Are you ready? Understanding your ESG data

Maura is an audit partner in KPMG’s Boston Office. She has nearly 15 years of experience providing financial statement audit, audit of internal control, performance improvement advisory, and related assurance services to clients. In 2010, Maura supported the creation of KPMG’s Sustainability Services practice in the U.S. In that role, she developed the KPMG U.S. approach to sustainability assurance and has led the Firm’s largest ESG engagements, which include assurance of use of proceeds of green bonds, social impact of private equity funds, standalone greenhouse gas emissions reports, and full corporate responsibility reports. She currently leads the Firm’s national efforts around ESG measurement, reporting and assurance. Maura serves as KPMG’s liaison to the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). She contributes to KPMG’s views with respect to SASB and the AICPA Sustainability Task Force and supports KPMG International member firms with ESG assurance of U.S. components. In addition, Maura is a leader in KPMG’s venture-capital backed company audit practice, working with life sciences and biotech portfolio companies of venture capital firms preparing for their initial public offerings. Through this role, she engages with VC partners, analysts and CEOs that are thinking about impact at the portfolio company level. Maura champions inclusion and diversity with a focus on retaining and elevating women in business. She actively mentors working mothers through KPMG’s Network of Women and regularly speaks at internal events about her experiences. In addition, she is a partner champion of Breaking 7%, a network of women in venture capital with the goal of elevating more women to the partner level at VC firms. As a licensed CPA, Maura is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants (MSCPA). She was named a Boston Business Journal 40 Under 40 in 2017 and an MSCPA Woman to Watch – Emerging Leader in 2018. She holds a Master's degree in Accounting and a Bachelor's degree in Accounting from the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.

Brian is an Audit Managing Director the Pittsburgh office with more than 16 years of IT auditing experience with both national and international clients across several industries. In addition to accounting, Brian has a strong background in Information Technology with regards to PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP, SQL, Microsoft and UNIX Operating Systems. Brian has experience managing and executing External and Internal Audit engagements and has assisted clients in areas related to IT, risk management, process analysis and improvement, security control analysis and business process transformation. Areas of expertise include logical access controls (e.g., password configurations, user accountability, segregation of duties, and security of financial data) appropriateness of program changes/development applied to the IT environment, disaster recovery (backup and restoration of data), integrity of system configurations and completeness and accuracy of system interfaces and system generated reports.

James has over 17 years of experience serving clients across all industry sectors. He is the KPMG Risk Services – Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Technology leader and ServiceNow ESG Solution Lead. In his roles he focuses on driving integration and automation of ESG and Risk Management activities across the front, middle, and back office functions and enabled by enterprise technology solutions (including ServiceNow, Workiva, OneTrust, AuditBoard, Archer, and many others). James has led and delivered large risk and technology transformations including business strategy definition, process design, technology vendor assessment, and solution implementation.