Elected by his peers as managing partner of KPMG Luxembourg on the eve of confinement in mid-March 2020, Capocci began his four-year term on 1 October under particular circumstances. “When I was elected, I insisted on putting our staff and our customers first. Covid forced us to focus on these two pillars more than ever,” he points out.

During a 20 January conference presenting its 2020 fiscal year results, the audit and consulting firm was, despite the impact of the virus, still announced a slight growth of 1% (€235m), following two consecutive growth years in 2018 and 2019, both at 8%.

The audit line did not suffer and finished the year with strong growth of 9% (€112m), while consulting (€65m) and tax (€58m) departments posted declines of 4% and 5%, respectively.

For the new managing partner, the long months spent in the context of the pandemic, despite having the effect of reducing activity and therefore weighing on the results, also allowed lessons to be learned. For KPMG, the main focus has been on innovation. "In this new context for companies, we must focus on the agility of the staff," Capocci explains. “We want all of our colleagues to unleash the entrepreneur in them."

Ravi Beegun, chief innovation officer, added, “Innovation must really be anchored in our organisation." As an example, he cites the joint development with the University of Cambridge of the Sustainable Investment Framework Navigator, which should enable investors and asset managers to be better informed of the environmental and social impact (ESG criteria) of their investments.

A hub in asset management & alternatives

But KPMG Luxembourg also sees new opportunities in asset management and alternative investments, activities which have grown within the firm by 31% in three years. Capocci didn’t hesitate to express Luxembourg's vision as a hub of expertise in these areas for other major financial centres, be those in the UK, US or Ireland. 

For Stanislas Chambourdon, head of sales and markets, "We must focus on the concern of outsourcing non-essential activities on the part of our asset management clients who want to improve the flexibility of their activities."

Finally, while KPMG "worldwide" has set itself the objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, the Luxembourg entity wants to achieve this objective by the end of this year. 

“At the building level, we already use 100% renewable energy,” Capocci explains. “The next steps will aim to transform the vehicle fleet with electric cars, to review our travel policy once covid is behind us and to reduce all emissions linked to our activity, which cannot be compensated by funding various environmental projects."

This article was originally published on Paperjam.lu and has been translated and edited for Delano.