Piet Klijnveld

Who was Piet Klijnveld?

Pieter Klijnveld was a Dutch accountant who started a practice that after several mergers would grow into the international accounting firm KPMG.

Klijnveld was the son of Pieter Klijnveld Sr. and Maria Christina Klijnveld and married Cristina Johanna Royaards on August 2, 1906 in Amsterdam. After working at the Amsterdam office of the Twentsche Bank, he opened a small accountancy practice in 1917 in his home on the Viottastraat. It would take a few years before a second office was in use on the Tesselschadestraat. Amsterdam was a bustling trade and investment hub for European and Asian industrialists. Many foreign enterprises, including royalty, governments, and even the Bank of England, traded extensively in Holland at the time, making it an active market for financiers as well as importers and exporters of virtually everything.

Klijnveld became the chief accountant to many of these emerging businesses. To meet the demands of his growing client roster, he teamed up with a local tax firm called Meijburg & Company. One of these accountants was Jaap Kraayenhof, who joined Klynveld and eventually become senior partner of the Dutch firm "Klijnveld Kraayenhof & Co.", abroad usually written as Klynveld Kraayenhof & Co..