Ahmed Abu Sharkh

What have been the main achievements of KPMG Qatar in terms of its performance in the last few years?

Ahmed Abu Sharkh: There are two reasons out of many behind the success of KPMG over the last two years. The first reason has been our focus on trust as part of our core strategy, while the second being our focus on our auditing quality to enhance our clients’ trust in us. Not only has our auditing grew by 4%, but the quality of our team’s work delivery has been booming. We are very proud of our significant growth in advisory by 27% due to our emphasis on quality and the digital spectrum, including various user experience and cybersecurity services. I can confidently say that our team have been performing extremely well. Our key success is that we have an agile structure that enables us to move faster than others. We have centers of excellence in different countries undertaking incredible jobs in digital fields. We did a great job in tax re-design, which looks at the future digital impact on clients’ businesses in taxes. Every government is focusing on ensuring correct taxation, and we are doing that because it fits our trust agenda.

What is the company’s strategy in terms of implementing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives?

Ahmed Abu Sharkh: We formed a team led by two partners focusing on ESG in Qatar. They work with a multidisciplinary team to build services and tools. We have started to help two major clients with ESG engagements. We are collaboratively working to develop KPMG’s global methodologies in terms of building infrastructure and ESG services. We focus on educating markets and community services. There is a large gap between global trends, regulations, and the awareness level of businesses and the local community about ESG. Honestly, few people know about this, and that is exactly why we are working to shed light on the importance of the matter and build it up further.