The Global Indian Thursday, March 30 2023
  • Home
  • Stories
    • Exclusive
    • Startups
    • Culture
  • Youth
  • Purpose
    • Giving Back
  • ZIP CODES
  • Blogs
    • Opinion
    • Profiles
  • Fun Facts
    • World in Numbers
    • Did You Know
    • Quotes
  • Gallery
    • Pictures
    • Videos
  • OPPORTUNITIES
    • Appointment
    • Migrate
    • Work
    • Study
    • Invest
    • Travel
  • Join us
  • Publisher
Select Page
Indian American Amit Paley
Global IndianstoryMeet Amit Paley the Indian American LGBTQ activist who’s in the 2021 Fortune 40 Under 40 list 
  • Influencers
  • Whatsapp Share
  • LinkedIn Share
  • Facebook Share
  • Twitter Share

Meet Amit Paley the Indian American LGBTQ activist who’s in the 2021 Fortune 40 Under 40 list 

Written by: Global Indian

(October 15, 2021) Did you know that lesbian, gay and bisexual youth are four times more likely to consider suicide when compared to their straight peers? A startling statistic, but not all that startling compared to the abuse and ostracization a lot of them continue to face… at the hands of society and their own families. The Trevor Project in the US has been working to help the LGTBQ community and prevent suicide among queer people through a dedicated hotline since 1998. Helming it is its dynamic 39-year-old Indian American CEO Amit Paley.  

Since he took over in 2017, the nonprofit organization has seen a dramatic increase in the number of young people receiving much-needed support. Amit has been using a healthy mix of technology, innovation and research to help create awareness about mental health in the LGBTQ community. This Indian American also serves on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline steering committee and the executive committee of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. As he forges ahead in the mental health space and advocated for the LGBTQ youth, Amit finds himself in the 2021 Fortune 40 Under 40 list — one of the four Indian Americans on the list this year — for the impact he’s been creating through his work.  

Check out and share @TrevorProject's Coming Out Handbook – you never know who's exploring what coming out can mean for them. https://t.co/Hr5GKzpiPK https://t.co/wWpV1TpBfd

— Amit Paley (@amitpaley) October 11, 2021

Experience talks 

Born in 1982 in a mixed-race family in the US, Amit grew up in Waban, Massachusetts where he attended Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston and The Roxbury Latin School. Growing up, he had to battle his own demons. It was a time when anti-gay sentiments were still pretty high in America and the world and Amit had no idea how to express his identity. He grew up as a lonely, scared, closeted kid, who’d never known anyone who was openly LGBTQ. He’d never really hoped to gain acceptance for who he really was.  In fact, when he got married in 2019, he’d tweeted, “I grew up as a closeted, lonely, scared kid who didn’t know anyone who was openly LGBTQ. I never dreamed that one day I would find a man who would love me, that we could be legally married, & that my family & friends would come celebrate us, not shun us, at our wedding.”

Indian American Amit Paley

Amit Paley with his husband Jonathan Naymark

For this Global Indian to reach this place of confidence and happiness was a long and arduous journey. He finally found his voice and came out as gay when he was an undergraduate student at Harvard University where he studied Social Studies and East Asian Studies. Soon after he graduated from magna cum laud from Harvard, he began his professional career with The Washington Post where he reported on the Iraq war and the 2008 financial crisis. He quit his job in 2009 when he was awarded fellowships at Columbia Journalism School and Columbia Business School from where he went on to graduate in the Dean’s Honors List with an MBA and MS in Journalism. 

Making inclusion important

Upon his graduation in 2011 he joined McKinsey & Company in New York as an Associate Partner while also serving as an adjunct professor CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. It was also around this time that he first began volunteering as a counselor with The Trevor Project, one of the largest organizations in the world dedicated to suicide prevention in the LGBTQ youth. Despite his busy day job, Amit would man the 24-hour TrevorLifeline, taking up the night shifts and weekend phone lines. Eventually, he joined its board which gave him exposure to the operational and financial challenges of such groups and inspired him to get more involved in McKinsey’s nonprofit work, he served as a leader of McKinsey’s LGBTQ group and spearheaded the firm’s global efforts on inclusion for transgender and nonbinary people.  

Indian American Amit Paley

At Trevor Project, he has answered hundreds of calls from LGBTQ youth in crisis. By 2017, Amit was appointed The Trevor Project’s CEO, making him the first volunteer counselor to become the organization’s CEO… and he still continues to answer calls on the TrevorLifeline. Talking about going that extra mile outside of his regular job, Amit said in an interview, “By investing my time outside work in things I was passionate about, I learned things that made me better at my job. Those experiences also prepared me for future leadership roles that I didn’t know I would have.” 

The Trevor Project takes advocacy seriously at the government level and is working to end conversion therapy, oppose anti-transgender legislation and establish 988 as the number Americans can call on to reach their suicide prevention lifeline. The fact that many LGBTQ youth are also homeless in America makes their mental health that much more precarious and the situation has only worsened since the pandemic broke out in 2020. Taking cognizance of the situation, Amit has taken The Trevor Project entirely remote for the first time ever in order to deal with the call volumes which had doubled when compared to the pre-pandemic levels.  

Awards and more 

Under Amit’s leadership, Trevor Project has dramatically expanded the number of LGBTQ youth that it helps. The organization has also built and launched a new, integrated crisis services platform, expanded its chat and text services and has more than quadrupled the number of youths it has reached out to every month. 

His voice has been featured across major publications and channels such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS, Reuters, and Fortune among others. He has also received several awards and accolades for his leadership. From being featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list for 2021, to World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader, NBC’s #Pride 50, and Crain’s 40 Under 40, he’s come a long way from being the scared and lonely teen in his school days.  

Follow Amit Paley on Twitter and LinkedIn 

Connect with
guest

OR

Connect with
guest

OR

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
  • 2021 Fortune 40 Under 40
  • Amit Paley
  • CEO of The Trevor Project
  • Columbia Business School
  • Columbia Journalism School
  • Global Indian
  • Harvard University
  • LGTBQ community
  • McKinsey & Company
  • suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ community
  • The Trevor Project
  • TrevorLifeline

Published on 15, Oct 2021

Share with

  • Whatsapp Share
  • LinkedIn Share
  • Facebook Share
  • Twitter Share

ALSO READ

http://h
Rohan Seth: The Indian American entrepreneur behind the success of Clubhouse and part of Silicon Valley’s Big Boys club 

Reading Time: 5 mins

http://h
Akshay Naheta: The Indian-born investor who helped revive a Japanese conglomerate with his investment chops 

Reading Time: 8 mins

http://h
The Indian students who won Belgium university’s KICK Challenge Award with their edible cutlery innovation 

Reading Time: 10 mins

Share & Follow us

Subscribe News Letter

About Global Indian

Global Indian – a Hero’s Journey is an online publication which showcases the journeys of Indians who went abroad and have had an impact on India. 

These journeys are meant to inspire and motivate the youth to aspire to go beyond where they were born in a spirit of adventure and discovery and return home with news ideas, capital or network that has an impact in some way for India.

Read more..
  • Join us
  • Sitemap
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Subscribe

© 2021 copyright The Global Indian // All rights reserved

This site was made with love by Xavier Augustin

en English
ar العربيةzh-CN 简体中文en Englishfr Françaisde Deutschhi हिन्दीit Italianoko 한국어ms Bahasa Melayumy ဗမာစာpt Portuguêsru Русскийes Españolth ไทยvi Tiếng Việt