The former premier didn’t even make it to the two-year mark of the consulting firm’s mission to improve its governance.

Hannah Wootton

Apr 1, 2026 –

Former NSW premier Mike Baird describes himself as “making a mid (to late) life comeback” at the top of his LinkedIn profile and the work history that follows suggests he’s succeeding.

He’s had two executive roles at NAB and a four-year stint as chief executive of HammondCare since leaving politics in 2017. He’s chaired Cricket Australia since 2022 and is currently running politics think tank McKinnon Institute.

Curiously missing though, is his directorship of KPMG. The firm announced with much aplomb that he and Jane Hemstritch had joined Patty Akopiantz as independent directors on its partner-heavy board in 2024. It came amid a push by consulting firms to show their partnerships weren’t the accountability-free rodeos the PwC tax leaks scandal made them seem.

Mike Baird may juggle a few balls, but KPMG’s governance isn’t one of them any more. Nic Walker

It turns out it’s not just absent from his profile though – Baird is absent from the board! He stepped down in September. KPMG quietly updated the governance page of its website and replaced him with former SBS CEO Michael Ebeid, but made no formal announcement. It seems nobody even realised, in fact, until one of our spies alerted us to the change.

It’s unclear why Baird left, other than it was his choice and he has other commitments. We asked him and got crickets. But it comes as KPMG catches the attention of Canberra. Labor’s Deborah O’Neill used parliamentary privilege to air a laundry list of unverified claims by a former KPMG executive last week, including allegationsthat the firm misused confidential client information and capitalised on conflicted networks of contacts to get

They are just allegations. But they’re the exact sort of problems that governments, regulators and clients have a laser-like focus on after the tax leaks saga. The joint committee on corporations and financial services is now looking into it. The threat of a parliamentary inquirylooms.

This is relevant to Baird as we are told he was one of the directors who received a message from the whistleblower relating to the way the firm was dealing with complaints. The firm’s treatment of that whistleblower is part of O’Neill’s concerns.

We aren’t suggesting Baird himself responded in any way that wasn’t best practice. But the headache of the whistleblower allegations follows concerns about conflictsin KPMG’s NSW government work, its staff using AI to cheat in tests, and suggestions it overcharged the Defence Department. It’s not a fun time to be on the KPMG board, especially as its resident politician whisperer. So we can’t blame Baird for getting out.

His selection as an independent director caused raised eyebrows back in 2022. KPMG was always close to Baird’s state government. The premier himself detoured from the 2015 state election campaign to open KPMG’s Parramatta office, and sat for an interview with KPMG’s in-house magazine that same year.

The firm was also the biggest recipient of NSW consulting contracts for many years. One of the blips in Baird’s premiership was in 2016, when he came under fire for hiring KPMG to assess the government’s planned local council amalgamations despite the firm previously providing advice on the changes. Neither he nor KPMG saw any conflict of interest issues with the arrangement. Needless to say, the opposition and various councils did. It even ended up in court.

When chairman Martin Sheppard announced Baird’s appointment in 2022, he said the ex-premier’s “understanding of parliamentary processes” would benefit the firm. Unfortunate experience for it to lose, should O’Neill’s inquiry reach the point where KPMG’s staff and bosses (and perhaps even Baird himself) are hauled before parliament.