KPMG reinstates Chief Digital Officer role with John Munnelly
KPMG has restored its Chief Digital Officer position, with Sydney-based partner John Munnelly appointed to the role.
John Munnelly has been with the global accounting and consulting firm since 2015, when he joined the firm as part of its acquisition of Microsoft gold partner Hands-On Systems. He now joins the national executive committee in a restored Chief Digital Officer role.
“The appointment of John as our Chief Digital Officer recognises the rapid increase and pace of technology transformation in the market and in our own business,” said CEO Andrew Yates.
Yates added that a focus of Munnelly’s would be to enhance the firm’s technology Employee Value Proposition. “Our clients are facing significant digital challenges, and John will be responsible for ensuring we are optimally placed to support them now and into the future.”
The CEO of Hands-on Systems for over twenty years, Munnelly was admitted to KPMG’s management consulting partnership in 2017, and serves as Global Microsoft Business Applications lead and partner-in-charge for cloud implementation services in Australia. He was also previously the CEO of KPMG and Commonwealth Bank ERP and accounting software joint venture Wiise, of which he remains an executive director.
“I am excited to take on this new challenge,” Munnelly said in response. “It is more important than ever before that we communicate our technology story externally, to help clients get ahead of the change in their industries and organisations. I’m also looking forward to helping to enhance the technology skills and career paths of our people and leading our firm’s own ambitious technology agenda.”
While KPMG previously had a chief digital officer in place between 2016 and 2018 – former partner Anthony Stevens, who went on to found risk and compliance SaaS platform 6clicks – it has been reported that Stevens didn’t sit on the national executive committee or report directly to the CEO (then Gary Wingrove), unlike the new arrangements for Munnelly. Yates described the new appointment as “an important change for our firm.”
