Together at the Helm: The Strategic Alliance of CHRO and CDO

Subha Barry is a C-suite leader and an advisor who brings a unique perspective on the alignment of corporate culture to talent strategy and business results. As a transformational change agent, she has a proven record of identifying and accelerating new business creation, driving sales, and increasing profitability.

Subha is president of Seramount where she drives the firm’s vision, strategy, and business development. Subha joined Working Mother Media (WMM) in 2015 and during her tenure she dramatically improved margins, expanded its portfolio through growth in high-value consulting and learning and development, exponentially grew their client roster, and recruited talented executive leaders to amplify subject matter and functional expertise. In 2021, Subha oversaw the brand’s transformation from WMM to Seramount, a leading strategic professional services and research firm dedicated to building high-performing, inclusive workplaces. Today, Seramount works with 450+ organizations globally, including half of the Fortune 500, to help our partners navigate today’s talent and DEI landscape.

Previously, Subha was senior vice president and chief diversity officer at Freddie Mac, where she served on the firm’s management committee and led their foundation. Prior to her time at Freddie Mac, Subha spent 20+ years at Merrill Lynch as managing director and their first global head of diversity & inclusion where she built their D&I strategy, infrastructure and execution plans from the ground up. She also created a highly successful Multicultural Business Development Group to focus their wealth management business on diverse and multicultural communities bringing in over $8 billion in new assets and $50+ million in annual revenues in just three years. She began her career at the firm as a financial advisor where she was a top 100 advisor among 16,000 in the firm.

Subha is a former adjunct professor at Columbia University’s SIPA, and currently serves on the Boards of SHRM Foundation, Rice 360, Rutgers Cancer Center and the Rutgers Institute of Women’s Leadership. She is also a Board Advisor at PE-owned Snowden Lane Partners. In the past, Subha has served on a variety of Boards as Board Chair, Head of Nominating & Governance, Finance, and HR and DEI Committees.
A native of India, Subha holds a BA from Bombay University and an MBA and MS in Accounting from Rice University. She enjoys golfing, reading poetry and rallying for social change. She has two grown children and lives in Naples, Florida and New Hope, PA with her husband.

Elena Richards is a Principal and Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer at KPMG LLP. She is an accomplished HR, talent management and diversity professional with deep knowledge of the professional services industry.

As CDEIO, Elena leads the firm’s national Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) team and works closely with KPMG’s management committee and board of directors to advance the firm’s Accelerate 2025 strategy, a commitment for more underrepresented talent to choose KPMG as their employer of choice, experience thriving careers within an inclusive culture, and advance to partnership and leadership levels. Elena further collaborates with KPMG’s functional business leaders on the business integration of the firm’s strategic priorities. The outcome of her leadership has earned the firm recognition as a top workplace by Fortune, DiversityInc, Seramount, Human Rights Campaign, and more.

Elena leads key firmwide initiatives including the ‘people’ section of KPMG’s annual U.S. Impact Plan outlining progress against the commitments set forth by Accelerate 2025, the Business Resource Group (BRG) Leadership Council which oversees 200+ national and local BRG chapters and inclusion councils. She serves on the Talent and Culture Leadership Team, driving the collaboration with people-centric processes to further embed DEI in talent acquisition, people strategy and solutions, learning and development, communications, and total rewards.

As a thought leader, Elena recently published KPMG’s first-ever survey on corporate DEI progress (The Diversity Journey), along with a whitepaper series on embedding DEI into hybrid and return-to-office work strategies and making hybrid work, work with a DEI lens. She has hosted a series of chief diversity officer (CDO) peer exchange, bringing together CDOs across various organizations to discuss DEI strategies and challenges impacting businesses across all industries.

With over 20 years of experience, Elena’s north star is to create psychologically safe workplaces and equitable experiences for underrepresented talent. She is an ambassador of the firm’s DEI commitments, and has been the driving force behind KPMG being a signatory on pledges holding the business community accountable with organizations including Business Roundtable, the Gender and Diversity KPI Alliance, and Disability:IN. In 2021, she was the recipient of the NJCPA Ovation award, recognizing her passion and contributions towards promoting diversity and inclusion across the finance and accounting profession.

Elena earned her BA in criminal justice at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and is a certified executive coach.

She currently serves as a board member for the KPMG U.S. Foundation, Inc. and the Community Foundation of New Jersey. She is on the board of advisors for Catalyst, a member of the Boston College Center for Work & Family advisory board and a member of Seramount’s Diversity Best Practices collective. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ National Diversity & Inclusion Commission and was previously an advisory board member for Howard University’s Center for Accounting Education.

As Vice Chair, Talent and Culture, Sandy is responsible for leading all aspects of KPMG’s talent strategy – positioning the firm to attract, develop, and retain the best people. A member of the firm’s Management Committee, Sandy collaborates closely with KPMG’s leadership team to develop and implement initiatives that advance the firm’s growth strategy by unlocking the power of its more than 35,000 professionals and improving employee and partner experiences. Some of her key areas of focus include fostering a supportive, inclusive and values-based culture and work environment, developing future leaders and championing new ways of working that enable KPMG’s people to succeed and thrive in a hybrid work environment.

Throughout her career, Sandy has consistently demonstrated a keen ability to drive change and make a positive impact on the firm’s business and culture. Prior to leading the Talent and Culture organization, she was the National Managing Partner of Advisory and was responsible for advancing the Advisory strategy, in alignment with the global and U.S. firm strategy and driving growth across the organization. Sandy was also the co-leader of KPMG Advisory’s One Americas initiative, focused on driving growth across the Americas region.

Previously, Sandy led the Risk Advisory Solutions organization, helping clients navigate risk and regulation to ensure stakeholder trust. Earlier in her career, Sandy served as the Service Line Leader for the Risk Assurance practice and led the IT Audit business globally. Sandy’s client-service work has focused on helping organizations in the Financial Services and Technology sectors with their technology, financial and operational risk agendas. This included leading the IT portion of integrated and financial statement audits of public companies, providing outsourced and co-sourced IT Internal Audit and SOX services, and providing third-party assurance.

She has been recognized by the Hispanic Information Technology Executive Council (HITEC) as one of the Top 100 most influential and notable Hispanic professionals in the technology industry in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. In addition, the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA) has lauded her multiple times, including as a Latina Rising Star and more recently as one of America’s 50 Most Powerful Latinas in 2021 and 2022, under the category of Corporate Trailblazer that celebrates those who are running a major business while providing guidance and leadership to a world that requires new thinking. She was also named to Crain’s New York Notable Women in Accounting & Consulting list in 2019 and Consulting Magazine’s Women Leaders in Consulting list in 2018.

Sandy is known as an impactful leader both inside and outside KPMG and is active in non-profit and community outreach efforts. She currently serves on the Audit Committee for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, which works with a network of local partner agencies to help combat hunger and stabilize lives and confront issues of chronic hunger, poor nutrition and health. She also sat on the Board of the KPMG U.S. Foundation, the nonprofit organization that functions as the charitable arm of KPMG U.S. and focuses on areas where the firm can have the greatest impact on society, mobilizing the unique strengths of its business, people, knowledge, and experience to address some of the largest social challenges and drive systemic change. In addition, she was the Philadelphia Advisory Board Chair and served on the New York Advisory Board of Back on My Feet, a nonprofit organization that promotes self-sufficiency of homeless individuals through running.