Kelly+Partners is an accounting and financial services group with 16 locations across New South Wales, Victoria and Hong Kong. Their mission is to ‘help the people, businesses and communities they serve be better off.‘
Tell us a bit more about what Kelly+Partners does.
We work in partnership with business owners to build sustainable and successful businesses, and to grow and protect their wealth for their families. We believe that financial security is a basic need and the fundamental gateway to living a more fulfilling life. By providing our clients with the support and systems of great financial advice, we enable them to achieve their goals and lead healthier, wealthier and wiser lifestyles.
Why did you want to become a Certified B Corporation?
Our values and culture centre around helping every person that we impact to continuously improve their financial, professional, physical and social wellbeing. We know that great businesses are built by great people working together for a common purpose.
We believe it’s important to do what we say by proving it and leading by example. B Corp’s principles of purpose-driven transparency and accountability also align with how we create and maintain trust with our clients, employees, local communities, and shareholders.
Becoming a B Corp is a powerful way for us to raise awareness and educate our stakeholders about the ways in which we are continuously making an impact for the improvement of our communities and our society. It’s also a unique point of differentiation in the accounting industry and we hope it encourages more great employees, great clients and great businesses to work with us to be better off.
What makes Kelly+Partners unique as a business? Tell us some of the areas where you have the biggest impact, or some of the little changes you’ve made to make a difference.
- Kelly+Partners is one of only four ASX-listed companies to become B Corp Certified. We are dedicated to balancing purpose and profit, and through our commitment to growth, making all of our stakeholders and shareholders be better off.
- We operate a unique “Partner Owner Driver” model which means that each of our businesses are run by local owners servicing their local communities. This ownership model empowers our Partner Owner Drivers and Client Directors to drive strategy, engagement and charitable causes to create a positive social impact on local business owners and the communities they operate in.
- One of our key focuses is growing and developing our people and ensuring that they feel empowered and motivated to progress both in their professional and personal lives. We embed constant learning and professional growth into our company culture through monthly training programs, 360-degree feedback, employee NPS surveys, and study reimbursement support.
- We strongly value our connection to our local communities and local business clients. Our offices are dedicated to serving local small- to medium-sized business owners, sourcing from local suppliers and partnering with local charities and community organisations.
We’ve taken a bottom-up approach to engaging our team in implementing B Corp’s principles into our entire company. This year, our B Hive made up of representatives from each of our 16 offices are dedicating themselves to the following initiatives:
- Workers: Promoting physical and mental health awareness through team sporting events, health challenges and providing the resources for team members to take care of their wellbeing
- Community: Design a short, middle and long-term strategy and calendar for community and charitable events throughout the year
- Environment: Reduce waste and increase recycling in each office, and find ways to measure and reduce our overall environmental impact
Do you have any tips for aspiring B Corps about the certification process?
Begin with the end in mind. The certification process involves a lot of rigour, commitment and clarity of your organisational mission, vision and values. The way to make the most of is to use it to learn and identify areas of improvement in your business. Once you’ve worked out what you want to focus on and prioritise, you can then set a plan that will help you achieve them.
Most importantly – don’t forget to have fun! Get your whole team involved, celebrate your achievement and make sure to tell your employees, customers, suppliers and stakeholders about what you’re doing to help create a better business.
A big congratulations to Kelly+Partners for achieving B Corp certification!
