Community video transcript

Community engagement is part of the fabric of who we are, and it’s about collaborating with our community partners across the UK to increase our impact. 

Our commitment dates back to the firm’s foundations in the 1800s. Our founders, the Coopers brothers, were actively involved in establishing the Chartered Accountants Benevolent Association in 1886, where Edwin Waterhouse sat as its president for 18 years. 

At PwC, we believe in building trust in society and solving important problems, and that extends outside of our offices to the communities in which we live and operate.

I’m here at Shakespeare’s Globe, which we were involved in from its inception when Sam Wanamaker approached Anne Wolfe, my predecessor, to support the making of a small model to take to other corporates and the council to get The Globe built.

That model is available to view now in The Underglobe. So if you come on a tour of The Globe, do look out for it.

I joined the firm in 2001, when I worked with Anne Wolfe and Globe Education to extend the impact of Our Theatre, an initiative that allowed all students in Southwark to perform on The Globe’s stage.

It was truly inspirational to see the young people wrestle with those issues that Shakespeare wrote about: anger, love, jealousy, and humour.

We’ve extended the ethos of that programme to work now with the Donmar Warehouse, where we’re running an educational programme on environmental issues.

This is where we’ve launched many of our initiatives, including Ride the Nation, as part of our race to 3 million, where staff set off on bikes and rode around all the offices across the UK, raising thousands of pounds for charities.

Over the past ten years, we’ve raised millions of pounds for charities through the PwC Foundation.

I’m outside The Fire Station, which we turned into a social enterprise hub when we moved into More London. It housed the School for Social Entrepreneurs, Social Enterprise UK, and our own Centre for Social Impact.

We then decided to walk the talk and created our own triple sector social enterprise, Brigade, that train vulnerable people and those at risk of homelessness into jobs in the hospitality industry.

We also have our PwC Social Entrepreneurs Club, with over 600 members across the UK, and our Black Social Entrepreneurship Programme and ColourBrave initiative.

Our social mobility programme New World, New Skills, enables us to bring thousands of school children into our offices across the UK, where staff share their knowledge and expertise, building the skills of young people.

This year, as the firm celebrates its 175th anniversary, it gives us time to reflect on the impact that we’ve had and what’s yet to come. Community engagement is part of the fabric of who we are, and it’s about collaborating with our community partners across the UK to increase our impact.

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