you on a journey of her life in these parallel equations of having missed the train or having gotten on the train. It shows you at the end you kind of end up where you are supposed to be anyway regardless of the journey you take the get there.

MP: Cool. I’m also interested in whether or not coming to terms with your sexual orientation had any impact or influence on your goals, and what actually ended up happening to you professionally; or if it didn’t have much impact.
BK: Well, it had a lot of impact, particularly through the journey of my career: being out. I’m actually 45 years old, so I entered the professional workforce in the mid/late 80’s. It was not a time, particularly in public accounting — my first job was at a company called Ernst & Young. Not only was being out something that I didn’t even consider an option, because it really wasn’t, but it was almost like you had a uniform. The whole point of public accounting back in those days was creating people that were very much alike, so they wanted people with good educational backgrounds and who went through the same training and behaved in a certain way. There wasn’t a lot of room to be different. It was really funny because part of my rebellion: I used to wear socks that were completely and utterly outrageous. After I stopped wearing skirts, which was totally not me. I was wearing pantsuits, and I would wear these very, very bizarre, funky, outrageous socks just so that I could quietly scream and express my individuality.

MP: Why do you think it is that in that particular field they want such uniformity?
BK: I don’t think it’s like that anymore, to be honest with you. I think that, in that time, the majority of the people who were public accountants were white, heterosexual men. Even the firm that I was in — which was what were called “the Big Eight,” now there are only four and they’re called “the Big Four,” — there were very few women that had made it to partner. It also has to do with where we were as a society at that point. I was coming into the workforce at a point where… my mom, and a lot of my friends’ moms didn’t work, and then, whether the economy changed or women started saying, “To hell with this, I’m not just going to stay home and take care of the family,” a lot of women started going back into the workforce and it became more prevalent that women were in the workforce. So it wasn’t only about being gay, but it was about being a woman in a male-dominated professional workforce. You know, there were just so many factors that played into it. It was a very conservative industry. But now, companies like Ernst & Young and some of the other major firms are sponsors of HRC and all about diversity and really trying to be flexible, adaptive, and open. But it’s a major shift from where it was when I started my career in the profession.

MP: Do you think it has a lot to do with public opinion and also with these companies realizing that in order to get the best workers they have to allow for a lot more diversity than they used to?
BK: Totally. That’s exactly what happened. I’ll never forget this: I grew up in New York, and someone took me to a women’s bar in the Village. I went into this bar, which was a couple of blocks from the Stonewall bar, where all the riots had occurred in Manhattan.

MP: In ‘69.
BK: Yup, and this was probably in the very early 80’s; I want to say ‘80-’81. I went to this bar and it was called The Duchess. I walk in, and first of all, just the fact that there were gay people in this place, my heart was leaping, and that was cool. I looked around; then said to the person who brought me in, “You lied to me.” And she said, “Why?” I said, “There are men in this bar.” She said, “No, there’s not. They’re all women.” I was thinking, no. I was pointing at people; I was so rude. She started explaining to me that we were on the tail-end of this cultural phenomenon where in Manhattan, particularly in the Village — in order to not get bashed and to actually be able to walk down the street and not be bothered — a lot of couples, a lot of gay people, got really entrenched in gender roles. If lesbians were walking down the street, typically one was very masculine and could pass as a man, and the other would be more feminine, so that people would look the other way and wouldn’t bother them, thinking they were a heterosexual couple. I really came of age and joined the workforce when so much was changing in what was socially acceptable, and the norms; and there was a kind of generational cliff. The folks who came before me who were still buried in the older ways, and here I was, a teenager and a kid, not really understanding those societal things. So if you think about a time then, and then fast forward to where we are now as a society: I never dreamed in my lifetime that we’d be talking about gay marriage.

MP: Not even on the radar.
BK: Yeah, and I actually believe that in my lifetime I am going to be able to marry my partner. That’s so cool.

MP: If that much has changed in a short period of time, that you’ve already seen such difference, there’s every reason to believe and hope that.
BK: You got it. And so, for the majority of my career I was closeted. A lot of it because I didn’t know how people would react and it was really more my own fear of rejection. Which is, I think, why a lot of us stay closeted. In my life, I’ve been out since I was very very young, and I never hid who I was, but I just didn’t bring it into my professional life.

MP: Did you feel like you didn’t even really know how to go about it? How does one even announce or introduce it into their professional environment? Is it written across your resumé? Is it something you just want your bosses to know? Did you find that you wouldn’t even know how to go about letting people know?
BK: What’s funny is that nowadays it is written across my resumé, because of the non-profit work I do, which includes being on the board of the Matthew Shepard Foundation. And the non-profit work that I’ve done over the years has been in the LGBT community. I have a very big passion for working with youth and trying to help make sense of the jumble of all this for folks. It’s a daunting thing to navigate if you don’t know how to. What’s interesting is I have kids who are probably pretty close to your age: my oldest is going to be 22, my son is going to be 20, and my youngest daughter is going to be 17–

MP: Yep, that’s pretty close to my age.
BK: Right, and the interesting thing is that it’s almost a non-event for my kids’ friends. They all have gay friends. I think kids are much more likely to make statements and come out in high school… Facebook is for old people now, too, and I have connected with tons of people that I grew up with. In high school, I was probably one of the only people who people knew was gay, and I actually walked around thinking that I was the only gay person in my high school. Well, fast forward. We were everywhere and no one would admit it. Because they were afraid to, or they didn’t know; they were on their journey. I think when it comes to society in general, I don’t think that people today have to fear the reaction of employers as much as they did years ago. I caveat that because there are some states, including the one that I live in, that could technically discriminate you because of your sexual orientation. There are some states where they can’t discriminate against you based on sexual orientation. One of the things that I think is so important for our community as a whole, and that I think youth today really need to do, is to be able to feel comfortable about being who they are and coming out and letting people know. We’re breaking so many boundaries because people who thought they never knew any gay people — or wouldn’t know any gay people or thought we wouldn’t come into their lives or affect them — they’re learning that we really are your family, your sons, your daughters, your sisters, your brothers, your neighbors. If we can just change one mind at a time because of people like Lauren, or people like Bethmara… If we can just change one mind at a time by being who we are and by letting people know who we are, we’re paving the road for everyone who comes after us in terms of making it more and more acceptable and easier for people to come out. Making it a non-issue.

MP: Definitely.
BK: Your sexuality is a part of who you are but it shouldn’t define who you are. If people in the workplace know you, and like you, and enjoy working with you, it should be easy for them to understand that it’s a part of who you are. It should almost be a non-entity. We shouldn’t have to work so hard to be who we are. What’s really interesting is that I don’t make a big deal of it. Whether it’s somebody I come across from a work perspective or whether it’s someone I encounter just in life, I talk about my partner and my kids almost as if it’s just a given, with no explanation. And I can see people’s wheels spinning, and they say, “Ohh, right, got it.” What’s so interesting is that if you don’t make it an issue, other people don’t make it an issue. Does that make sense?

MP: Sure. I think that at least being good at what you do, but also being open and out about who you are, allows for a lot of networking opportunities and connections and the like. There are enough people in college now who know me, and if I see them eventually in a career or employment capacity, they’ll know my capabilities. I don’t know if you do much networking with other LGBT professionals, but many people that I’ve spoken to attend conferences and are working to build a community of support.
BK: It’s incredibly important. What you don’t ever want to do is feel isolated. We just moved down to Florida. We came from a community that was very, very well networked from an LGBT standpoint. There was a big presence of HRC and a lot of other local LGBT organizations that were very prominent in the community. All of them provided for great networking opportunities. We moved down to this place that was considered a little less gay friendly. In a lot of ways it is. There’s an organization called The Living Room of Brevard County, and my partner found it online and said that we have to connect into the community somehow and let’s meet the folks from this organization. She’s gotten so involved now she’s actually on the board now of The Living Room. It’s really all about that; it’s about reaching out to the community and, almost, throwing people a lifeline. We just had community bowling last week. It was such a hoot. There were people who said that they didn’t go out because they don’t know anybody and they are just lonely. They just had the best time; people develop new friendships and they start networking. You’re right, it helps from a business perspective down the line. And also, just a feeling of being connected to something bigger, which is so important.

MP: Is that something you wish you had had more access to when you were younger? Is there something you wish you would have known as you went about finding your career and growing up?
BK: Oh my God, I felt incredibly isolated when I was younger, because you really didn’t talk about it. It’s really funny: my kids tell me I’m old, I try not to think that I’m old. I really feel like I grew up in a different lifetime because I did not know other gay people. Looking back on it, I had teachers who were gay, but they had to be so careful about who they were because nobody could know. But yeah; you know, the first gay movie I saw ever was a movie called “Personal Best,” and it was actually the first time I had ever seen any portrayal of anybody who was even remotely like me. I actually think I went to see that movie, I’m almost embarrassed to say, somewhere close to ten or twelve times. Because I needed to feel connected to something. If there had been a Gay-Straight Alliance – which we didn’t have at our school, and I don’t even know if they existed when I was in high school – that would have been huge.

MP: That’s part of this project, and why I wanted to do it. We are fortunate to have a lot more access to representations, and now, even, positive representations of the LGBT community. Though, I think that something still lacking is a knowledge of our own history and awareness of people who are already doing a lot of work to pave the way for people my age or younger who will have to enter the workforce or defend themselves in any way.
BK: I really applaud the work that was done on the Harvey Milk movie. For us as a community — and also for the community at large, for everybody, to see the passion and fearlessness of somebody paving the road because it mattered and it was important — is huge. Because sometimes you have to be the driver down the road that isn’t paved and doesn’t have signs. And you have to be able to kind of trust that you know that there are going to be people who are going to help you pave the road as you start going on the journey. We’re in a great place right now. Certainly I wish we were in a better place where equality wasn’t even a discussion that we would have to have. It’s really funny because I am so optimistic about the way things are headed and how we’re really starting to chip away at some of the tenets and barriers that have been in our way as a community for so long. And what’s really helping are the folks that are your age. Because if you look at a cross section of people who are your age, they are less offended. They’re not as passionate about denying equality, denying rights. They don’t even understand why that’s even a discussion or an issue. That’s so important. If you look at the people who are the biggest critics and the people who are putting up the biggest fight, it’s the stodgy old white men. The government patriarchs who have been very long standing, who kind of hide behind their Bible and go cheat on their wives. Don’t quote that either.

MP: Enough of them do to make it a fact.
BK: I should never generalize about any population.

MP: Somebody has to generalize about heterosexual white men.
BK: Part of the problem over the years has always been the way the media has portrayed the community. If you go back to again the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, a lot of the portrayal of the gay community was incredibly negative. So if there was a Pride event that [the media was] covering on the news, they would find the most outrageous person. The woman who took her top off and was growing a beard. Which is fine, but in terms of imagery, that was what the public saw. Or the man who was incredibly flamboyant. What they weren’t showing were the majority of the people who looked like everyone else in society. In every aspect of society you have people that are what you would consider fringe, in terms of how they behave and how they act; and that’s not representative of an entire culture, but that is what for a long time the media had focused on. I think that had also done a disservice in terms of creating a fear, so that if I were to go to my employer and say, “I’m gay,” the reference point that they would have is dykes on bikes or the crazy crazy people who were perhaps tripping while they were at Pride and acting ridiculous.

MP: In school I actually study theatre and media and film. I’m very interested in cultural representations and modes of representations, especially for marginalized groups. If they’re not being misrepresented, then their identities are often being appropriated for use by the mainstream. I think that a very important shift that we’re having is the emergence of a lot more options to choose from. So you don’t just have to watch this sort of gay movie or whatever it happens to be. Diversification.
BK: You’re absolutely right.

MP: So just one more question before I let you go. What advice do you have for LGBTQ youth who are coming to terms with not only their identities but also thinking about how they want to cultivate their careers or their professional identities?
BK: It’s interesting. Kind of a sidebar conversation, but also please be careful in terms of representing this. I was on the board of an organization for a while that gave scholarships for LGBTQ students to go to college. We also mentored all of the students that we gave scholarships to. I had a conversation with one of the students one night. He wanted to go to law school. He was brilliant. He was feeling a lot of pressure from the elders in the community to do something in the area of social justice. I think that a lot of advice, or what a lot of folks feel, is that the only way they can make a difference in the community is by doing things that focus strictly on the community. I personally think that this creates isolationism and has a negative impact on the impact that we can really make on the community. One of the biggest and most important things that we can do as a community is forge our careers in mainstream society, be successful, and be out. If we become businesspeople, if we become lawyers, if we become doctors, if we become bankers, if we become teachers, if we become educators, all of those things, then we are making our place in the society at large; versus isolating ourselves in a smaller community which almost becomes like a ghettoized version… You know, why would people accept us if we don’t even accept ourselves as part of their community?

MP: Many people might think that they’re incapable of getting a job like that just because they’re out.
BK: I really think that’s hogwash. Sometimes you have to be aware of the surroundings of your chosen profession. For example, there are a lot of professions that still have a lot of conservatism. You can still be out and be conservative. I have tattoos. The tattoos are under my clothes. Nobody sees them. Life goes on. Then when I’m at a picnic, and somebody sees my double heart rainbow tattoos on my ankles, they’re like, “Oh, I wouldn’t have pegged you for that!” What your sexuality is doesn’t necessarily have to define how you behave in the workplace. I don’t know if that makes sense. So when I think about advice I would give LGBTQ youth, it’s first of all: dream big and be what and who you want to be. Talk to as many people as you can. Think of your career as a journey, not a destination. Learn as much as you can from the people around you. And that’s straight, gay, whatever. Lord Tennyson has a line in Ulysses that says, “I am a part of all that I have met.” It’s so incredibly true: good, bad or indifferent, everything you come into contact with in life influences and shapes who you become and evolve into. And what we have to do is be able to look at career and life as a journey, and don’t forget to embrace it. Somebody once asked me who has impacted you most as a leader. I’ve led large teams you know in business. People say, “As a leader, who has influenced you the most?” And one of the people who influenced me the most was one of the worst leaders I’ve ever had. Somebody that I hated working for. But that taught me how I didn’t want to be and how I didn’t want to behave. That learning was as important to me as somebody who inspired me in a positive way. I think that, from an advice standpoint, it’s about connecting to the community at large. Don’t be separatist, don’t isolate. Embrace everything around you and kind of just go on the journey. It’s really important to aspire to do things in the community at large. Being an executive in a business is as important; we need executives in business in addition to people who do social justice work. We have to be represented very broadly across the community. We each have roles to play in that.

MP: Well thank you so much. I feel like every interview that I have completed thus far has I have definitely taken away new things or things that I haven’t previously considered. And that’s what it’s all about.