Our People Awards: a key moment to recognise our outstanding talent

Just over a week ago our firm hosted The People Awards - a virtual ceremony celebrating the way our colleagues are making a real difference and are living our values – Integrity, Excellence, Courage, Together, For Better. And, since joining KPMG, I’ve been blown away by this firm’s talent as well as the myriad of ways in which our people go above and beyond.  

I wanted to mention two winners in particular who really encapsulate how our people have supported each other in this incredibly challenging year. Both have showed that we can each make the world of difference in our everyday actions.  

Zara Muirhead-Smith, a performance leader in our Cyber team, overwhelmed the judges with her passion for supporting parents and carers of young children during lockdown. Alongside this work, she also co-chaired KPMG’s Families’ Network, chaired our Carers Network and produced a podcast called Family and Flexible working. A ‘leader of the future’, ‘focussed’, ‘sincere’, ‘inspiring’ and ‘encouraging’ were just some of the many positive words her colleagues had to say about Zara, our Integrity winner.   

Gilroy Gomes, a manager in Financial Services Audit, rose above stiff competition to claim our Together award, with the judges recognising his strength of embracing diversity and different views. He is a huge champion for wellbeing and a work life balance and his team widely cited their appreciation of his ability to treat them as individuals and show his caring nature, especially during this pandemic. In fact, many of them referred to Gilroy as the ‘Dad’ of the team, with his consideration for others really standing out in his nominations.   

The past year may well have presented challenges but as our People Awards make clear, we can all make a real difference through our day-to-day actions, whether it be for clients, communities or for our colleagues. Congratulations to those who were nominated as well as all of our winners.  

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