KPMG adds 52 new partners, one-third are female
Accounting and consulting firm KPMG has announced the appointment of 52 new partners. 29 were promoted from within the firm, while 23 partners were attracted from outside. With the addition of the new partners, KPMG has a total of 613 partners in the UK.
According to Simon Collins, Chairman of KPMG UK, the large influx of new partners reflects the firm’s strong track record and optimism for growth. “I am confident that this year’s partner appointments put us in a strong position to address the business issues and opportunities our clients want to tackle most.” Partners were appointed across the full business – audit, tax and advisory – although the majority are active in financial services, KPMG’s largest industry in the UK. “We continue to see high demand for our services from the wide range of businesses in the financial services industry and, accordingly, a third of our newly promoted partners are specialists in this sector,” explains Collins.
Diversity
In line with its objective to boost diversity in its leadership team, an impressive one-third of the newly promoted partners were women. “A third of our newly promoted partners are women, which is a testament to a significant effort to remove any barriers to the best talent coming through the firm; whether this is through initiatives such as unconscious bias training, or actively encouraging a more inclusive culture where diverse talent can thrive,” comments Collins. There however still is a long way to go, acknowledges the chief executive. “Currently, 15% of our partners are female. This is not where we want to be.” To further boost diversity the Big Four firm has reconfirmed its ambition to improve internal diversity policies and from an external perspective, KPMG is more critically going to monitor the diversity in the candidates supplied by external recruitment agencies.
EY
Two weeks ago rival EY also provided insight in its partner promotions. EY promoted more partners, 68, although a smaller percentage was female (13; 20%).
