Delete

This topic has been through the court system countless times.
- legally, they can't fire you if you don't want to be published on their website, marketing material, or other media. Especially if your personal data would open the door for future discrimination in regards to race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, (etc).
- your personal data is owned by you and not the firm, so there is no "right to publishing" this in the first place

What can you say?
- personal safety could be an element you can mention (i.e. I have a restraining order against my ex and she doesn't know where I work)
- you can be honest and state what  you mean
- one of my colleagues said he doesn't want to be published due to his race and to improve his odds in other companies

This topic gets very tricky when the employee is in a client facing role like sales or consulting. The MO in such a business would be to "present their staff" in order to lend credibility and  position the brand

Why did you even bother joining the firm if this menial requirement was going to bother you so much?

Know someone who was in a similar situation at a small fund and he ultimately capitulated after a lot of pushing back because the internal political pressure got too high.

He was not an URM though so I bet they'd tread very lightly if you hinted it was related to that (but also this industry is unfortunately filled with people who will privately resent you for going that route - so that has its own challenges).

FWIW, he left the firm and google images no longer indexes the headshot (not sure if that's always the case).

In an ideal world you would be able to assert your rights here and the firm would be accommodating. The reality is a small PE fund is not Google or MSFT - they don't have a giant HR and DEI function, internal sensitivity trainings, and they don't have lawyers putting the fear of god in managers about this stuff.

Someone said above that they can't fire you for this - the reality is they can fire you for anything and pin it on any alternative reason they want. If you have documented emails around this, I'd save it. I don't think you'd be fired just for this but it could hurt political capital.

I may be too risk averse about this stuff though / may not stand up for myself enough. There is a probably a way to be assertive and message it in a way where people respect you for it. 

From their perspective, they probably want the website to look clean and professional without a grey box for one person. Showing off diversity of staff also is definitely a PR/marketing benefit for them as well, as LPs care about that - and to a lesser extent founders. They probably view the photo as a trivial thing to do and will likely think you're being unnecessarily difficult.

All that aside, my perception is that if you're good at your job and an URM, you're likely in higher demand rather than less demand in this industry as PE firms are under a lot of pressure to increase diversity and the supply of URM talent coming from investment banks is lower than the demand. It's possible your lived experience is different and I'm missing something but I'd lean into it if I were you

To be honest, unless there is an actual reason beyond your preference for privacy you should just allow them to put you on the website and not make a big deal of it. No one is looking at the website besides a few kids trying to network, and potential partners you may work with.

Small as it is, this will definitely rub people the wrong way, as it is just a pedantic thing to be concerned about.

How old are you, like 55?? How do you not have LinkedIn? Super sketchy stance to take given your age and title. Calm down.

I would roll over on this brother. At some point people will realize we’re brown. Whether it’s by LinkedIn, or the company website headshot, or the name on the resume, or the Zoom interview, or the in person interview, or the first day on the job, or the first client / advisor meeting, or the first taped interview, and so on.

Are you really going to put up this fight your entire career with every employer you have? Are you going to permanently hide your face and by extension yourself from the world out of fear for the opinions of a few low IQ bigots? Let me ask you, are you acting out of courage, or out of fear? Out of ambition, or out of avoidance? Is this an act of pride for you, or one of defeat? Will you be proud in the future to tell the people who care about you that you refused to present your face on professional websites despite your employer begging to display you?

Rather than hide our faces and pray nobody ever realizes we’re brown, I think we should just own who we are and distinguish ourselves by our work quality, our track record, our accomplishments, our attitude, our professional presence. Instead of backing down why not double down? We have to be seen to succeed. We need to see ourselves succeeding. Furthermore it’s not just about us. Our community needs to see people like them on the company websites. 

I’m not saying it’s easy. Imagine if all the prominent minority executives chose to hide their faces and selves throughout their career, and as a result never achieved the positions they hold. How tragic it would be for those of us who look up to them. I’m glad they fought through the fear, and we should do the same. 

Yes, you have a legal right to keep your likeness and name from being published. But realistically sometimes you just have to play the game. It could be a Pyrrhic victory if this is a dealbreaker for you.

Not to say it hasn’t been done. Anecdotally, I dated a girl a while back whose mother was very private. Her mother retired and joined a VC fund as an advisor, and her profile on the website is the only one without a headshot. It’s a very normal kind of corporate stock image and her name is just listed as “Jane D.” without a full last name. So that’s one option but I’ve never seen anyone else do it. More than likely you’ll just look like you haven’t submitted your headshot yet if they put your name up without it.

You can be honest and just tell them why this is an issue for you. I highly doubt that this is something that is particularly important to the company

You mentioned that your reason isn't to do with race - what is your concern about protecting privacy?  (eg what is the downside you're picturing of being shown on the website?)