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KPMG, Al-Mashtal Join hands For Sustainable Creative Economy | |
| Sumita Pawar |
A report says KPMG, a professional services firm, and Al-Mashtal Community House and Creative Incubator recently announced a strategic partnership.
marking a new era of collaboration between two industry leaders that signals a promising future for Saudi Arabia’s creative sector.
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The nature of KPMG’s involvement is to provide professional support for Al-Mashtal in growing their business not only creatively but also sustainably.
Al-Mashtal will also act as a liaison between entrepreneurs and KPMG specialists and mentors to help them transform their passion into a viable and actionable business, according to the report.
Ebrahim Baeshen, office managing partner at KPMG, told Arab News, "Our role here is to ensure that they (Al-Mashtal) succeed not only by introducing a great idea or a great product, but by making it sustainable."
As a creative and community house, Al-Mashtal is committed to helping young and up-and-coming Saudi creatives develop their skills in order to build a sustainable creative economy in the region.
Sohaib Zafir, CEO of Al-Mashtal, commented, "Corporations aren’t generally concerned with creative ventures, but KPMG has a great interest in creating a global impact within communities."
The partnership with Al-Mashtal is just one of the initiatives under KPMG’s IMPACT plan, which aims to maximise the influence of environmental, social, and governance factors on communities to maintain a culture of support and progress.
"Through that program, we have different initiatives... "Sometimes we fund, we give money to charity, and other times we help by giving lectures, building materials similar to Al-Mashtal, and bringing our experts to educate entrepreneurs, teach them, and let them know how to manage a business and do all of these things," Baeshen explained.
The incubator has slowly become a hub for local creatives to gather, share ideas, and present various creative initiatives through their hosting of consistent panel discussions, networking sessions, music performances, and more.
According to the report, it has also recently collaborated with the Saudi Design Festival to bring the "Brand Your Neighborhood" design challenge.The initiative allowed local creatives to build urban branding and design concepts in Riyadh, Jeddah, and the Eastern Province.
Through Al-Mashtal’s incubation programmes that take an educational approach to helping entrepreneurs develop their startups, KPMG will be providing consultations on professional skills, like financing and accounting, and personal soft skills, such as negotiation and pitching.
Al-Mashtal strives to impact not just the community but the creative economy as a whole by leading incubations and programmes on a national level and beyond.
"Our goal isn’t to become legends or be the best, but rather to move the sector along." "Al-Mashtal will be more than happy if we have competitors, because that creates sustainability within the industry," Zafir said.
The creative house has been gradually setting the blueprint for drafting the infrastructure of creative incubation within the kingdom. It acquired the first creative incubation business licence in the Kingdom, according to the report.
In 2021, KPMG and Al-Mashtal worked together for the first time on a project that was good for both companies.
Baeshsan "It feels like a great success story even for them to see them succeeding in what Al-Mashtal is doing."