Tanya de Grunwald

speaker

451 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 22 Jul

Tanya de Grunwald’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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This Isn’t Working · Why Has Pride Died? 7 Reasons The Big Brands Bailed · 22 Jul 2026 podcast

So Pizza Cheese, who's been there 14 years, has just left in June, and he's being replaced by Neil Carberry in September.

He's, again, much more commercial than

So actually the CIPD itself is probably quite a good example of that kind of mood.

The second reason why I think Pride has become much less appealing for many of these brands this year is that they've registered that it's a massive exposure to backlash and a risk to their brand.

So basically doing anything publicly on this issue now actively invites scrutiny and the accusation of rainbow washing.

It draws attention to questions that firms would frankly bother not answer.

Are they backing LGBT rights everywhere that they operate, including in the territories where it's arguably needed most, like parts of Africa, Africa in the Middle East?

And possibly even more importantly, what does standing under a rainbow flag draw attention to elsewhere in the business?

For example, their environmental record, their supply chain, their government contracts and conflicts they're involved with around the world.

Let's take the tech giant Cisco as an example.

So at London Pride last year, July 2025, they had a big float, which they presumably spent a lot of money on.

But activists from a group called Youth Demand brought the entire parade to a standstill for around an hour as four protesters threw red paint at

over Cisco's float right on Piccadilly, right in the heart of London, and then sat down and glued themselves to it, accusing the tech giant of pinkwashing over its ties to the Israeli military and its communications technology.

Five people were arrested, and it made international headlines, exactly the kind of story that a sponsor pays a great deal of money to avoid.

But they had actually paid money to attract it.

That's the irony.

Another good example of this was when we saw Barclays came out very early after the Supreme Court judgment in April 2025 to say that, of course, they would make sure that all their bathrooms and things were all in line with the law.

And that prompted a big backlash from the activists against them.

So, again, if I was them, I'd be thinking I'm really not going to stick my head above the parapet and now draw attention to myself as being a supposed LGBT ally when I know I'm just going to get that thrown back in my face.

I'd rather just save my money.

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