Anyone here from PwC who is so disappointed right now?

[TeamLauraOrHemione]

As the title says... I am so so sad and disappointed that with the chance to be the first big 4 firm to appoint a female senior partner, we have appointed yet another white man. I'm sure Marco will do a fine job, but talk about emphasising that as a firm we are super good at talking the talk, but awful at walking the walk.

Anyway all official channels are full of the usual sycophants so was hoping there might be someone here who feels like me

Link for non PwC people who have no idea what I'm on about: www.ft.com/content/0c86798f-4eae-4819-8970-40f7d82dc81d

I imagine 74% of partners being male is pretty representative across most accountancy firms. When I started my training contract in 1996 (top 10 firm but not Big 6) my intake at Financial Training Centre was pretty evenly split male/female. I had assumed nearly 28 years later that would have translated into significantly more female partners.

It was absolutely hilarious in a depressing way when the gender pay gap reporting thing came in. In a show of virtue signalling, P-Dubs did it before it was mandatory, and explained earnestly that its then massive pay gap was fine and easily explained, because OBVIOUSLY:

1. All the secretaries (remember when there were secretaries?) were female:
2. Hardly any directors or partners are women because, erm, they just aren't, ok?

So obviously, do the maths, durrrr, that will account for our enormous pay gap, and that's not our fault, it's just how it is.

@SqueakyDinosaur oh yes. And the there was the, "well, promtions and pay are based on a combination of hours worked and performance rating. Women work fewer hours because of caring responsibilities so... 🤷‍♂️." Conveniently ignoring they were talking mostly about younger women.

"Oh, and its totally coincidental that when we look at performance ratings, men consistently outperform women. I guess those women are so busy with their caring responsibilities they aren't working on the really juicy stuff."

All said with a straight face and a few vague assurances that women would be on performance review panels to ensure unconscious bias was elimated.

I was speaking with some women at a FS firm recently. Their organisation has a huge issue with how women are treated and lack of promotion. But they all keep getting platitudes. The only tiny glimmer of hope I can see (clutches at straws)is that they think many mid level women will be leaving the organisation in the coming months. Which might, finally, be a wake up as it will massive skew their already bad numbers even more.

It's relentless.

I left in one of their sporadic "let's clear out the expensive oldie SMs" purges. I have not heard a word from them since, and now that I am responsible for quite a large consultancy budget, I can't decide whether it will be more fun to:

a. get them to submit a proposal, knowing how much it will cost them, and then use everything I know about working methods to question it, or
b. write to them telling them I'm not going to invite them to submit a proposal.

I recruit into the Big 4 firms in Audit (mainly PwC and EY, but also some of the other Top 10 firms)

During the recruitment process and briefings that I have attended over the years, there is a huge effort to show how diverse the firms are, case studies of how senior females in the firm have had so much flexibility once they have families, stories of equality in all things.

However It does not surprise me to hear that once you are 'in' - you realise that these cases are handpicked for the website / briefings and basically a PR exercise. Ditto things such as how they have addressed the w/l balance etc.

When I was doing a resourcing manager role for a bit, I got embroiled in developing content for the annual report. I will NEVER forget being phoned by the photographer saying "I'm a bit short on ethnics. I need some photogenic ethnics, Squeaky, can you get some?"

This was maybe 15 years ago. I do think things have changed a bit since then. Possibly just that people know not to actually say this shit. The photographer got both barrels, just in case you were wondering, and AFAIK he's never worked for them since.

I left my consultancy firm for FS - oh gosh - the number of people (men) - former colleagues but also family/friends of friends etc - who got in touch clearly believing I had far more influence than I really did for buying whatever services they were trying to sell. So they weren't getting in touch to stay in touch with me. We had 1 set come in who gave a very poor derivative proposal. It was quite arrogant but I think they had forgotten I had been involved with similar proposals and knew the template! So a. sounds fun if you have the ultimate sign off.

Late to the party and an outsider but I found this thread fascinating, thank you.

I read 'he's a geezer' as synonymous with 'he's a bloke'. So as them boasting of employing a man - v odd.

Only after reading your comments did I understand the intention as 'he's working class, unlike the rest of us.' I hadn't known they were so culturally hegemenous. I suppose that might not be a surprise - though really, now? Sounds a very 1980s thing to view as noteworthy.

The 'women stuck as safe pairs of hands in middle-ranking jobs, while risk-taking, corner-cutting, eyes always on the next step men get promoted though... that's very recognisable.

Unbelievably poor decision by the partnership to elect Marco, who incidentally has a track record of screwing people over. Also for sponsoring some of the worst people - bullies, misogynists, sex pests etc but hey, it had to be a middle aged white man and there was only one on offer!

@lottiegarbanzo I read 'he's a geezer' as synonymous with 'he's a bloke'.

I don't think it's exactly, or perhaps just, that. MA presents as one of the lads, beer and football, ledge bantz, that sort of thing. So they're saying 'yes, ok, he's male, but he's not posh and public-schooly, he's not of Anglo-Saxon origin, so it's not like we've shat on two women by electing someone like that, it's different and therefore acceptable".

Yes, this is very much how I read it. They're justifying picking the man because he's not the TYPICAL man.

OP and others who work there - have you found any subtle differences in vibe internally over the last few days? Particularly among the women?

I would absolutely love to see HH and LH's inboxes over the last few days. I bet there are a LOT of messages from women in them.

Yes, I get it after reading the comments here. As I say, having to show off about appointing a non-posh bloke in 2024 seems so extraordinarily it took some explaining.

Geezer reads negatively to me, as in dodgy geezer, used car salesman type. In a milder sense it says 'we have a blokey culture'. Neither seems a strong selling point for the company (not that I'm their customer).

They sound utterly delightful
"The firm has been embroiled in a number of corruption controversies and crime scandals. The firm has on multiple occasions been implicated in tax evasion and tax avoidance practices. The firm has frequently been fined by regulators for performing audits that fail to meet basic auditing standards. Amid Russia's war in Ukraine, PwC has helped Russian oligarchs to hide their wealth and helped to undermine the global sanctions regime on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine"

As I remember the point of feminism wasnt to out bloke the men at the usual heirarchial corrupt self serving model.

You can't change anything until you get into the position of influence, @RaspberryParade.

Announcement around monitored mandatory office attendance three days a week is going to do wonders for D&I.

Two women made it to the final round - 'ahhhh we must find a way to prevent this happening ever again'

Are you satirising self justification down through the ages?

I work at Investec currently going through a merger with Rathbones. Almost all the senior leadership roles announced so far are going to men. It's so disappointing and the old "industry-wide problem" line doesn't really cut it when senior women are leaving the business.