The rankings, produced by OUTstanding and the Financial Times, feature Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce in second position with Monarch’s chief executive Andrew Swaffield at number 22.

Sadiq Gillani, chief strategy officer & senior vice president of Lufthansa is at number 53, Jonathan Mildenhall, chief marketing officer at Airbnb, comes in at number 54.

One of the founding members of TTGLGBT, Virgin Holidays’ managing director Mark Anderson is in 57th, and in the explanation as to why he was selected by OUTstanding to make the list, his role in helping to found the TTG LGBT network was referenced:

"As MD, Mark has driven Virgin Holidays’ significant growth with a global team. He has led Virgin Holidays’ headline sponsorship of the annual Attitude Awards for the last two years, and recently signed an agreement to sponsor the awards until 2017. Additionally, Mark is one of the founding members of the TTG LGBT Network, whose purpose is to celebrate the contribution of the LGBT community in the travel industry as well as to drive positive change particularly overseas."

Simon Altham, managing director of Hoseasons is also named as 67th on the list.

Russell Braterman, brand marketing director at Premier Inn is ranked 98th.

The rankings also feature a round-up of 30 ally executives, whch includes Sir Richard Branson founder of the Virgin Group.

Explaining the methodology behind the compiling of the list, Suki Sandhu found and chair of OUTstanding said the rankings were decided by a panel of seven judges from business, academia and journalism.

"Everyone on the ranking needed to be a success in their own right (or a success in the making, in the case of Future Leaders), influential within their sectors and a role model who is lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans or a powerful ally. The judges weighed these three criteria equally as they ranked the nominees, giving them a score for each category."

"What is so satisfying about the lists is that they show we are making progress. Our view has always been that the best way to drive out prejudice in business is for leaders to be vociferous in their support of inclusion and to ’set the tone from the top’," he said in an interview with the Huffington Post.

"Unlike some other LGBT lists, anyone featured in our lists has to give their personal permission to be included. Compared to 2013, we see far more people wanting to be associated with the list - this year we have 42 brand new additions to the Top 100 alone. This is fantastic news as it shows people are both more comfortable about being their true selves at work, and that they see the value of ’going public’ in order to inspire the next generation of leaders."