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KPMG Proves Its Commitment to Women By Firing the Guys Who Expensed Strippers and Gave Interns Alcohol Poisoning

Determined to steal the crown from public accounting’s reigning fuck-ups (that’s EY for those of you out of the loop), a group of former KPMGers are doing their best to bring shame upon their former firm now that news of their “boys’ night out” shenanigans has reached the unwashed masses. And they have the Australian Financial Review to thank.

A week ago, AFR wrote about how the evening activities of certain Private Enterprise staff started to make some at the firm uncomfortable, namely after a video invitation was sent to “80 male employees ranging from summer interns through to directors” in 2015. Man, you just know those interns were beside themselves with joy for picking KPMG and not the lame firm at which $100 toward your student loans is considered a perk.

Members of a Melbourne-based division of KPMG were dismissed and more women promoted into leadership positions following an investigation into annual “boys’ night out” events that featured binge drinking and other “f—ed up” behaviour, such as hiring strippers that were allegedly expensed to the firm.

In addition to visiting strip clubs, attendees of the “boys’ night out”, held in the mid-2010s, described events where one staff member crawled through his own vomit on Swanston Street and another was picked up in an ambulance.

Man, this is the most exciting thing to happen in “drunken KPMG or KPMG-adjacent antics caught on video” news since that blasted Irish woman yelling about how her daddy works at KPMG.

The video invitation was brought to the firm’s attention in 2018, at which point they jumped head-first into an investigation that inevitably led to ousting the naughty boys responsible. Perhaps it’s pessimistic of us to suggest that there’s no way the firm didn’t know about interns getting so wrecked they crawled through their own puke prior to finding out about the video, but maybe they were cool with it up until the point that these guys started blowing up their colleagues’ inboxes with eager invites to every dude on the team.

“As soon as this was uncovered in 2018, I ensured it was investigated straight away, and took disciplinary actions, including people exiting,” CEO Gary Wingrove told the Australian Financial Review. “We then made a number of key leadership changes, bolstered senior female representation, and took further actions to improve the culture in this team.”

Ah yes, nothing like a good stripper scandal to advance the issue of female leadership. It appears this is an ongoing issue for southern hemisphere KPMG, coming in third among Big 4 firms for female leadership. “KPMG has the second-lowest percentage of women in management roles of all the big four firms at 38 per cent,” writes AFR.

The best part from the AFR article is the transcript of the video invitation, or rather this particular snippet:

1m 56s: “I am still haunted by the memory of seeing [an attendee] on all fours on Swanston Street vomiting then crawling through his own filth.”

When one points out that there is no designated food stop, another responds that “everyone thinks eating is for soft cocks”.

1m 18s: “Last function without food, [an attendee] ended up in an ambulance on the side of the freeway.”

Others then declare that they want “a f—in kebab” if they’re going on “a bender”, and tell those who agreed to no food stop to “go do independence training or something”.

Unfortunately the video can’t be found online, though it used to be. If anyone happens to come across a copy let us know, meanwhile we’ll continue to scour the dark corners of the Internet in search of depravity and will also keep an eye out for the video.

2 thoughts on “KPMG Proves Its Commitment to Women By Firing the Guys Who Expensed Strippers and Gave Interns Alcohol Poisoning

  1. Sounds like that office knows how to have a good time…Does this mean the radio station will be openings there?

  2. I knew of a US tax partner in southeast leadership who ran expenses for a prostitute at a Brazil tax conference through t/e by way of a subordinate. I thought about notifying HR, but then Will Williams had already given him a pass for something much worse, so why bother? Like I said, complete garbage.

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