Pittsburgh Steelers team with CAQ to recruit accounting students

The Pittsburgh Steelers kicked off an unusual multi-year partnership Tuesday with the Center for Audit Quality's Accounting+ initiative with the goal of drafting a new generation of diverse students to join the accounting profession.  

The partnership will focus on the Steelers Showcase program, which is set to launch this fall. The program will expose students from across Western Pennsylvania to the accounting profession, with the goal of increasing the diversity of the accounting profession's talent pipeline. At Steelers Showcase events, students will be able to network with members of the Steelers' finance department and local industry executives.

"We are thrilled to partner with an organization like the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have long championed diversity and inclusion", said CAQ CEO Julie Bell Lindsay in a statement. "We're grateful to the Steelers for providing students with opportunities to network with leaders in accounting with this partnership, which we hope will propel our shared mission of increasing diverse student representation in accounting."

To kick off the partnership, CAQ created a video with Omar Khan, general manager of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won Super Bowls XL and XLIII as an executive with the team and is one of eight minority GMs in the NFL.

"As an organization, we pride ourselves on diversity, equity, and inclusion on and off the field," said Khan in a statement. "We were instrumental in establishing the NFL's Rooney Rule policy in 2003, and now we are impacting students of diverse backgrounds in this partnership with CAQ. The Steelers Showcase program will help pave the way for the next generation of industry leaders."