It was 1985 when Italian-born Carmine Di Sibio joined EY as an auditor, 34 years later he would ascend to global chairman and CEO, a role he continues to occupy today. Soon, he might end up leading the consulting business should the firm’s 13,000 partners vote for a consulting/audit split in a few months. Although details of the split are still being hammered out internally, one important decision has been made. The firm announced Wednesday it has chosen Di Sibio to head advisory and US chair Julie Boland — who does not have any audit experience — to oversee assurance.
Bloomberg Tax wrote up the announcement yesterday, filling it with ambitious quotes from Presiding Partner of EY’s Global Governance Council Trent van Veen:
The council and the firm’s global governing executive met over the last two days to consider who should steer the firm forward; Di Sibio and Boland garnered unanimous support, and EY staff learned of the appointments today, van Veen said.
Firm leaders wanted executives who were ready to lead global organizations and also understood the worldwide reach of EY clients, van Veen said.
“It should be a message to the market and our competitors that we are doing this seriously. We are going to take it forward and deliver on this to the market,” van Veen said of the likely initial public offer and resulting separation. EY’s governance bodies, he added, have “the utmost confidence in the leaders that we’ve appointed to be able to do that.”
EY staff still sore about no holiday bonus this year are no doubt pleased to hear about this appointment and as excited as firm leaders are about the future po$$ibilities.
Yep, this is going to go over well.
EY Global, US Leaders to Run Advisory, Audit After Split [Bloomberg Tax]
