Donald Trump’s disparaging taunts sparked Alison Kitchen’s KPMG tilt
It was disparaging comments made by Donald Trump about women during the 2016 election campaign that prompted Alison Kitchen to throw her hat in the ring to chair KPMG.
It was disparaging comments made by former US president Donald Trump about women in the 2016 election campaign that prompted long-time KPMG partner Alison Kitchen to throw her hat in the ring to chair the big four consulting firm.
“I became chair of the firm (in 2017) because I was so angry with Donald Trump and the way he spoke about women in the lead-up to the 2016 election,” she told The Australian.
“I felt strongly that women who were in positions of power needed to step forward and be much more public and visible for the sake of other women,” said Ms Kitchen, who is now a director of the National Australia Bank and the Business Council of Australia, and chair of the BCA’s economics committee.
“Otherwise I was afraid there would be a time when people would think it’s okay to treat women badly again.”
Ms Kitchen went on to chair KPMG for the maximum six-year term, from 2017 to last year, using her high-profile role to speak out on the need for better policies to encourage the participation of women in the workforce.
She was able to draw on some of the firm’s economic research capacity to work with Chief Executive Women and the BCA to put the case for more assistance with child care and a better deal on superannuation for women.
“When I became chair of KPMG, I used my platform and the skill sets of the firm to raise the profile around the importance of the economic participation of women and the policy changes that were needed,” she said. Ms Kitchen, who has been awarded an AM in the King’s Birthday Honours for her significant services to business, governance roles and the community, believes the work that was done in conjunction with CEW and the BCA “helped shape the narrative around women’s economic impact, the importance of equal pay and equal opportunities for women”.
“We wanted to move away from a conversation that these policies were about welfare which the government couldn’t support to having a broader conversation (about their economic importance),” she said. “We started a lot of conversations and built some momentum, through CEW and the BCA and other organisations, and we had some good successes.”
Ms Kitchen was born in Britain, in a small village in Bristol, studying business at the University of Sheffield.
She worked with KPMG predecessor Peat Marwick in Sheffield for five years, before accepting an offer of a secondment to Perth in 1983, where the firm had many clients in the mining industry, specialising in the auditing side of the business.
“I left Sheffield in the middle of the miners’ strike led by (trade union leader) Arthur Scargill. There was a lot of drama,” she said.
“Every client we were working with was going broke and it was very depressing.”
Ms Kitchen arrived in Perth as Alan Bond was winning the America’s Cup in the US and the city was booming.
“I felt like the streets (of Perth) were literally paved with gold,” she recalled. “I was suddenly working with all these listed companies. It was a very exciting, vibrant time and I decided that I was never going home. I’ve been in Australia ever since.”
Ms Kitchen became a partner of KPMG in 1994, leaving Perth after 15 years to move to its offices in Melbourne.
Along the way, she also became involved in not-for-profit organisations including a foundation for industrial accident prevention in Western Australia, focused on the mining industry.
“It was just at the start of mining companies thinking that safety was non-negotiable, and everyone had to get serious about (safety) training,” she said.
Ms Kitchen worked her way up the ranks of KPMG Australia, becoming a board member in 2004, chair of the audit committee in 2006, national head of its energy and national resources practice in Australia from 2013 to 2015, chair of the partner remuneration and nomination committee from 2015 to 2017 and then being elected as chair, taking on the role in 2017. She became a director of the BCA in 2021, chairing its Women’s Participation Taskforce before moving on to her current role of chair of its economics committee.
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‘When I became chair of KPMG, I used my platform and the skill sets of the firm to raise the profile around the importance of the economic participation of women and the policy changes that were needed’
Alsion Kitchen AM
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Her not-for-profit work has included her current roles as an ambassador for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation (since 2018), a council member of the Australian National University (since 2021) and a board member of the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney’s Surry Hills.
Ms Kitchen said she was pleased to see, in both the US and Australia, there were now a lot more women politicians and women in the senior ranks of business.
“A whole range of things have happened which have helped society move to the next step of the journey around recognising gender equality and behaving more respectfully – not just to women but all minority groups who may feel excluded,” she said.
Ms Kitchen said her approach in putting the case for better policies for women, given her platform as KPMG chair, was to argue the economic importance for the country of keeping women in the workforce.
“We need to see the country grow and become more productive,” she says.
“Women have been an incredibly untapped source of potential.” She felt the campaigns run along these lines by a range of organisations had resulted in policy changes including improved childcare subsidies and the payment of superannuation on paid parental leave that was recently adopted by the Albanese government.
Ms Kitchen said that the role of women in business had “come along in leaps and bounds” over her career but there was still a long way for women and other minority groups to go before they had equal representation.
But she said she was pleased to see the announcements around more women in the ranks of chief executives in Australia including at Qantas, Telstra and Coles.
“I’m an optimist,” she said.
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