Women’s Day: KPMG has few women doing audits – 03/08/2023 – Market

PwC and KPMG are lagging behind rivals EY and Deloitte in promoting women to lead more prestigious audits in the US corporate scene, new data shows.

Women still represent only 20% of the main engagement partners in audits of companies in the S&P 500 index, according to a study published on Tuesday (7) by the CFA Institute, a professional body of the investment industry.

The number, covering 2021 audits, represented a 15% improvement from four years earlier, but showed the need for faster progress at some companies in particular, said Sandy Peters, the institute’s head of global advocacy.

“Half of those entering the accounting profession are women,” Peters wrote in the study. “The problem at the big four companies is leakage. Within 10 to 15 years – the time it takes to become a partner – the almost majority of women in accounting become a minority.”

Women perform more key audits at each of the companies than four years earlier, and the number of S&P 500 companies with female lead partners increased from 73 to 102 in total, the CFA Institute found.

Deloitte led the big four, with women making up 27% of its top engagement partners in the S&P 500. Meanwhile, EY saw the biggest increase — from 13% in 2017 to 22% in 2021.

KPMG remained in fourth place, with 13% of its S&P 500 engagement partners. The pace of growth was slower at PwC, which fell to third place, with 19%.

KPMG said it had mentorship and development programs specifically to help women progress to lead engagement, and the CFA Institute study ignores its broader progress.

“This metric obscures our progress in advancing women in leadership at our companies,” she said. “On audit, we’ve grown our membership by more than 10% since 2019, with women holding more than 30% of leadership roles today.”

PwC said it is working to increase the diversity of partners who drive meaningful client relationships, in audits and other areas of the firm. “Although we are not where we wanted to be, we are proud of the progress we have made,” the company said.

Peters, a former audit partner at KPMG, said the big four firms provide “a good training ground” for future CFOs, controllers and audit committee members of companies, so improvements could contribute to progress of the genre. in the meeting room.

“Key engagement partners participate in the board’s audit committees each quarter and interact with senior management,” she wrote. “If diversity in decision-making is important to investors in the boardroom, auditors are just an extension of that interest.”

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves