His father, a veteran, worked as a CFO across the textile industry and his mother spent her career as a nurse, focusing on prenatal and postpartum care for women across North and South Carolina.
[2] He served as Quad Council president and started the tradition of Last Day of Classes – a full campus party at the end of term, now called LDOC.
[10] At Credit Suisse, Sears created the first LGBTQ MBA recruiting program on Wall Street, “Open Perspectives, which won the HRC Innovation Award in 2010.
In 2010, Sears was laid off from Credit Suisse, and used his severance check to start an LGBTQ-business Summit, called “Out on the Street,” a CEO-hosted gathering to discuss the business opportunity of LGBTQ equality.
[16] The initiative further expanded internationally that year, as over 180 senior members from 15 global financial institutions met in London, at the first summit of Out on the Street held outside of the United States.
[17][18] Receiving a welcome from the Lord Mayor, a letter of support from the U.S. secretary of state, a keynote by a high-ranking Balkan leader, the summit had an overwhelmingly positive response.
[23] Speakers like Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs at the time, Kevin Cathcart, the Executive Director of Lambda Legal, and Trevor Morrison, Dean of NYU School of Law, emphasized the goal of full equality for LGBT individuals.
[25] Hosted by Morgan Stanley on April 30, 2014, the summit convened leaders across industries and engaged attendees with interactive panel discussions, business case studies, and workshops to build leadership skills and create opportunities for networking.
[29] In the first year of its launch, it convened a series of salon dinners in New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, London, and Hong Kong.
In 2015, Sears received the Paula L. Ettelbrick Award, which celebrates the unparalleled achievement by an individual or an organization in advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender attorneys.