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Lord Michael Hastings, KPMG’s Global Head of Citizenship and Diversity
Lord Michael Hastings of Scarisbrick is KPMG International's Global Head of Citizenship and Diversity. He has been involved with socially responsible issues for a large part of his career, culminating in the 2003 award of the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) recognizing his services to crime reduction with Crime Concern.
Michael also represents KPMG on the World Business Council on Sustainable Development and is a board member of the International Business Leaders Forum. He has close ties with business schools having successfully completed business education programmes at Wharton and Columbia. In 2005 he received the UNICEF award for his ‘outstanding contribution to understanding and effecting solutions for Africa’s children’.
KPMG International is one of the world’s ‘big four’ leading providers of Audit, Tax and Advisory services, firmly part of the ‘big four’ firms in the industry. KPMG member firms respond to their clients' complex business challenges with a global approach to services that spans industry sectors and national boundaries.
In this interview, part one of two, Lord Hastings spoke about KPMG’s Corporate Social Responsibility policies and how the business is helping staff to express their CSR beliefs around the world. To read the extremely informative part two of the interview, featuring Michael’s thoughts on the overall connection between the business world and CSR and Sustainable Development issues, please register for the TopMBA fairs at www.topmba.com to receive the newsletter.
Michael, how did you achieve the position you currently hold at KPMG?
I worked at the BBC for 12 years, where I latterly created a CSR department, but previously I was responsible for public affairs ,lobbying and parliament. Then it was my role to put pressure on parliament to support the BBC, and on the BBC’s leadership to understand the interests of parliament. The BBC had phenomenal assets such as Children in Need which were strong CSR charity projects funded out of programme appeals. Having built that up I worked with business in the community, including Sir Michael Rake at KPMG, to focus on the international partnership of members around the world for a commitment to communities, to provide leadership strategies and initiatives.
Why KPMG?
KPMG is very attractive to me as it’s a truly global organisation. There are 148 independent member firms working under the KPMG brand and these aspire to common aspirations and values. And because those values are so intrinsic to the authoritative position KPMG holds in audit, tax and advisory services, and because of the conviction of leadership in KPMG, I thought this was a wonderful next step for me.
What do you feel makes a good corporate citizen at KPMG?
A good corporate citizen is a member of our organization who feels an opportunity for their skills to make a difference beyond their standard job. The job can be incredibly consuming, especially in the audit and tax areas of our organization. There very long hours are asked of people, as precision and adherence to regulations are fundamental to that work.
Despite that, we have people worldwide who enthusiastically look around them to get involved in initiatives that stand alongside schools, support head teachers and do important things like reading with children. KPMG in the UK announced a new Academy this week (January 2008) in partnership with the City of London Corporation so we are attempting to put significant physical structures in place, like the school academy, alongside day-to-day initiatives to help children with effective numeracy and literacy programs.
How do KPMG staff manifest this belief in the firm’s CSR policies?
An effective citizen at KPMG is one who looks at the firm’s values and constantly asks ‘given the privilege of my position, the significance of my skills, the investment of this firm in me, the gift of my talents, how can I bring that to bear to move the needle forward again to support people at the margins of society, to take on the big and challenging themes of our world and to make a difference’?
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