A Look Back at the 2021 KPMG Women’s Leadership Summit

The KPMG Women’s Leadership Summit is always a highlight of KPMG Women’s PGA Championship week, and 2021’s event raised the bar even higher.

The Summit, which took place on Wednesday, the day prior to the Championship teeing off, was highlighted by an interview with Award-Winning Director and Writer Patty Jenkins (Monster, Wonder Woman), who was awarded the 2021 KPMG Inspire Greatness Award.

“I’m so honored to be here and listed amongst these incredible women who have received this before,” said Jenkins. “It’s a huge honour for me if I have been able to inspire greatness in anybody.”

Jenkins had a wide-ranging and inspiring conversation with Michele Tafoya, NBC’S Sunday Night Football Sideline Reporter during the summit.

“In my world,” Jenkins said, “gender doesn’t matter. I just blow through it. And even if I’m dealing with someone with a gender problem, that’s their problem. I’m going to win you over and get you to do what I want you to do regardless.

“I’m going to go for what I want and I’m going to believe.”

Other inspiring speakers included Angela Hwang, Group President at Pfizer Biopharmaceuticals Group, Laura Newinski, KPMG U.S. Deputy Chair and COO, Kara Lawson, an Olympic Champion and Head Coach of Duke Women’s Basketball team, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the 66th U.S. Secretary of State, and Stacy Lewis, formerly the LPGA’s No.1 golfer in the world and KPMG Brand Ambassador.

Lewis said it was fun for her to be part of the “professional athlete” side of the conversation. Many of the women on the virtual summit will listen to “business talk” all day so she was thrilled to, along with Lawson, put a different spin on things.

“I wanted to go play for Kara while we were (talking). I was ready to go in and go play for her,” Lewis said with a smile. “She was so fun to listen to.”

The Women’s Leadership Summit by KPMG has inspired almost three- quarters of all LPGA Tour events to host their own kind of leadership events.

Lewis said the work put in by KPMG, along with so many other women’s leadership events in association with the LPGA Tour, will hopefully continue to push conversations on gender. She said there are many steps taken in the right direction, with more to come.

“It takes one person asking that question, whoever is making that hire to say, hey, let's interview a female. It's a pretty simple task when you really add it up. It's just encouraging to see it across all sports, in business,” said Lewis. “Things are changing, and we're getting there, and it's nice to see it be more normal.”