What this CEO knows about purpose
Greg Keith shares how, with the right approach, a professional services firm can deliver more for its clients.
Leading accounting and advisory business Grant Thornton Australia lines up its values of collaboration, authenticity, responsibility and excellence in the acronym of CARE. Knowing that values are empty unless they’re lived, the organisation tests every major decision against its CARE principles. Greg Keith has been CEO of Grant Thornton since and says that respecting those values has made working at the business a more enjoyable experience for team members and clients. Here, Keith details how the company lives its purpose.
“Grant Thornton’s -Box Model is used to guide collaboration with our clients.
The framework focuses on areas of growth, including strategic ambitions, leadership and talent, risk and regulation, optimising operations, shareholder value and finance growth. We use it to guide conversations and help clients achieve their goals.”
“Authenticity is having the courage to be you and recognising that differences bring valuable diversity.
When we first assessed our support of LGBTQI team members, the results were poor. Yet we made the results public because we accepted that our current policies and practices weren’t good enough. We then engaged team members who identified as part of the LGBTQI community and we listened, grew and improved the way we cared for all of our people.”
“We take responsibility for delivering on our promises.
Last year, we were the largest professional services firm to introduce a firm-wide nine-day fortnight to protect our team’s mental health and our staff report that their wellbeing has improved. In we were one of the first to offer weeks of paid parental leave with superannuation included. Since then, we’ve installed flexible working arrangements that see up to per cent of our people work from home in a typical week.”
“Excellence is ensuring quality is the cornerstone of everything we deliver.
In , we chose to move away from a partnership model to become a publicly unlisted entity. We are independently audited and our accounts are publicly available, including our transparency report. We comply with the rigour of the Corporations Act, which is overseen by ASIC. It’s a structure and level of governance that ensures trust and integrity for our stakeholders.”