Research: Why Students — Particularly Diverse Ones — Aren’t Pursuing Accounting
The Center for Audit Quality — the AICPA-affiliated “nonpartisan public policy organization serving as the voice of U.S. public company auditors and matters related to the audits of public companies” — has released a 63-page report entitled Increasing Diversity in the Accounting Profession Pipeline that tackles the historically under-reported and totally mysterious issue of why […]
This EY Canada Recruitment Video Said ‘Belong’ So Many Times the Word Lost Its Meaning
You ever repeated a word so many times in a row the word becomes alien? Belong. Belong. Belong. Belong. Belong. Belong. Belo…..
Another Big 4 Executive Bites the Dust In the UK (UPDATE)
[UPDATE/Jason Bramwell] The Telegraph reported this past weekend that Deloitte UK gave its former diversity and inclusion chief, Dimple Agarwal, around £8 million last year after an internal investigation cleared her of bullying staff. Reports began to surface overseas on March 4, 2021, that she had resigned from Deloitte following the bullying accusations against her. […]
[UPDATED] PwC Australia Diversity and Inclusion Manager Who Mocked Chinese Accents Had to Be Told You Aren’t Supposed to Mock Chinese Accents
[Updated original post from Sept. 28 with additional information on PwC Australia’s internal investigation. Update is at the bottom of this article.] Australian Financial Review has a blockbuster of an exclusive this morning, one that involves “a human resources executive dressed as a bat from Wuhan” and a senior manager of diversity and inclusion mocking […]
Female PwC Employee Claims In Farewell Email She Was Fired Today For Calling Out Discrimination
A tipster sent us a link to a post on r/accounting that is generating quite the discussion this evening. In a goodbye email to her colleagues on Monday, a foreign-born Black woman who worked at PwC alleges she was discriminated against and denied a promotion three times because of her race, gender, and national origin. […]
FASB and PCAOB Do a Poor Job on Diversity and Inclusion
I’ve spent a good portion of my career monitoring the accounting and auditing standard-setting world and Big 4 firms. So, I read with great interest the letter to the editor to Going Concern on whether the Big 4’s equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) efforts are corporate BS. It made me think about the FASB and […]
The Big 4, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Is it Just Corporate BS?
I am a Big 4 alum and I spent many years in the audit profession before I transitioned to academia. I teach accounting in the Southeast at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), which means that at least 25% of the students are Hispanic. I am also Hispanic. I grew up at Deloitte, the same as Joe […]
What Percentage of Straight White Businessmen Don’t Give a Crap About Diversity and Inclusion?
In the year of our COVID Lord 2020, it’s a shame that nearly six in 10 straight white dudes who are college-educated professionals still don’t really give a damn about their employer’s diversity and inclusion efforts. From a survey recently conducted by the Center for Talent Innovation: Majority men are defined as white straight cis-gender […]
Having a Lakehouse Makes KPMG the Most Diverse of the Big 4, According to Weird Ranking
For the third year in a row, KPMG was the only Big 4 representative on DiversityInc’s ranking of the top 50 companies for diversity, coming in at No. 12 in 2020. Congrats to KPMG. But one of the reasons why the Radio Station is the most diversitiest of the Big 4 firms left me scratching […]
Vault 2021 Rankings: These Accounting Firms Supposedly Care the Most About Diversity
One of the more interesting categories under the “Best Accounting Firms to Work For” portion of Vault’s accounting rankings each year is diversity. Pretty much all large-to-midsize accounting firms these days tout their diversity initiatives. But which firms actually walk the talk? Knocking KPMG out of the No. 1 spot in Vault’s 2021 overall diversity […]
Vault 2020 Firm Rankings: KPMG Is the Diversitiest of the Big 4
We’ve given KPMG a lot of shit on this site recently, and rightly so. But we’re going to throw the House of Klynveld a bone today, as there’s some good news to report: KPMG nearly swept the diversity categories in Vault’s “Best Accounting Firms” rankings. Let’s not kid ourselves, though: The accounting profession is still […]
EY Would Like to See Fewer Old White Guys at Davos Talking About Diversity
The World Economic Forum saw a “controversial” drop in female attendees last year, and hopes a participation rate of 17% for women this year might make up for that. Coincidentally, a CNBC report on this threw in a dig from EY on the overall attitude toward women and what they are doing about it:
Now Would be a Good Time for Closeted Gay Partners to Come Out
According to this recent piece over at the Wharton Knowledge blog, it's starting to look like just a matter of time before a Fortune 500 CEO gets the balls (or, ovaries, if applicable) to come out of the closet: Being gay or lesbian in America in the past half decade has meant watching barriers fall […]
Deloitte Claims to Fire Clients Who Reject Gay Consultants
Last year, we had a pretty candid conversation about gay. We talked and talked and talked until we were blue in the face (there's a joke there I'm missing, I'm sure). At the end, I don't think we got any closer toward getting a feel of how comfortable public accounting is with gay, and in […]