24 hours with Lisa Bora, partner, KPMG Australia’s Customer, Brand and Marketing business
In this 24 hours with, Lisa Bora talks piccolos, productivity and why KPMG's offices are better than Google's.
5.30am
Alarm goes off and the snooze button ritual begins for another 10 mins. Quick social media glance that starts my day with images and updates that make me smile and laugh as I slowly wake up. Then head out the door for the long commute – eight minutes door to door. I have been privileged to always work so close to where I live and in great locations… Barangaroo is wonderful!
7am
Often the first in and I love that silence before the buzz of team members join in the next hour. With my first piccolo down, crunching through emails and updates on the day ahead, I plan. I am a meticulous priority list writer.
8am
Now 10 weeks into my new role as partner for our new Customer, Brand and Marketing Advisory here at KPMG, I am loving the diversity of the clients we assist in transforming their marketing and sales functions or in helping them bridge the gap between their brand promise and service delivery to customers.
The first meeting is on an active engagement with a content publishing and distribution client transforming from a traditional platform delivery business to one that is truly digital and moving into new market segments.
The project – managed daily by Shirley, one of our KPMG rockstars – is in full swing. I make sure the whole team is up to speed with a 15 minute daily catch up meeting. As I down my second piccolo, I feel blessed to be working with such intelligent, focused and fun team members.
8.30am
I catch up for my regular ‘walk and talk’ with Andrew May, a fellow partner who manages the KPMG Performance Clinic business. Andrew helps clients to enhance productivity, wellbeing and employee engagement, and he is helping me stay on track with my new healthy living goals… monitoring my coffee intake continues to frustrate him, however!
It’s great to see corporate Australia dedicating equal focus not just to transforming their businesses operationally, but also committing to their employees’ morale and well-being through the work of people like Andrew.
9.30am
I am in our Insights Centre – the facilities in our office continues to amaze me. I wish we had these at Google! We are building out a partnership with 24/7, who recently acquired KPMG’s Customer Compass – a platform build with a full analytics, marketing, sales / field force and sales operations offering.
We dive into the analytics to test the latest functionality for our clients. Perfect for telcos and financial services managing multiple consumer touchpoints and data with opportunities to serve, retain, upsell and cross-sell their services – it ensures CX monitoring across all consumer touchpoints are optimized!
10.30am
A one hour block of email and phone call catch up time. Surrounded by 72 of our great new team members with a mix of industry and strong consulting backgrounds in our new practice. Coming from Google, I was concerned I would be surrounded by a sea of grey suits, but I have never seen more colourful shirts, ties and socks. A fun and energetic crowd to be around every day!
12.00pm
I am off to university again – not for study but for assisting one of Australia’s leading universities review brand extensions and licensing models. Our team are immersed out here on campus interviewing students and ensuring our recommendations are grounded in practical student and faculty needs.
2.00pm
A quick bite – eating on the go again, Andrew won’t be happy!
2.30pm
Off to see one of my favourite people, Nelune Rajapakse OAM. Alongside with Anna Guillan AM, these two truly remarkable people have tirelessly raised over $23 million in cancer funding for public hospital and underprivileged cancer patients in the community. Their mission is helping patients fight cancer with dignity.
Nelune and Anna through their tireless work contributed over $6m to establish this purpose built Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Randwick launched in April that helps support 35,000 patients and families each year. I have supported the Nelune Foundation with my art donations each year to raise money through the famous Lilac Ball, but today we are talking about further fundraising initiatives leveraging my art throughout the centre.
Nelune is one of only a few people that make me feel tall but her pint size is no match to her larger than life and hilarious spirit which always makes me feel so tiny compared to her gusto and fight! If you want to find out more and support – go here www.thenelunefoundation.org/donate.
4.30pm
Back to the office – meeting with my wonderful colleague Amanda Hicks, who with her KPMG Acuity team are the centre of our insights and research excellence. They uncover pain points and opportunities through deep dive qualitative work, or best practice diagnostic customer metrics. Their work is always engaging, and it helps that they love what they do!
Together we are reviewing some great results recently achieved by a client through a voice of customer program – it is great to see real uplift in consumer sentiment as a result of our clients’ hard work in moving towards greater customer-centricity.
5.00pm
Time for our monthly leadership meeting – two months in and I love it! Team growing, clients growing and a strong point of difference in the market appreciated by our clients in operationalising their customer centricity goals which is where the real challenge is
6.30
Early dinner with friends. This week has been consumed already with new dining experiences as a food lover: Chin Chin. It was great, but we also love our trusted Cho Cho San for those staple get togethers. Great conversation, laughter, great food – the key to happiness.
9.30pm
Now back home – delighted to walk in the door and see my beautiful 17-year-old daughter – and with her one words answers to my questions I am reminded of the joys of having a teenager in the house to constantly ground you
A quick catch up on emails and then at 11pm, realizing I have already completed MindHunter, and Stranger Things 2 on Netflix – it’s back to my reliable podcast – 99 % Invisible and then sleep, repeat…
I wish this was a piss take but sadly its not
Agencies used to get commented on for their eastern subs staff not being in touch with and understanding everyday Australia. The consultants are not from a different suburb but from a different planet.
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Fark me.
If this is what value KPMG brings to the table, it’s going to be a very expensive and empty table.
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Sweet lord that was excruciating. There’s no humility in a braggart.
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love the work life balance. I suppose if you love your job it’s great (which i do) but i love my family more 🙂
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well said
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Agree. Not much of it was inspiring TBH.
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I disagree – this is how top talent live and work the world over. Here we have a working mum at the top of her game employed by one of the best personal services companies on the planet.
Its a recruitment drive to attract the best and brightest who read Mumbrella. Better qualified, better equipped and coming for your clients now is how I read it!
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This is what you get when Accountants try to do marketing/communications.
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“one of the best personal services companies on the planet.”
How much of the KPMG business is dedicated to helping large companies and individuals avoid paying tax?
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They should probably invest more money in someone to proofread their comms. Also, the liberal use of exclamation points is a tad desperate!!!!!!!!!
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