What happens when a promising auditor with a hidden passion for computer science gets a chance to work on cutting-edge Generative AI? For Ang Jun Ming, this was a plot twist that would redefine his professional journey.
Following two successful years in audit, Jun Ming was exploring advancement opportunities with the firm when KPMG’s Graduate Rotational Opportunities at Work (GROW) programme caught his eye. This initiative is designed to develop talent that can thrive in today’s dynamic business environment by accelerating their growth through cross-functional exposure and skillsets and deepening their insights across diverse disciplines at an early stage of their career.
His path – from the structured world of audit to the fast-paced innovation labs of KPMG in Singapore’s Tax Technology & Transformation (TTT) team and beyond – is testament to how the firm empowers talented individuals to evolve in ways they might have never imagined at the start of their careers. For Jun Ming, this was a journey shaped by curiosity, adaptability and the freedom to explore what’s possible.
Jun Ming’s secondment to the TTT team was where he embarked on Gen AI initiatives. This move seamlessly combined his professional expertise in audit with his passion for technology.
"I was interested in broadening my exposure, not only in audit but also other areas of the firm," Jun Ming says. "When I came into TTT, it was a totally new career journey for me."
“I really like technology and software,” he adds. “When people asked me ‘If you had not studied accounting, what would you have done?’ I’d say computer science,” he says.
Jun Ming’s experience with the TTT team underscores the strength of KPMG’s Global Talent Model, which helps employees chart their own unique growth paths, blending core skills with new challenges as future-ready professionals.
The real currency of transformation: communication and confidence
As part of a team building practical business solutions for internal clients, Jun Ming gained valuable soft skills, particularly in building interpersonal relationships through regular collaboration and communication with his teammates and stakeholders from other divisions.
Interacting with a diverse group of people, from the firm’s partners and external vendors to internal end-users of the technology solutions, Jun Ming strove to master a “multi-way communication” model.
"That was intimidating at the start, but after a while, I came to realise that everyone is ready to teach if you are curious and willing to learn," he says.
Jun Ming also tapped into the experiences he had accumulated through previous plot twists in his career, which included serving with Singapore’s police force as part of his national service and working as a relief teacher at a secondary school.
From the former, Jun Ming learned a few important lessons, such as always remaining calm no matter the circumstances. Teaching, meanwhile, taught him empathy and helped him to better understand others’ issues and concerns.
By the end of the secondment, the TTT experience had taught him how to create working chemistry with professionals across different functions and the importance of clear communication to succeed in today's business world. He credits KPMG for the opportunity to learn these lessons so early in his career.
“I keep coming back to the word communication,” Jun Ming says. “It is really important in our current day and age of work where everything is so interconnected."
Jun Ming’s experience shines a spotlight on the mentoring culture at KPMG where young professionals are coached by experienced seniors to nurture future leaders and strengthen the talent pipeline across the ecosystem.
A virtuous cycle: How new experiences amplify core strengths
After successfully completing his secondment, Jun Ming returned to the audit function, this time as a senior in-charge overseeing engagements that part of a large and multi-layered listed client where his newfound skills were immediately put to the test and proved invaluable.
In his new role, he was given the responsibility to engage with clients and external stakeholders while guiding junior team members and ensuring the project was kept on track. "When I returned to audit, it was challenging. However, having faced similar situations during my secondment—such as the need for multi-way communication and managing pressure—helped prepare me for the transition," he says.
Having come through his TTT secondment equipped with a range of project management, communication and technical capabilities, Jun Ming continued to focus on his upward professional journey by using his newly acquired skill sets and expanding on them.
This led to yet another secondment – this time with the Singapore Audit Innovation Lab where he is using the hard and soft skills picked up in the audit division and the TTT secondment to help build tools and solutions that simplify the audit process.
His experiences truly demonstrate how one plot twist has led to another, reinforcing the idea that embracing one opportunity opens doors to many more at KPMG. "I'm a person who believes in opportunity breeding opportunity," he says. "The more opportunities that you sign up for, the more opportunities that you will have in the future."
Self-reflection and aspiration
Jun Ming acknowledges that these opportunities that have come his way are a function of KPMG’s approach to nurturing and empowering its people to address business challenges, and serve clients and communities, by building a collaborative and digitally advanced cohort of leaders with skills that can transcend industries and geographies.
"There are multiple workshops and courses at KPMG which we can participate in. At the same time, KPMG has provided me with the platform, through the secondments, to showcase my skills to further enhance what I currently know," Jun Ming says.
Clearly, his approach to building his career through agile and lifelong learning has found a nurturing environment at KPMG where talented people can continuously evolve and innovate to place themselves and their organisation ahead of the curve.
