Alyse Sue has been named Head of Metaverse Futures and is aiming to build a multi-million-dollar business for KPMG by 2025, as companies try to make sense and revenue from Web3.
Startup founder, tech entrepreneur and software engineer Alyse Sue is KPMG’s appointment to the newly created position, Head of Metaverse Futures.
Sue and her husband, Peter Xing, Digital & Data Solutions Lead at KPMG, both applied for the job. A vision for the future is a big part of their lives.
Sue is joining KPMG from international software development and consulting firm Palo IT, where she was Head of Web3. She previously worked for KPMG as a senior consultant on the KPMG Innovate team from 2012 to 2015.
“I co-founded two Web 3 ventures, Transhuman Coin – a DeFi project that invests in and supports emerging tech that enhances human biology, and I was a founding member of FutrDAO, an impact investment DAO,” Sue says of her time away from KPMG.
FutrDAO is a for-profit venture Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) with a mission to invest in and support radical impact Web3 projects. Its primary themes of investment are climate and healthy longevity – focusing on the health of the planet and people.
“My husband referred me for this role. We both interviewed and we are both very supportive of each other.
“As I went through the interview process, I became more interested in and excited about the role as I realised it is a new way of working for KPMG, as they are incubating new business models from within. It is great to be able to bring my previous experience around working with metaverse technologies and building ventures into this role. In the past eight years I have done these things so the role is very much aligned with what I love doing.”
Sue thinks it is necessary for all businesses to look at this area of technology and how it affects their business going forward.
“My objective is to build a multi-million-dollar business for KPMG by 2025. What that exact figure means is yet to be discovered, but we are looking to build a sustainable business by that time frame,” Sue explains.
“We’ll be looking at technologies related to metaverse, like crypto, NFTs, DAO, VR and AR and seeing how we can find new revenues of growth for the firm.”
While the primary revenue drivers of professional services right now are consulting or advisory based work, Sue says it is expected that could transition to products, services or Web3 based models in the future.
“Businesses are looking for subject matter expertise to guide them in terms of how they can use the metaverse to discover new use cases or new revenue drivers for their business and how they can engage new target markets or even their existing customer base.”
What is the future of the metaverse and why should we care?
“Businesses need to be in the metaverse to explore new revenue streams and to engage their customers,” says Sue.
“The metaverse is going to be the product of the convergence of three main technologies: next-gen AI, Quantum and blockchain technologies. When we are looking at metaverse technologies in particular, such as blockchain, NFTs, DAO, even VR and AR, they are going to transform how we live, play and work in the next 10 years. What that translates to are those two things – generating additional revenue and attracting new customers – making that link between the real and the virtual.”
Sue says potentially the market size globally could be between US$8 trillion to US$13 trillion.
“It will need to have mainstream adoption and what is going to drive us toward that mainstream adoption is the intersection of the acceleration of metaverse technologies and increasing consumer demand for more immersive experiences.
“We did not evolve to use 2D screens. We want, as humans, immersive experiences and this is what is driving that consumer demand. It is all encompassing, but I am seeing greater traction in the fashion industry, the consumer industries, FMCG [Fast Moving Consumer Goods] and in climate and sustainability, including energy and natural resources.”
KPMG is embracing future technologies, with dedicated teams for next-gen AI and Quantum and metaverse.
“We are at such an early stage. As the role matures and the ventures we build mature, we can start to put a figure on the impact that it is having and we can make some comparison with the other ventures that KPMG Futures has built and incubated.
“The future for metaverse is for more institutional adoption. I am seeing more clients adopt metaverse technology to provide new training experiences, and retail experiences for their customers, such as the world’s first fashion week in Decentraland, a very inclusive experience where you could see the fashion on the runway and you could buy it there and then.
“Training can be for very dangerous situations, with companies providing training for their staff in simulated environments, for example a fire fighter or work in the oil and gas fields, sometimes using VR or AR headsets and even combined with Haptic suits as well. Then there is office training in diversity and inclusion where you can enable employees to put on a headset and simulate what it might be like to be in someone else’s shoes, so you can have a deeper level of empathy.”
“Metaverse is important for brands who want to be where future generations are. If you want to market to 15 to 30-year-olds, you can be in the metaverse. It is important to understand what type of experiences they like, what mediums and channels are they in,” says Sue.
“The business models of today will not be the business models of tomorrow, so we want to look at the models that can drive that continued growth.”