Reflecting on KPMG's Role in Advancing Racial Equity and Justice

These past few weeks have demanded that all of us speak out against racism and bigotry, listen and lift up our Black colleagues, friends and communities, and take action to bring about real, lasting change.

Today, after many conversations with leaders, colleagues, teams and more on these tragic events, we gathered as a firm to talk about our path forward. We must do better as a country. We will do better as a firm.

As part of processing the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, as well as emotions and thoughts of my Black colleagues, I’ve been reflecting on my purpose as a leader as defined by KPMG's purpose: inspire confidence and empower change.

I am convinced after these weeks that, for me personally, that sentence should be flipped in this moment. I cannot expect to inspire confidence until I follow through on my commitment here to empower change.

I expect to be held personally accountable for tangible change. And I will hold the KPMG leadership team accountable. It is essential that we take actions that will lead to a better future. And not some distant future. That time is now.

Today, we shared the immediate actions our firm is taking:

• We will gather input and pull together voices across the firm to create a concrete, multi-year strategic action plan to operationalize the firm’s inclusion agenda. Our efforts will be transparent and measureable.
• The KPMG Foundation has committed $500,000 to support community efforts to combat racial inequity. The Foundation is working with our Inclusion and Diversity team and the African Ancestry Business Resource Group to identify the most appropriate organizations to support that are aligned to our mission and strategy.
• We recently reviewed the challenges that our Black professionals can face in their employee career journey. We commit to put into place visible action steps to ensure that we are recruiting, developing and advancing underrepresented talent.
• We will explore partnerships with other companies similarly thinking about how to pivot to a focus on equity and inclusion as a part of their core business, starting with the several clients we know are as committed as we are to pursuing impactful change. 
• We will continue the open dialogue about race to drive awareness, understanding and allyship.
• We will launch a platform for sharing information to raise awareness from an educational standpoint about the evolution of race and bias in America.  

This is just a start. Continuing to advance on these actions, getting specific, and being transparent and accountable as we move forward is my day one focus when I transition into my role as KPMG’s Chair and CEO next month. Laura Newinski and I will judge ourselves on real, meaningful change. We look forward to working with everyone to make that change a reality.