Charles River’s Michael Hakeem on how losing his partner led to him coming out: ‘I will never hide again’

Michael Hakeem, senior director of global talent acquisition at Charles River, the scientific partner of choice to accelerate biomedical research and therapeutic innovation, spoke to myGwork about why he will never hide who he is and how he has seen the world change throughout his life. 

Growing up in Brockton, Massachusetts, Michael is a second-generation American, with his grandparents having come to the country from Lebanon. The youngest of four children, he grew up in a very religious family, and although he felt very loved, Michael remembers often feeling adrift. 

“I didn’t know who I was growing up,” explains Michael. This led to an urge to go out into the world, so upon turning 18, he headed to Las Vegas, where he dealt Texas Hold ’em and seven card-stud at the casinos. Moving again, he ended up in LA bartending, still somewhat unanchored, trying to find his place in the world.  

Michael knew he was gay growing up, but he just couldn’t bring himself to come out and decided moving to LA gave him time to figure this out. Yet he found himself in the big city, even working at a gay bar, but still unable to step into who he knew himself to be. That was until he met Martin.  

Shy and apprehensive, Michael had his first-ever real date with Martin, a German medical student at UCLA. This turned into his first relationship and a space where he could feel safe in who he was, allowing him to then be more comfortable in the real world too, even coming out to a few people at work. 

Tragically, three years into their relationship, Martin was killed in a motorcycle accident on his way to school. Losing a partner is a heart-wrenching grief for anyone, but this was also the first time Michael realised just how homophobic the world could be, making an incredibly difficult time even more so.

“I said to myself: ‘I will never hide again. It just it’s not worth it'”

“I remember myself and a friend called his parents to let them know what happened,” says Michael. “And his mom told me on the phone: ‘He’s already been dead to us for the last seven years, ever since he told us he was gay. We don’t care.’ It was just really, really rough. I realised how hard it was to live in a closet because nothing changes when you hide, and from that point on, I said to myself: ‘I will never hide again. It just it’s not worth it.’” 

Around this time, Michael was growing tired of working in hospitality and came across an ad in the LA Times classifieds that read: “Make a lot of money, no experience needed.” Ready to make a change, he applied and landed an interview. The interview went great, with the person interviewing him seeming wonderful. Then just before Michael left, the interviewer turned to him and said: “I’ll take a chance and hire you. But you’ll have to change your last name – it’s too ethnic. You will never be successful with your last name.” 

Having never experienced this before, Michael was startled but agreed and then spent the next two decades working under the name Michael Davis. Looking back, he would never do this now, but this was his first entry into the recruitment industry, and as he built up a reputation under that name, it made it harder and harder to take back.  

Just three years after Michael landed that job, he realised that although he enjoyed the work, the effort he was putting in was making everyone else in the business rich, and he was still broke – so he opened his own agency. With an initial office in LA, he grew this to open a second one in San Diego and a third in Las Vegas. With over 32 recruiters working underneath him, it’s fair to say it was a success, although he admits there were a lot of mistakes at the beginning as this is just how you learn.

Eventually, ready for something new, Michael sold the business and moved into consulting – a change that allowed him to return to using his real name 20 years after the comment made in that first interview. After a variety of successful roles, he landed at Charles River five years ago and is now Senior Director of Global Talent Acquisition.  

Starting at Charles River, Michael explains they were in “build mode” when it came to talent acquisition. This means he’s had the opportunity to build his team from the ground up – a feat he’s found incredibly exciting – going from three employees within his team to over 100. 

On top of the satisfaction he’s found in growing and developing their talent acquisition team, Michael says Charles River is one of the few places he’s worked where diversity and inclusion aren’t a tick-box exercise but are seen as a vital part of the business. There is a visible top-down approach, he explains, where you can see the authentic commitment from their CEO, Jim Foster, and other top-level executives. “It is not just spoken, but it’s lived,” Michael adds. 

When it comes to talent acquisition, you really can’t approach it without diversity and inclusion in the centre of your framework, explains Michael – so working somewhere where the wider organisation understands this is refreshing. Part of this approach is working closely with his colleagues to ensure their recruiting teams have the tools and resources to authentically and organically bring in more diverse candidates representing the wider community. 

“This means we can organically bring more diversity into the business. We reach out to diverse organisations with our jobs and tell our story – and this encourages diverse candidate slates.” 

“Inclusion makes for a better workplace”

Charles River now has 10 employee resource groups, which help create a sense of connection and belonging for candidates. This makes their organisation a better place for everyone to work, Michael explains, and by authentically sourcing diverse candidates they can give opportunities to communities that are historically overlooked. Having worked his way up from an entry role decades earlier, Michael knows first-hand the difference this can make.  

“Inclusion makes for a better workplace, and you make better business decisions. For me, it’s about asking: ‘How do we build an organisation that looks like the world?’ And when you do that, you get ideas and creativity based on what’s happening around you.  

“At Charles River, you can start with no experience and move into management and leadership. We have people that started as entry-level technicians without experience that are now VPs and SVPs in the organisation. There’s a lot of longevity here. So, by showing these opportunities to people that may not otherwise know about them, it opens doors for people in a really exciting way.” 

On top of this, working for a mission-led company has been a career highlight for Michael – “What we do changes lives.” Over the last three years, Charles River worked on over 80% of the drugs approved by the FDA, including the majority of the Covid vaccines. “I come from a family where my mom passed away from cancer, and nine of her brothers and sisters passed away from cancer. I have people in my life with Parkinson’s, and I have another friend who’s HIV positive. Knowing that our work impacts those lives – and being able to do that every day – is just amazing.”

Now living in Rhode Island with his husband William of 30 years, Michael is worlds away from the 18-year-old who moved to Vegas to find himself. As a visible leader and expert in his field, he can now show up every day wholly as himself, and his journey acts as a blueprint to the younger generation. “Nothing changes when you hide,” was Michael’s realisation after losing his first partner. The decision he made next, never to hide again, transformed him into the visible representation he never had growing up. Thanks to this, he is now not only able to live as himself proudly but also uplift and shine the light on other marginalised people. 

“I’ve seen the world change,” he says. “I remember 25 years ago, coming out was a huge deal. Now I watch people walk into our organisation, and it’s not even an issue. Growing up in the era I did – and I think many people my age feel this – there’s always that feeling that someone is thinking something because you’re gay. As the world changes, I look at young LGBTQ+ people entering the workforce, and I’m so relieved they don’t have to go through the angst that we went through. Doors have opened, and I think they will continue to open.  

“As you look at the world, it can be hard not to feel like we’re going backwards, but I think the more adversity there is, the more things change. I think we’re at a point in the world where everybody just needs to take a deep breath. When the noise gets louder from the other side, that’s usually the time when the biggest changes happen, so we must hold onto that. We live in a time where you no longer have to be afraid of losing your job because of who you are, and I know what that feels like. When you can be yourself, you can bring so much more to your work, and it brings so much more to you; it helps you to feel whole, and everyone deserves that.” 

Charles River is a proud partner of myGwork, the LGBTQ+ community. Find out more about job opportunities at Charles River.