KPMG Appoints Its First Female Leaders In Its 150 Years Of Existence
KPMG Appoints Its First Female Leaders In Its 150 Years Of Existence. The corporate space for many years has been largely dominated by male executives. Senior positions in a company are mostly given to males, even when a woman has more qualifications than her male counterpart she will likely not be considered to run a big corporate company because of the stereotypes and discriminations that exists in society. This is also largely due to the patriarchal values that have been adopted over the years where women were subjected to be mostly housewives.
This move by KPMG is showing that society is constantly challenging the views of the past and it is setting new precedents for the future. KPMG has promoted two of its female partners to temporarily take over the operations of the company following the investigation of, Chairman and Senior partner, Bill Michael’s conduct in a meeting with its staff.
Michael who has been chairman and senior partner since 2017 stepped aside on the 10th of February 2021 after he made controversial comments in a meeting with KPMG financial services consulting team. He told the staff to “stop moaning about work conditions” during the pandemic and rubbishing the notion of unconscious bias as “complete crap”. The incidents were reported to KPMG’s internal ethics champions, this led to a full investigation being opened by the company.
Michael decided to step aside from his role while the investigation took place. The company announced that Bina Mehta, will assume Bill Michael’s chairman role and Mary O’Connor will take over responsibilities as senior partner. This will be the first time that both positions are held by women in the 150 year history of the company.
According to the Financial Times Current and former KPMG insiders also said they thought it was unlikely that Michael, who was known for his brash, assertive and “old school” management style, would return as chairman.
The people who are likely to replace Michael from his position would be O’Connor; Michelle Hinchcliffe, UK chair of audit; Lisa Heneghan, chief digital officer; Chris Hearld, head of regions; Jonathan Holt, head of audit; and Tim Jones, the firm’s chief operating officer.
