Tuvia Borok was at the top of his game when he fractured his C1 spine. The following year, he ran an Ironman.

Borok was cycling to school with his son when he fractured his spine, leaving him millimeters away from paralysis. As a vice-president and senior counsel at Goldman Sachs, a single father, and chief exec of a successful charity on the side, he was used to moving full speed ahead, yet the prognosis was grim: for a period he was unable to walk more than a few minutes at a time, and head trauma affected his recall.

Fast forward 18 months later, and he successfully completed a half Ironman - a combination of a 1.9km open water swim, 90km cycle ride and a half marathon – as his 40th birthday present to himself.

His incredible drive isn’t confined to his personal determination, but is also apparent in his mission to make a difference, and his efforts have even been recognized by Prime Minister Theresa May with a Points of Light Award. His approach to life can be neatly summed up as: changing the world, one person at a time.

Borok speaking at the LGBT Leaders conference in 2019 James Gifford-Mead

Born to Soviet immigrant parents in Israel, Borok spent his childhood in Canada, where he arrived in 1984 speaking three languages, but without a word of English. He credits his drive to his entrepreneurial mother, who was an inspiration to him at a time when “nobody talked about female entrepreneurs […] but she did it”. At first attending a musical high school, he excelled at music and competed in dance internationally. But his transfer to a different school brought a harsher reality, and he was badly bullied for his immigrant upbringing and his sexuality. Though the word “faggot” was frequently bandied about, it was not until much later that he understood his own sexuality.

Despite initially starting a life sciences degree with a plan to be a paediatrician, his desire to get into the real world soon took him to law school where he juggled his degree and full time work as a flight attendant for Air Canada. His work at the law school’s legal aid clinic preparing wills for those dying of AIDS highlighted the harsh emotional toll of practising law, when he lost a client to the disease. So, when the opportunity came to work for a corporate law firm on Bay Street – Toronto’s answer to New York’s Wall Street – he took it.

The fast-paced environment of Bay Street shaped him, regularly working until 2 a.m., and chasing the “big sexy deals”. In the macho culture of the finance world at the time, there wasn’t much of an opportunity to contemplate workplace diversity issues, and role models were non-existent. Out to his peers, he struck out against the status quo on several occasions, resisting being sent to take golf lessons by his firm, a striking reminder of how far business has moved on since then.

Worried that he’d set the scene for the rest of his life, he took a year out at Oxford to study a graduate degree and settled in London after finishing.

Borok during Pride month in London Tuvia Borok

In London, before he joined Goldman Sachs, he specialized in emerging markets work, and was asked to take a posting in Moscow where his biggest client had opened a new office. But there was a catch. His managing partner told him to go back into the closet. He refused, but still went to Moscow, opting to be honest with his team about his sexuality.

How has the conversation moved on for LGBT+ rights in business? It’s come far since Borok’s days on Bay Street. Despite a clear shift in business culture, he acknowledges that he still has to “bite his tongue” in certain conversations. “I have been in situations that can still be uncomfortable…but it’s a matter of picking your moments”.

Borok has done his fair share of activism alongside his role at Goldman Sachs. In 2014, he co-founded the P3 Network, an initiative supporting LGBT+ families. Part of the drive was his frustration at the continuing lack of representation for ‘non-traditional families’. With him as its chief exec, the charity has helped countless LGBT+ parents overcome gender stereotying, heteronormative biases and school-gate bullying. One parent who became part of the charity’s community described his relief at realizing he was “not alone in all of this […] Tuvia and his son are living the dream”.

Nowadays, his work differs from the “big sexy deals” of Bay Street. Yet he revels in the challenges that come with being a senior in-house lawyer, supporting internal businesses on issues that are ‘never clear cut’. As the head of the securitisation and structured finance legal team in EMEA, he is undoubtedly in a position of great responsibility for multiple teams, and a role model too. But Pete Ashby, the director of the Society of Leadership Fellows at Windsor Castle of which Borok is a leadership fellow, describes his leadership style as “big-hearted leadership […] but with a laser sharp mind, and not many [leaders] combine the two.”

By his own admission, his position at Goldman Sachs has empowered him to make change for others too. When he realized many university students still hide their sexuality in their first role after graduating, the firm supported him with the launch of a pilot LGBT+ internship program into the legal division, which in Autumn 2019 was extended to cover multiple divisions within Goldman Sachs. It’s a first for the investment banking industry.

So what’s next? Borok is passionate about helping others find their own voice to become “agents of change”. He wants to progress the diversity dialogue across all forms of diversity, and continue to advocate for breaking down the barriers to success for those true to their own stories. Having already participated in roundtables for the Human Rights Commissioner of the United Nations, he plans to continue to work with human rights organisations around the world, and to engage with governments and businesses – as well as do a follow up to his 2017 TEDx Talk on multi-faceted diversity.

Borok is a leader who believes in changing the world; driven to “change individual people’s lives, giving them the power and platform to find their own path”. One thing’s for sure – he is far from done.

Source: Forbes.com

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