AA BRG Mentoring Circles

To support the growth and development of our Black professionals, the African Ancestry Business Resource Group launched a Mentorship Circle program. Designed to guide and support our early-career professionals as they adjust to new or changing expectations and expanded responsibilities, the program also provides professionals at all levels with additional tools and resources to successfully navigate their careers. 

As importantly, the Mentorship Circle creates opportunities for allies to deepen their awareness of their Black colleagues’ lived experiences, and apply the insights they’ve gleaned through advocacy.

Since the inception of the program, mentors and mentees alike have provided positive feedback about their experiences in the program.

Our Abilities in Motion (AIM) BRG was quick to publish a mental well-being guide at the onset of the pandemic, providing our members with a single place to access firm resources, including our Employee Assistance Program and links to recorded sessions on topics including stress management. This guide was subsequently incorporated into a broader version distributed firmwide. Additionally, AIM expanded our recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, with a focus on different topics each week through articles and stories published  on our internal portal, short videos featuring our members and larger, nationwide webcasts on topics including fighting the stigma of mental illness, understanding depression, supporting family members with mental health issues and stress management at work. As a result, AIM’s membership has grown significantly during FY20, with local chapters continuing to host sessions on various topics, often partnering with other BRGs.

One of the most significant opportunities for our API BRG constituency is an acknowledgement that there is an under-representation of API talent in leadership, which brings us one step closer to efforts that effectuate change. We need our people to see what they want to and can be.  As a signatory of the Ascend COVID-19 5-Point Action Agenda, we also reiterated our commitment to speak up against acts of intolerance and racism against Pan-Asians and all people, and address the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The HL BRG familia grew significantly during 2020, engaging members with their Executive Speaker Series, which features directors and partners sharing cultural perspectives and professional success stories. Several United States and Puerto Rico members are also having career enriching experiences with secondments and rotations in other countries, including the UK, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, China and Australia. 

The Women’s Advisory Board launched Career Life Strategies (CLS) more than a decade ago to develop and support our women at the senior associate level as they manage work and personal commitments to avoid unintentional off ramping from their careers.

In 2020, CLS was expanded and offered twice (Summer and Winter) to all KNOW senior associate women as three virtual sessions, for a total investment of six hours. The curriculum was tailored to focus on strategies that support managing professional aspirations and personal commitments, essential to working in a virtual environment. Each session focused on a different theme, including strategic career planning and personal branding; authentic leadership; and energy and capacity management. More than 750 women participated in the sessions, and feedback across the sessions was overwhelmingly positive.  

The US pride@kpmg annual conference was elevated to host the first ever KPMG Global Pride Conference. The three-hour virtual event engaged member firms in numerous countries and provided the opportunity to hear from KPMG International Global Chairman Bill Thomas and U.S. Chair Paul Knopp, who shared their thoughts on inclusion and the importance of bringing one’s true self to the workplace. Learning sessions were provided by PFLAG, an external thought partner. In addition, pride@kpmg played an integral role in the firm’s gender-neutral code, use of pronouns in email signatures, as well as our enhanced self-ID campaign. 

Visit the KPMG Military Veterans site

KPMG’s Veterans Business Resource Group has actively partnered with Vetlanta, a community-based organization focused on veteran social and business networking, to sponsor Vets-Talk, a web-based engagement platform designed to share impactful stories from the veteran community.  The platform is open to all active duty, reservists and guardsmen, transitioning veterans, family members and allies, and provides the opportunity for them to share how their experiences, both in and out of the military, have shaped their own lives and influenced others. Importantly, the partnership enables us to reach out to the veteran community to help them identify potential career opportunities and support their re-entry into the workforce.