AICPA Chair Anoop Natwar Mehta opened the Conference by stressing his three areas of focus: people, skills and trust. In staying relevant and addressing challenges, he emphasized that a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is essential. This theme continued on Tuesday, when Conference attendees joined a session hosted by officials from the Center for Audit Quality on audit quality, including a critical topic: how the CAQ is working to recruit a new and diverse generation of talent to the public company accounting profession.
Annette Schumacher Barr, CAQ Senior Director, noted that attracting diverse talent to the profession is a top priority among audit and accounting organizations and stakeholders. The recent decline in students pursuing accounting degrees (as reported in the AICPA 2021 Trends Report) – combined with historical barriers to access for students and early career talent from underrepresented communities – has put a magnifying glass on the profession’s collective efforts to open doors to new opportunities for the future talent and leaders of our field. Schumacher Barr highlighted the CAQ’s efforts through its Accounting + program designed to increase awareness and combat misconceptions about the profession.
Attracting and retaining
As a long-time supporter of the CAQ’s work, KPMG has made significant efforts to attract and retain diverse talent, in line with the firm’s Accelerate 2025 strategy. One aspirational goal the firm laid out is to demonstrate a 50% increase in its Black and Hispanic/Latinx workforce by 2025, noted in our 2022 US Impact Plan.
