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KPMG Poaches Someone From Deloitte and Issues a Press Release, Parts IV, V, and VI

Posted on by Jason Bramwell

There’s been quite a bit of poaching activity across the globe lately among the four horsemen of professional services firms, so here’s a quick recap of people who have left their green dots behind and joined the redheaded stepchild of the Big 4.

In the UK, Serdar Cabuk joined KPMG as a partner in the firm’s Cyber and Technology Risk business. He will mostly be serving clients in the consumer and energy sectors, “where his expertise in technology and risk transformations will help clients better manage their cyber and digital risks,” the firm said.

Prior to joining KPMG, Cabuk was a risk advisory partner at Deloitte who led the Cyber Risk practice in the Nordics. He joined Deloitte in 2018 after spending the previous three years at IBM, where he built and led the company’s European Security Strategy and Risk practice. Cabuk also spent two years at EY, where he was a cybersecurity director from 2013 to 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. [KPMG/LinkedIn]

Our final stop is Switzerland where KPMG nabbed two Deloitte directors—Taher Balafrej and Miles Underwood—and gave them keys to the partnership.

Balafrej specializes in IT strategy, digital transformation, IT outsourcing, and IT cost optimization, according to his LinkedIn profile. After spending four years at IBM, Balafrej joined Deloitte Consulting in 2011 where he was a manager in the firm’s IT Strategy and Governance business. He left Deloitte in 2013 for Novartis but rejoined Big D in 2016 as a senior manager and then as a director in the firm’s Technology Strategy and Transformation business.

Underwood spent 14 years at Deloitte Switzerland before being hired by KPMG, working his way up from senior consultant to director, according to his LinkedIn profile. His still active Deloitte Switzerland website bio (lol) says he leads Deloitte EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) Community of Practice on IT Outsourcing, helping clients “realize the transformational benefits of outsourcing by navigating the entire end-to-end sourcing process, from initial sourcing strategy and analysis, through to deal execution to transition.”

Before Deloitte, Underwood spent time at Bank of America and Sony.

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While we’re impressed with this particular method of distraction/motivation, the best part is that there is a key slide that includes an admission that they know, that you know, that your life is temporarily over:
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Whether your slim chances of winning one of these gift cards is worth A) your skin not seeing a ray of sun for three months B) not having any semblance of a social life or C) your significant other screaming “That’s it! It’s so over! You can sleep at the f—ing office if you like being there so much!” has to be determined by you and you alone.
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It’s Ridiculous to Think That Enterprise Financial Dismissed KPMG Because of the Restatements

KPMG has been kicked to the curb by Enterprise Financial according to an 8-K that was filed on Friday by the company. The ubiquitous claim of “no disagreements with [insert firm]” was there along with a mention of a material weakness that was related to the restatements issued for both 2008 and 2007 but that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the dismissal of the auditors:

In connection with the identification of the loan participation accounting error described in Item 7, Management Discussion & Analysis and in Item 8, Note 2 of the consolidated financial statements and elsewhere in the Form 10K dated March 16, 2010, the Company also determined that a material weakness in its internal controls over financial reporting existed during the periods affected by the error, including as of December 31, 2008. The Company’s management concluded that the material weakness was the Company’s lack of a formal process to periodically review existing contracts and agreements with continuing accounting significance. To remediate this material weakness, during the fourth quarter of 2009 the Company implemented a formal process to review all contracts and agreements with continuing accounting significance on an annual basis. As a result of the review conducted in the fourth quarter, management did not identify any other errors in its previous accounting for such contracts or agreements. Management believes that this new process has remediated the material weakness in the Company’s internal control over financial reporting.

So in other words, “Yeah, maybe we should have been looking at these contracts but we weren’t and so some material misstatements slid through. We’ve slapped some duct tape on it and it’ll be fine from here on it. End of story.”

The esteemed pleasure of auditing Enterprise now belongs to Deloitte who has now snagged three clients from KPMG this year (by our count) – picking up Jefferies and Select Comfort back in March.

Enterprise Bank parent dismisses KPMG [St. Louis Business Journal]