A DEAR FRIEND and mentor to me and many others, Jack Sansolo departed our world last October at age 81. The inimitable “Dr. Jack” had been living in L.A. in recent years with his husband Dean. He was diagnosed last year with Stage 4 prostate cancer.
In 1991, Jack was in the highly visible position of senior vice president for the Boston-based advertising giant Hill Holliday when Fortune magazine approached him to be interviewed for a groundbreaking story on gay people in corporate America. No major business magazine had ever written about gay employees before. Homophobia was rampant in the business world in 1991; companies could fire employees simply for being gay; and there were no laws protecting gay people from discrimination.
To Jack’s surprise, an editor at Fortune told him a week before publication that they planned to feature him on the cover of this issue. He knew that some of his senior executive clients held negative stereotypes about gay people. The smartest career decision would have been to decline Fortune’s offer. But Jack had been deeply affected by the backlash against Black and female employees at AT&T in the 1970s. He realized that progress would be impossible for gay people in the workplace unless senior executives started to come out and set an example for others. So, Jack said Yes to Fortune. His boss, Jack Connors, was fully supportive of this decision. On December 16, 1991, he became the most openly gay executive in America.
The “Gay in Corporate America” story changed the lives of tens of thousands of lgbtq employees. It launched the formation of Employee Resource Groups worldwide, where minority employees from all different backgrounds could find support among their colleagues. It started a sea change in corporate human resources management, which began to understand that all employees are more effective if they can bring their full selves to work and show up authentically.
Nevertheless, Jack himself paid a high price for coming out so publicly. In the high-stakes, conservative world of corporate marketing at the time, the response was mixed. The CEO of the American division of a top Japanese car manufacturer was so incensed that he wanted Jack to be removed from the company’s account, even though Jack had led its brand launch. Having started with Hill Holliday in Boston and later moved to their L.A. office, he left the company in 1993 when the agency’s L.A. office was closed. He had fallen in love with Southern California, where he remained, starting up his own consulting firm.
Jack and his husband Dean loved traveling and appreciating great art, design, and music around the world. Jack became an avid yoga practitioner and kept at it well into his seventies. Jack continues to be a wonderful inspiration to me and so many others every day.
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Jonathan Rotenberg is a clinical social worker and LGBTQ activist.
