{"id":30276,"date":"2025-11-06T02:12:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T02:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/30276\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T02:12:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T02:12:49","slug":"kpmgs-new-ceo-joined-as-an-intern-33-years-ago-now-he-wants-to-lure-gen-z-back-with-a-new-office-outfitted-with-moody-lounges-and-a-barista-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/30276\/","title":{"rendered":"KPMG\u2019s new CEO joined as an intern 33 years ago. Now he wants to lure Gen Z back with a new office outfitted with moody lounges and a barista bar"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Timothy Walsh walked into KPMG<\/a> for the first time 33 years ago, he was handed a stack of loan files and sent straight to a copy machine. The new intern spent his first week feeding paper into the copier at a New Jersey bank, the monotonous work that now seems worlds away from the gleaming glass headquarters he leads today.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny,\u201d Walsh said in an interview with Fortune. \u201cI stood at that copy machine all week making copies of loan files for audit evidence. When I look at what our people do today\u2014and the kind of skills they bring\u2014it\u2019s completely transformed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That transformation is both personal and symbolic. Walsh, who took over as KPMG\u2019s U.S. chair and CEO in July, began as an intern and climbed every rung of the firm\u2019s hierarchy. His path from copy room to corner office has become part of how he talks about opportunity and staying power in an era when most new grads are expected to job-hop<\/a> their way through a tight labor market<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet even as Walsh champions the value of entry-level work and promises to keep hiring younger people\u2014\u201cI still think the internship is the most important part of what we do\u201d\u2014the definition of \u201cjunior\u201d is shifting fast.<\/p>\n

Inside KPMG\u2019s consulting arm, new hires are being trained<\/a> to manage teams of AI agents to help build decks or spreadsheets. The firm\u2019s global AI workforce lead, Niale Cleobury, told Business Insider that KPMG wants \u201cjuniors to become managers of agents,\u201d delegating grunt work like data analysis and research to automated assistants to free them up to become more involved in more advanced, strategic decisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That modernization push extends beyond workflows to the workplace itself. Now he\u2019s betting that the effort KPMG is putting into its new headquarters in Manhattan, complete with \u201cwar-mapping\u201d strategy rooms, skyline lounges, and even what one executive called \u201cMTV-style\u201d confession rooms for clients to record reflections after big projects, will provide the next generation with that same sense of opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

KPMG has consolidated three legacy Manhattan offices\u2014345 Park Avenue, 560 Lexington Avenue, and 1350 Avenue of the Americas\u2014into one 450,000-square-foot space, a footprint reduction of approximately 40%. Walsh sees it as key to getting interns on a trajectory similar to his own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI really do believe that someone can start here as an intern, like I did, and build a long-term career,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s still possible, maybe even more so now, because there are so many ways to grow inside one firm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glossy new building<\/p>\n

The gleaming new location comprises 12 floors at Two Manhattan West, the final skyscraper in Brookfield\u2019s eight-acre development between Moynihan Train Hall and Hudson Yards. It arrives at a delicate moment for white-collar work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Five years after the pandemic scattered office life, corporate America is still in the process of negotiating its terms of return.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHybrid creep\u201d is quietly pushing people back<\/a>\u201463% of U.S. workers are now fully in-office, according to Owl Labs data\u2014even as surveys show that rigid mandates<\/a> tank morale and drive attrition.<\/p>\n

Walsh and his leadership team insist their version is voluntary, not punitive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe already have minimums in place, and those are working really just fine,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m more worried about being oversold in this space than people not coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The firm expects most professionals to be in roughly three days a week, varying by business. Audit and advisory staff often spend long stretches at client sites, while partners and internal teams flow through on staggered schedules.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to come in,\u201d said Vanessa Scaglione, head of real estate services. \u201cPeople want to be seen and heard and valued.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scaglione led a Fortune reporter on a private tour of the office ahead of their doors opening Nov. 5. There, a group of KPMG staffers followed and sometimes interjected their own thoughts on the building, while workers fastened the last screws on light bulbs and organized plants strewn around the office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A smaller footprint, a bigger statement<\/p>\n

The 12 floors are split into four New York\u2013inspired \u201cneighborhoods\u201d\u2014the Financial District, downtown Manhattan, Midtown, Upper Manhattan\u2014connected by monumental staircases. There\u2019s a barista bar called Common Ground with views of lower Manhattan; an employee lounge, The Manhattan, designed to feel \u201cmore like your living room than an office\u201d; and an open terrace with skyline seating for impromptu meetings. A digital booking app replaces assigned seating, and early demand is so high it\u2019s already \u201csold out,\u201d Walsh said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The centerpiece is Ignition, the firm\u2019s design-thinking lab that doubles as a client theater. There, executives simulate everything from AI rollouts to supply-chain shocks using wall-size, LED touch screens and movable furniture. Brian Miske, who heads Ignition nationally, called it a \u201cthinking accelerator.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople get more done in one day here than they would in 30 days anywhere else,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s designed and engineered to maximize space for thinking as well as work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miske, however, admitted that even for leaders like him, the office isn\u2019t a five-day affair.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe travel, we\u2019re with clients all the time,\u201d he said. \u201cSome weeks we\u2019re here, some weeks we\u2019re in Orlando or California: This isn\u2019t meant to be full every day. It\u2019s meant to be buzzy and busy when it matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sentiment captures KPMG\u2019s bet: that offices no longer need to be constantly filled\u2014only consistently valuable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe designed to be hybrid,\u201d Scaglione explained, as she pointed to a small room fitted with large cameras that transform in-person employees into large apparitions on their remote worker colleagues\u2019 screens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The design of the building is embedded with that philosophy. Each \u201cneighborhood\u201d offers different work modes in a way that echoes, perhaps, a classic college library\u2014quiet focus zones, collaborative \u201cthrive hubs,\u201d and transient rooms for short bursts of work. Lighting and sound adjust to occupancy, and video systems auto-frame speakers to make hybrid meetings feel equal. Even the materials were chosen through a neurodiversity lens to balance stimulus and calm; bright blue patterned wallpaper here, calmer tones there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The idea, Miske said, isn\u2019t to re-create home but to offer what home can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I say people want to be in person,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause once you\u2019re able to build that road map \u2026 so you can feel seen and heard and valued, you\u2019re able to go back to wherever your working place is, whether you\u2019re in a virtual environment or hybrid environment, and really execute on those.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across corporate America, companies are using architecture<\/a> to reverse the isolation of remote work. But the stakes are high. Surveys<\/a> show that 99% of RTO mandates lower engagement, and nearly half increase attrition. KPMG\u2019s approach, a gentle pull rather than a push, is testing whether space itself can restore culture.<\/p>\n

Walsh calls the tower \u201ca representation of everything we are at KPMG.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He knows not everyone will be there every day, and that\u2019s fine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important place for our people,\u201d he said, \u201cis with our clients.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Timothy Walsh walked into KPMG for the first time 33 years ago, he was handed a stack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[18550,18551,18552,18553,1062,75,84,83,9,24,63,18554,14468,9862],"class_list":{"0":"post-30276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-accounting","9":"tag-audit","10":"tag-consulting","11":"tag-hybrid-work","12":"tag-kpmg","13":"tag-manhattan","14":"tag-manhattan-headlines","15":"tag-manhattan-news","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-office-culture","20":"tag-pandemic","21":"tag-return-to-office"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}