Celebrating International Women’s Day with Purpose

As we celebrate the achievements and contributions of women, on International Women’s Day (IWD), I want to stay mindful of the Day’s larger meaning and purpose. I’m privileged, like the majority of business leaders today, to work with many highly accomplished women. But that shouldn’t cause us to lose sight of how far we have to go to achieve gender equality. It is something I’m very focused on, along with KPMG’s leadership, in particular working closely with Laura Hay, the Global Head of Insurance. As Laura and I look across our organization, it reinforces that the true purpose of IWD must be to reenergize our commitment and actions to promote gender equality and opportunities for women in our organization and throughout KPMG. I am very proud of the gender diversity we have achieved, but there is much more work to do.

Last year Laura and I formed the Global Financial Services Women’s Steering Committee with 12 senior women leaders from across the organization to get at the root causes for why KPMG firms haven’t achieved gender parity and what it will take for us to get there. The Committee is helping us surface the issues and, in some instances, the pain women have experienced in their careers and the bias that still exists which can affect their career growth. Not only is it the right thing to do, there is also no doubt of the benefits of gender diversity, for us and for our clients. Diverse teams are more creative, bring a broader range of thinking and ideas, are more engaged, and more enthusiastic.

With all the progress that has been made, we have to face that there is still unconscious gender bias. Women also encounter forms of microaggression more often than their male colleagues. The Committee is helping us to better understand how it occurs and what we can do about it. In part it means fostering a speak-up culture – overcoming reluctance to identify these behaviors and encouraging everyone to speak up and discuss situations when they occur.

The Committee is bringing clarity to our vision to increase gender parity both in equity partner and leadership positions. They have established some concrete actions that are essential to realizing our goals. Fundamental to achieving greater parity for women in our organization is ensuring that it is a core principle in our leadership succession planning. There are a number of dimensions to this, including:

·??????Increasing transparency in career path and earnings potential for women in the organization.

·??????Actively positioning women for leadership succession opportunities. This may include creating deputy roles for women to gain experience for a specific role and then become a natural choice for succession.

·??????Expanding mentoring and sponsorship programs for high-potential women to prepare them to become partners and help advance them to leadership positions.

We are also taking steps to help women feel more connected across the network. I’m excited that this year we will be launching a series of KPMG Financial Services women’s networking events – to be held in the Americas, Europe and Asia, where women in our organization around the globe can come together to share experiences and ideas for recruiting and creating more opportunities for women in member firms. Clients will join the events to bring their perspective, as virtually all have similar gender parity goals for their organizations.

This year’s IWD theme (“DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”) highlights the need to close the gender gap with respect to digital skills and access to technologies that has resulted in widening economic and social inequality for women, particularly in developing economies. Innovation and technology are also critical in creating a more inclusive workplace with more opportunities for women and in addressing issues of work-life balance. Women often carry the burden of care responsibilities, including childcare and for family members with extra needs. Within the Financial Services practices and across KPMG firms, we are investing in the digital workplace, including digital accessibility, to improve digital accessibility and hybrid working models to create a more inclusive and equitable workplace.

Very simply, our commitment to gender equality and greater equity for women is at the core of our values and our Purpose. We want to take the opportunity today as we do each year to celebrate IWD. But more importantly we want the day to be one that reinforces KPMG’s global commitments and goals for gender equality and inclusion.