Mayor Rahm Emanuel today joined KPMG LLP to announce the opening of the KPMG Ignition Center – Chicago. 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.

“Chicago's tech scene has grown tremendously over the past several years because of our deep talent pool, global connectivity, world-class infrastructure, affordability and amazing quality of life,” said Mayor Emanuel.  “KPMG’s ongoing commitment to invest in Chicago and foster the next generation of technologists in Chicago will advance our technology ecosystem for many years to come."

From the City’s average of 334 digital start-ups launched per year to expansion announcements from major tech companies like Salesforce and Facebook, technology remains Chicago’s fastest-growing industry sector.  The technology sector in Chicago employs more than 140,000 people working with more than 4,000 digital companies – one of the largest tech talent pools in the United States.  With Chicago’s strength as a technology hub and with the proliferation of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence/cognitive, blockchain, cloud, augmented/virtual reality and platform business models, Chicago is the natural location for KPMG’s largest and most expansive Ignition Center to date.

“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-sections 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.”

Through the Ignition Center, KPMG is able to help businesses navigate the signals of disruption that are impacting their business models, establish strategic approaches to evolving their business models, financial models and operating models, and design technology solutions that can support their organizational needs.

“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 the transformation journey for both our clients and ourselves,” said Mike Nolan, KPMG Vice Chair, Innovation & 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 will help our clients to become leaders in the 21st Century.”

This investment by KPMG is just the latest technology and innovation investment, business expansion, and corporate relocation in Chicago. Since 2011, the Mayor has announced 58 corporate relocations and nearly 200 business expansions, which translates into more than 50,000 jobs added as a direct result of these expansion and relocation efforts.  Also since 2011, over 80 technology companies who have relocated to Chicago or grown their footprint in Chicago since 2011. In the first three months of 2019, five tech companies have announced expansions or HQ relocations, which includes Google, Tegus, DocuSign, BlueCrew, and XSELL, demonstrating the continued growth of Chicago’s robust tech and innovation economy.

KPMG’s Chicago office is the second-largest office in the country.  This office works with more than 2,500 partners and professionals serves more than 1,000 publicly and privately held companies in the Chicago area across audit, tax and advisory.  KPMG Ignition Centers are located in Atlanta, Denver, Grand Rapids, New York City – midtown and downtown, and San Francisco.

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About KPMG LLP

KPMG LLP, the audit, tax and advisory firm (www.kpmg.com/us), is the independent U.S. member firm of KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”). KPMG International’s independent member firms have 189,000 professionals, including more than 9,000 partners, in 152 countries.