John Veihmeyer
Chairman, KPMG International;
Chairman and CEO, KPMG U.S.,KPMG LLP
Headquarters: New York, New York
Education: University of Notre Dame, BBA, Accounting
First Job: Working in a warehouse, handling shipments and inventory
What I’m Reading: The Corporate Athlete by Jack Groppel
Best Advice: Don’t try to orchestrate every step of your career path. Just do every job as well as you possibly can.
“… we are committed to creating opportunities and pathways to leadership for our diverse workforce. We take proactive steps to assign diverse, talented individuals to priority client engagements, and provide opportunities that enhance technical proficiency and build skills that will help them succeed over the long term.”
Why We Hire and Develop Diverse Talent
Our clients are facing some of the most dramatic changes and complex business challenges in recent generations. To help them navigate everything from global market shifts and disruptive technologies to increased regulation and geopolitical conflicts, we must be prepared to bring the full strength of our organization and our diverse workforce to each challenge. That makes talent the most important differentiator for our organization.
Attracting and retaining diverse talent remains one of our highest priorities at KPMG. We are working diligently to expand our inclusive culture and foster a work environment that enables and rewards high performance, and ensures that all of our people can achieve their career goals and objectives.
We take a number of steps to help build a sustainable, diverse talent pipeline—for KPMG and beyond.
In the broader market, we have spent years making long-term strategic investments in education programs intended to reach learners all along the educational continuum, from early childhood through middle and high school students. We even work to support diverse professors in academia.
Within our organization, we are committed to creating opportunities and pathways to leadership for our diverse workforce. We take proactive steps to assign diverse, talented individuals to priority client engagements, and provide opportunities that enhance technical proficiency and build skills that will help them succeed over the long term.
Our leadership team is continuously focused on weaving diversity into our strategy, structure, and governance. We’ve garnered industry accolades for our leadership in this area, and we’ve seen progress throughout our firm. We’re proud that diverse candidates made up nearly 56 percent of our promotions into and within management in fiscal year 14. We’re also proud to report that one-quarter of our Board of Directors is diverse.
But we recognize there’s more to be done.
Our people, and the diversity of skills and experiences that they bring to our clients, help set us apart from other organizations. In a landscape with so many uncertainties, we need the best and brightest people to grow, innovate, stay competitive, and bring forward the best solutions. Our ability to maximize the diverse experiences, talents, ideas, and perspectives of all our people is tied to our commercial success, because our intellectual capital must be as diverse as the clients we serve, and the communities where we live and work.