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KPMG providing resources, expertise to high school career academy

KPMG and the National Academy Foundation are collaborating to bolster accounting education to underserved high school students in the foundation’s Academies of Finance nationwide.

In addition making cash contributions through its foundation, KPMG will be helping guide academy curriculum and teacher development. The firm will also make its employees available to the students for job shadowing, mock interviews, guest speaking and resume and portfolio reviews.

“We continually look to collaborate with organizations that can help us advance our programs, and we are quite pleased to have KPMG take on this key role,” said NAF President JD Hoye in a statement. “We are certainly eager for KPMG to evaluate and enhance our accounting curriculum and to help us prepare students for success in college and in their careers.”

Part of a network of career-themed academies, NAF’s finance academy offers courses in banking and credit, financial planning, international finance, securities, insurance, accounting and economics in 243 U.S. locations.

“Programs like NAF and its Academies of Finance work today to help us close tomorrow’s workforce readiness gaps, which are most evident among youth growing up in low-income and underserved communities,” said John Veihmeyer, KPMG’s Chairman and CEO, in a statement. “It is our intention to build an effective accounting curriculum, and we will enlist support from several university professors in doing so.” 

The professors are members of The PhD Project, started by the KPMG Foundation in 1994 to increase minority representation for business school professors.

KPMG’s New York office, its largest, has partnered with NAF academies since 1992, serving on academy advisory boards and providing classroom speakers and paid student internships.

 

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