KPMG LLP has opened the KPMG Ignition Center – Chicago, the firm’s seventh and largest center designed to allow the firm’s clients to become better, more competitive and transform. The 30,000 square foot Ignition Center, located on the 68th floor of the Aon Center, brings together the firm’s collective capabilities across signal sensing, design thinking, data & analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), strategy, business process and technology.
“With the rate and pace of disruption in the market, KPMG is constantly focused on making strategic, short- and long-term investments that address market disruption and support a transformation journey,” said Mike Nolan, KPMG vice chair, innovation and enterprise solutions (I&ES). “We are excited to open our seventh and largest Ignition Center. These spaces help us to bring together our capabilities across emerging technologies, strategy and business services in a new way that represents how KPMG is transforming our business and how we help our clients transform.”
The 30,000 square foot KPMG Ignition Center in Chicago is a state-of-the-art facility where companies can engage in real-time data exploration and scenario testing and prototype development for big data systems, data visualization, machine learning, predictive analytics and optimization. It also allows integrated teams of data scientists, developers, engineers, technologists and business specialists to support a vast array of enabling solutions, from cyber security to robotics to cloud-based human capital management.
Components include The Green Room, a prototyping “garage” space which currently houses a “retail branch of the future;” the Briefing Center, which has a 13-person “Harkness-style” table for strategy and planning and the Living Room, a mindful space with natural finishes, a living wall and executive dining area for person-to-person interaction and executive dining.
The firm selected Chicago for its newest KPMG Ignition Center in part due to the breadth of industry sectors and businesses located in the Chicagoland area, convenient access to transportation and access to talent. The firm’s second-largest office, Chicago’s more than 2,500 partners and professionals serve more than 1,000 publicly and privately held companies in the Chicago area across audit, tax and advisory.
“Chicago’s ability to attract and retain technology talent is critical to the work we are doing to support enterprise-wide business transformation,” said Linda Imonti, Chicago office managing principal. “Our clients represent a cross-section of the industries and businesses that are being transformed by emerging technologies, regulatory changes and the changing customer. Having a KPMG Ignition Center in Chicago enables us to not only help solve their complex business problems, but also to attract and retain the new types of talent critical to KPMG’s continued growth.”
