PKF Brand Guidelines: Pannell Kerr Forster, Four Founding Firms & Three Initials

An alliance of firms from four countries.

PKF began as an alliance. English Wikipedia says Pannell Kerr Forster was founded in 1969, when four accountancy firms, from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia, joined to form an international association. The oldest was Pannell Fitzpatrick & Co, which Wikipedia dates to 1869 and to William Henry Pannell in Britain. The American firm, Harris, Kerr, Forster & Co, brought together Harris, Kerr & Co, founded by William Harris and Errol Kerr in 1911, and W. J. Forster & Co, founded by William Forster in 1923. The Canadian and Australian firms were Campbell, Sharp, Nash & Field and Wilson, Bishop, Bowes & Craig.

The initials came later. In 1980, Wikipedia says, the member firms agreed to use Pannell Kerr Forster as their common brand name, and in 2000 they shortened it to PKF. Firms have since either taken the name in their home markets or added PKF as a prefix to their existing names, which is why the network includes names such as PKF Littlejohn in London and Leeds, PKF Attest in Spain and PKF O’Connor Davies in New York State.

The full name survived in places. When the Houston firm Pannell Kerr Forster of Texas joined the American firm Withum in June 2025, CPA Practice Advisor recounted its history: a local CPA practice that merged into the PKF national partnership as its Houston office in 1986. When that partnership dissolved in the early 1990s, the Houston partners bought the office, kept the association with PKF International and renamed the firm PKF Texas. With the Withum deal, the magazine reported, PKF Texas ceased to be a member of PKF Global.

A network of separate firms.

The coordinating body is PKF International Limited, whose head office is in London, according to its website, with hubs in North America, the Dominican Republic, South Africa, Thailand and Germany. The website says PKF Global refers to the network of member firms of PKF International Limited, each a separate and independent legal entity, and that PKF International Limited coordinates the network’s activities but provides no services to clients. “PKF” and the PKF logo, it says, are registered trademarks that may be used only by licensed member firms.

The network now presents itself as PKF Global, and Wikipedia describes it as formerly PKF International. The website’s home page gives 212 member firms in 150 countries, 513 offices and more than 24,000 people, while its firm directory panel cites 214 member firms; Wikipedia gives over 214 members and 21,000 professionals in 150 countries across five regions, and says the network was ranked tenth in the world in 2018.

The regional pages describe how firms group locally. In South Africa, the site says, eight independent firms work together under the unified brand PKF South Africa; in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan and Tanzania, firms combine as PKF Eastern Africa; and member firms operate in 42 of Africa’s 54 countries. In North America, seven US firms have formed PKF Advisory LLC, a nationwide advisory practice, and the site names PKF O’Connor Davies as the region’s top-ranked US firm, citing its place at number 25 in the Accounting Today Top 200.

That firm has been growing by acquisition. CPA Practice Advisor reported in January 2026 that PKF O’Connor Davies, of Harrison, New York, the lead North American representative in the PKF network, had acquired Topping Kessler & Co. of Hollywood, Florida, following deals effective 1 January that added Wolf Maryles & Associates and Bowman & Co. The magazine noted that in November 2024 the firm had announced outside capital from the Bahrain-based private equity group Investcorp and the Canadian pension investor PSP Investments.

How accounting networks present themselves.

Mid-tier accounting networks are built from independent firms that agree to share a name, standards and referrals. The networks in this guide describe themselves that way: their legal pages typically state that the international body provides no client services and that each member firm is a separate legal entity. The brand therefore has to do a lot of work, because it is often the main thing the member firms have in common.

Their identities tend to be restrained. A plain wordmark, usually set in a sans and paired with one strong colour, carries across dozens of countries and languages, and a short strapline or brand promise often sits beneath it. Many networks have moved from long lists of partners’ surnames to shorter names, initials or a single shared label, and some member firms have dropped their local names to take the network brand.

Their websites follow a common pattern. A global map or country selector leads to member firms; service pages are grouped under audit and assurance, tax and advisory, with industry pages for sectors such as manufacturing, real estate, nonprofits or the public sector. Insight articles on tax changes, regulation and technology fill the news pages, and many networks publish annual revenue figures and awards in press releases.

Two further page types are typical of the profession. Transparency reports, which many audit firms publish, set out governance and quality-control arrangements. Graduate and early-career recruitment pages are prominent too, because recruiting trainees is a constant task for the profession. This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand’s founding, ownership and network, and marks clearly what rests on the firm’s own word.

Audit, tax, advisory and hotels.

The services PKF Global lists are those of a broad accounting network: audit and assurance; tax, including global mobility, transfer pricing and indirect taxes; business solutions; and advisory work ranging from corporate finance and forensics to cyber security, ESG and governance and risk. One line stands out on that list: hospitality consulting. The site says its specialists work through five global expert groups and a set of focus groups, and that each region has an elected regional board whose chairperson sits on the Global Board.

Leadership changes have been reported in the international trade press. The Times of Malta reported in May 2020 that Theo Vermaak, previously chairman of the network’s International Professional Standards Committee, its regional director for Africa and a former chairman of the Forum of Firms, had been appointed interim chief executive of PKF International from 1 May that year.

Membership moves in both directions. Firms join and take the initials; others leave, as PKF Texas did in 2025. The website sums up the arrangement as “a global brand with local identity”: member firms remain fully independent but use the PKF brand and the network’s resources.

For a design guide, PKF shows how three surnames became three initials shared by more than 200 firms. Compare Grant Thornton and BDO, two other accounting networks whose names come from earlier firms. For this guide we use a deep forest green, a sage and a warm ochre with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep PKF’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.