June 20, 2024
Paul Knopp, Chair & CEO, KPMG US
Can You Reboot A 100-Year-Old Company With AI And Culture?
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Most all companies are going through some form of tech. reboot. From the 20-person start-up to organizations with 100,000 people—some who have been around for over 100 years. Though there is much to learn from big and small reboots, the business in question has roots back to the 1800’s when it was a small NYC accounting office.
Today KPMG is one of the world’s top professional services firms, serving 80% of the Fortune Global 500 with a broad spectrum of Audit, Tax, Advisory and Innovation services. With more than 270,000 people operating in 143 countries who delivered $36B in revenue last year.
On this episode of The Reboot Chronicles, KPMG’s CEO (US) Paul Knopp unpacks changes he made as a newbie CEO in the disorienting COVID times, and how AI will help his clients—some the world’s largest public companies in the world—reboot themselves.
Adapting To 2020
One of the positives of the pandemic was that many companies took the time to think about the overall health and mental health of their employees. Alongside that many people called this period “the great resignation” as everyone was getting laid off or looking for remote work, so it became even more important to think about your employees. Paul notes that “we were all trying to meet the moment in terms of delivering, but at the same time, making sure our cultures were strong and attracted people to our organization.” Paul also notes that any challenge, especially one on the scale of COVID-19, brings “an opportunity to gain trust with our clients,” as they continue to deliver solutions even with those challenges looming ahead. Sad it took a pandemic but better late than never.
The Talk Of The Digital Town
AI is at the forefront of every company’s mind as it grows in popularity, and for a company that does tax, audit, and consulting work, it is a tool Paul is very interested in using. He notes that “ We want to put generative AI and AI tools in the hands of all 40,000 people in the US” that work for KPMG. They are on track to do this as Paul expects that “over half of our people will have Microsoft Copilot” by the end of the year. Which will hopefully make the auditing process slightly more bearable for all involved.
Advice For Future Workers
We always like to ask CEOs what advice they would give early career people. When asked Paul said, “Be a student of the world, be a lifelong learner” which even he admits is “ubiquitous advice”. If you have read other articles from us it might sound familiar, but it truly goes to show how important it is to be flexible, learn multiple skills across industries, and be ready to learn anything and everything you can.
