The audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG LLP is the U.S. member firm of KPMG International. KPMG International’s member firms have 123,000 professionals, including more than 7,100 partners, in 145 countries. Joe Maiorano, Executive Director of HR for KPMG LLP, spoke with LatPro recently about his firm’s diversity recruiting, training and retention strategies, crediting KPMG’s success to its people.

Joe Maiorano Executive Director of HR, KPMG LLP

Can you tell us a little about your own background and history with KPMG?

My parents are immigrants from Italy, and they raised me to have a deep respect for everyone, regardless of where they come from or their position. Those values gave me an appreciation for the challenges that diverse candidates may experience within the work environment.

I have been working in a public accounting environment for more than 21 years and have spent the last 11 years with KPMG. I am currently an executive director in human resources with a regional role in support of Latin America, and I have been in charge of diversity since 2003. I am responsible for organizational effectiveness, work/life initiatives and corporate social responsibility at KPMG, in addition to supporting the vice chairman of industries and marketing.

What challenges have you encountered in recruiting Hispanic employees? What methods have you found to be most effective for recruiting multicultural candidates?


KPMG has been extremely successful in recruiting Hispanic professionals. The co-chair of our National Hispanic Latino Network, Manny Fernandez, is also national managing partner for campus recruiting. Having someone like Manny in that role has proven to be extremely effective. He understands the challenge of being competitive in the search for diverse candidates, and has helped us spearhead efforts to recruit diverse new hires at the college level.

We also sponsor an annual case study competition through the Association of Latino Professionals in Accounting and Finance (ALPFA) as a means to promote accounting to Latinos. The competition has also become a great inroad for us in attracting minority candidates.

How do you define and meet your diversity goals and objectives? How does your department measure success? Are minority hiring and retention metrics tied to your professional recruitment staff? How does your department measure success?


We have created a firm-wide diversity scorecard that is utilized within each of our businesses: audit, tax and advisory. We use the scorecard expectations for both entry-level and experienced hires. Annually, each of our business units develop projected percentage-based diversity goals, and we have similar targets for internal promotions to both the management and partner levels.

We know we are succeeding because we are continuously improving. This year we received several awards and recognition from publications such as Working Mother, DiversityInc, Fortune and Hispanic Magazine.

Maintaining a diverse workforce is a challenge we face every day. We can’t just rest on our laurels because we met our goals. What was “good” for us in 2007 doesn’t equate to being the best we can be in 2008. The spirit of continuous improvement resonates around everything we do.

What do you say to those who feel that diversity programs are more about complying with EEO requirements and public image, rather than a real dedication to finding diverse candidates?


Diversity at KPMG is not about quotas or requirements. Those requirements are important for organizations that are not as sophisticated, not as savvy and not as aware of the importance of diversity as we are at KPMG.

Our approach goes well beyond government guidelines. We use government data as a platform to tell our offices, “Here is the percentage of diverse individuals in your marketplace, and if you don’t have a similar corresponding percentage in your workforce, then that is a goal you need to set for yourself and improve upon.” We are far beyond looking at diversity as a compliance matter. We’re focused on incorporating our diversity efforts into making and keeping KPMG a great place to work.

What programs and initiatives exist to help your current workforce value diversity?

There are two mandatory training programs that are required of all new partners and employees. These programs address the firm’s expectations concerning diversity and inclusion. We carry this message throughout various training programs, so when people get promoted to senior associate, manager or new partner, they also receive training that will help them to manage and motivate a diverse workforce.

We also have six national diversity networks and 108 local diversity chapters that support each of our business units and their employees. This year we also held our first annual diversity leadership conference where the national steering committee, members of the diversity networks, and the leadership management committee attended a two-day leadership conference on the importance of diversity and how we can leverage our efforts at both the national and local levels. Additionally, our Chairman and CEO Timothy P. Flynn addressed attendees at the conference on the importance of our diversity initiatives.

How does your employee onboarding process help promote an inclusive atmosphere for diverse employees, right from the start?

We have a fairly extensive onboarding process. New employees get a day and a half of training and are assigned to an onboarding associate as part of the process. There are touch-points throughout the training that expose new hires to elements of our diversity strategy and our diversity networks. We encourage people to join networks early on; after 90 days we reach out to everyone who has joined the firm who has not yet joined a diversity network, whether it’s a women’s network or any of our other affinity networks. We reach out and encourage them to explore another element of who we are through our affinity networks.

What programs does your company offer to minority groups?

KPMG’s diversity networks do meet on firm time, and each of the networks has a variety of things they do. For example, the Hispanic Latino Network holds semi-annual meetings for their managers, and they invite and sponsor professionals to attend the ALPFA convention. More than 150 professionals from our firm will be attending the annual ALPFA conference in Phoenix this year, where we will be sponsoring a KPMG day specifically for all of our attendees.

In addition to the diversity networks, we typically hold four regional meetings once a year where we invite managers and staff to participate. We have been working with a diversity consulting group to develop a curriculum that we offer to our professionals who attend these events.

We are also trying to drive some of our national efforts down through the local networks, so that people in San Antonio or Houston or Denver have resources at their disposal to support and develop the people who are in their office. Our national and regional events happen several times a year, but what goes on every day at the office level is obviously of critical importance. Giving local network leaders the tools and resources they need to be successful is certainly important to us.

KPMG also sponsors numerous community and educational programs. One of these programs funds the education of minority Ph.D. students so they can become accounting professors and teach accounting students who look like them in an effort to increase the number of diverse professionals in accounting.

Many companies struggle to bring diversity to all areas. Has KPMG been successful in achieving diversity in upper management? How were you able to achieve this?

We are challenging ourselves to increase the number of minority and female partners. For example, this year we are proud to say that, through our diversity efforts, Public Accounting Report (PAR) ranked KPMG as the #1 firm among the Big Four in terms of our percentage of female partners.

We have an annual succession planning process that we go through, where individuals moving on within the firm make recommendations for their successors. As part of this process, we insure we have a diverse slate of candidates that includes women and minorities.

We also have a diversity advisory board that identifies managers and senior managers who have performed well and appear to be on a track to become partners. Board members identify these individuals’ developmental needs, making sure they have a mentor and a plan in place for their career success. The board helps to ensure that qualified women and minorities are getting the proper development and client assignments so an appropriate number of women and minorities have access to opportunities that can lead to a partner position.

What is your company’s leadership commitment and involvement in diversity? How has the CEO or other top officer of the company embraced or championed diversity?

Our Chairman and CEO, Tim Flynn, has been an advocate for diversity ever since I met him 11 years ago when he hired me. He has been a supporter and a champion of our efforts, encouraging senior leadership to devote significant time to diversity initiatives.

Jack Taylor, our chief diversity officer and COO, and Kathy Hannan, a managing partner in the Midwest, have also been instrumental in creating the firm-wide scorecard we use as a measurement tool for leadership, ensuring that we have a diverse organization from a variety of perspectives.

What role does diversity play in the overall success of your organization? How are you able to correlate bottom-line results to workforce diversity?

We can certainly see the results from a retention perspective. We have seen a 14 percent increase in terms of retention for Latino employees in the last year. We have also seen positive results in employee engagement. Our efforts to include and develop diverse professionals are paying dividends.

We also see results in our business through the acquisition of proposals. Companies are asking more questions and are being more insistent that the firms they hire are inclusive and creating a culture that is diverse.

What would you say to Latino candidates applying to KPMG today? What can they do to use their language and cultural skills to their best advantage?

As a global organization, there are many opportunities for Latino candidates to use their language skills while working with multinational clients in the U.S., Latin America, Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries around the world. We try to promote international assignments through each of our business lines, and we aggressively work to identify professionals who can contribute to our organization and serve our clients who often require foreign language skills.

What do you want prospective diverse employees to know about KPMG and its commitment to diversity?

KPMG partners who are network chairs and members of the diversity advisory board have an incredible passion for diversity, and I think it is fueled by the kind of support they get from our leadership. At trade conferences, people often ask, “How do you get your leadership to buy into diversity?” I say, “I don’t have to. They have already bought in.”

I think our success is a combination of having leadership that is supportive and partners who have a passion for diversity. Our employees look up to the partners as role models. When you have people who are that engaged in supporting diversity, it is extremely motivating, and that has a very positive effect on the organization. That is why I say to Latino employees who want to work for us, “Welcome!”

Learn more about careers with KPMG

About the Author: LatPro Inc

An innovator in the online employment industry, LatPro was launched in 1997 to become the very first job board connecting Hispanic bilingual candidates with employers. Our staff authors share targeted advice gained during our 10 years serving Hispanic jobseekers and diversity-conscious companies.

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