EY Survey: Gen Z Is Broke, Anxious, and Extremely Worried About Everything. We Can’t Blame Them
EY put out a press release on the results of its 2023 Gen Z Segmentation study yesterday and it’s not good. Less than a third (31%) of those born between 1997 and 2007 surveyed feel financially secure, more than half (52%) said they are very or extremely worried about not having enough money. Mind you […]
EY Narrowly Missed Hitting $50 Billion in Revenue for the First Time
As we all know, EY had a tough year. Mostly due to their own choices, choices that led to the professional services equivalent of a wet fart. Despite the proposed audit and consulting split falling apart and leaving a $500 million dollar hole in the firm’s pocket, they still had “one of the most successful […]
EY UK to Everyone Who Works at EY UK: ‘Go F*ck Yourselves’
When the TPG Capital story “leaked” on Monday, it seemed awfully suspicious that a letter of that caliber would even make its way out into the world unless, you know, someone at a professional services firm with a bruised ego wanted to stir up some interest for a consulting business spin-off. Not saying there’s a […]
EY Split is Back on the Menu, Boys (UPDATE)
Financial Times reported yesterday that TPG Capital — “a leader in the alternative asset space” — approached EY to discuss the possibility of the PE firm getting a piece of the firm’s consulting business through their own version of a split: TPG outlined its plan for a debt-and-equity deal to separate the consulting arm from […]
Sorry EY Australia Auditors, No Raise For You This Year
EY continues to redefine the meaning of “better working world,” this time by way of salaries for audit staff in financial services. Better for whom we aren’t quite sure, not the people receiving these salaries. AFR wrote about EY Australia audit salaries this morning (their morning): The starting pay for most auditing staff in parts […]
EY Regrets Any Inconvenience Cybercriminals Having Your Credit Card Number May Cause You
“Hacker” stock photos are the worst. Is he hacking from the back room of a vape shop? We saw this story on Cybernews, shout-out to them for staying on top of the MOVEit data breach. TL;DR: File transfer program MOVEit was compromised earlier this year by the Cl0p ransomware group, Cl0p threatened to release the […]
EY’s Top In-House Lawyer Just Quit
EY US Vice Chair & General Counsel Ann Cook is saying goodbye to the firm after just two years in the role and ten total at EY, an exit that Financial Times ties to the Great Cheating Scandal of 2019. We too shall find some red string and put it all together in a moment. […]
EY’s Getting Ready For Bad Grades From the PCAOB For Overseas Colleagues’ Work (Allegedly)
Apparently someone inside EY blabbed to Financial Times about the current state of EY audit quality and the firm “expects more failing grades” from the PCAOB specifically related to work performed offshore for US-listed clients. Their last inspection wasn’t so great, the PCAOB identified deficiencies in twelve of the 56 audits inspected for a deficiency […]
Google Searches For the Word ‘Delayering’ Up 558% Since Today’s EY Global All-Hands Call
Apparently there was an EY Global all-hands today and at some point during it, leadership mentioned an important tidbit of information and then promptly breezed right past it. A tipster tells us: EY all hands, people do not seem happy. Staff on the call were told the firm will be focused on ‘delayering’ in fiscal […]
EY UK Appoints 267 New Partners
Unbothered with American federal holidays, EY UK announced on Tuesday (July 4) that the firm has appointed 267 new partners, marking a 10 percent increase and bringing the total EY partner population in the UK to 1683 from 1553 the year prior. These figures include those moving from non-equity partner to equity partner. More than […]
EY and PwC Among the Many Entities Caught Up in the MOVEit Cybersecurity Breach Ransom
On the 15th, CNN broke the story of a “global cyberattack by Russian cybercriminals” (guys, we only need one “cyber” here) that exploited a vulnerability in file transfer software MOVEit. The breach affected numerous federal agencies as well as “several hundred” companies, per a senior CISA official. According to Tech Crunch, a dozen or so […]
Suddenly Cognizant of Mandatory Retirement Age, EY Global CEO Carmine Di Sibio Is Stepping Down
This just in: Carmine is gonna head out. FT: On Tuesday, Di Sibio made it clear he did not intend to step down immediately, but would instead oversee the organisation through a long transition lasting until the end of the next financial year in June 2024. In a partner webcast, he said he planned to […]
EY’s New Payroll Chatbot Just Has to Be Slightly Less Sucky Than HR to Be a Success
No doubt proud of its partnership with a massive professional services organization that is mostly prestigious unless some scandal or embarrassing internal falling out is afoot, Microsoft has written a long and complementary blog post about EY’s new toy the ‘EY Intelligent Payroll Chatbot‘. Speaking of EY and payroll, the great “just kidding!” payroll snafu […]
Former Partner Who Got His Says Aussie Government Should Stop Using Outside Consultants
*not the actual partner in photo The PwC tax scandal (AFR coverage) has brought to light the government’s liberal use of outside consultants (that’s “liberal” as in “a lot” not the political leaning so spare the comments) and amplified the voices of people who believe the government should be doing a lot of this work […]
EY Interns Are Going to Have the Worst Summer
It’s gonna be a lame summer for EY interns as the firm has trimmed internships down to six weeks and is withholding both Disney AND intern gifts. When it happened in winter, interns were apparently told it was “because of budgeting due to the potential split.” Now that the Project Everest split is a no-go […]
Promotion Watch ’23: EY Promotes 966 to Partner, Missing Last Year’s Record of 1033
Undeterred by the embarrassment of Everest’s implosion, EY proudly announced today that 966 people have been promoted to partner across the globe. That’s down from the record 1,033 promoted to partner in 2022. The obligatory press release makes sure to mention that these promotions reflect continued growth and strong business performance by the organization. In […]
EY’s Landlord Didn’t Pay the Mortgage on the Downtown LA Office Building
Before we get into the situation, please note the issue discussed here is not EY’s fault. Rather, the office tower bearing the firm’s name at 725 South Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles has entered receivership after asset management company Brookfield stopped making payments on its debt in April. Commercial real estate firm Colliers has […]
Carmine Talks About AI Putting HR Out of a Job, Attrition, and a Rough Labor Market
EY Global Chairman and CEO Carmine Di Sibio and King Charles III stan showed up on Squawk on the Street today talking about the labor market and, more notably, how the firm is using an AI chatbot to answer payroll questions. The AI segment begins around 3:05. He also discussed hiring, saying they’ve been seeing […]
Carmine Will Not Let That Split Thing Go
Only days ago, WSJ ran the headline “EY Breakup Plan Is Really Dead” and included a quote from EY Americas Vice Chair of Tax Kevin Flynn, lifted from a recording of a staff call: “My message to everyone about Everest is, it’s behind us. Let’s not spend time in the rearview mirror.” And days before […]
Talent-Strapped Down Under Deloitte and EY Are Importing Staff
We all know outsourcing is big these days — accounting firms might be sending a third of their work overseas and some seniors are overseeing an entire team of offshore associates — but what about insourcing? Oh wait, that means something different. We’re talking about talent-strapped Big 4 firms bringing the offshore talent to them. […]
EY Australia’s Head of HR Abruptly Quits, Rumors Abound That Partners Could Get Chopped
Although EY continues to deny it, Accountants Daily reports that lead partners at EY Australia have been instructed to draw up a list of everyone who isn’t pulling their weight so they can figure out who to chop, per a source. AD’s sources made it sound like no one is safe, not even partners. Sources […]
EY’s Gonna Borrow Money and Do Some Accounting Tricks to Spare Partner Payouts From Everest Fallout
The following tidbit of information about the aftermath of the Project Everest failure is going in Footnotes later today however we felt it important to call it out for those who skip the weekly linkwrap. Apologies for doubling down on EY news today. WSJ published an exclusive about the post-Everest mess at the crack of […]
It’s Gonna Be a Talent Bloodbath at EY
Earlier this week WSJ’s CFO Journal posted a piece entitled “Ernst & Young, After Its Failed Split, Could Find Itself Vulnerable to Staff Poaching.” They might as well have made the headline “Hey Big 4 Firms, There’s a Carcass Full of Meat Here For You to Pick Pieces Off Of” because the premise of the […]
Empathetic Leadership Is So 2022
Post image via Here’s the Deck EY Put Together to Sell the Audit/Consulting Split to Staff It was only days ago that EY released its Empathy in Business Survey results for 2023 and if you remember, the last time they promoted empathy in business it did not go well. Recap on that from last year: […]
EY US Just Fired 3000 People, Totally Not Related to Everest Falling Apart
Well we knew this was coming. Reuters: Ernst & Young’s U.S. arm said on Monday it was shedding 5% of its workforce, less than a week after the unit’s objection torpedoed the global accounting giant’s plan to break up its audit and consulting units. The layoffs will affect around 3,000 of the company’s U.S. employees. […]
EY Tells Staff to Get Ready for Some Cuts After the Everest Embarrassment
We are still working on a more detailed post-mortem of the Project Everest collapse and our guesses for what comes next but in the meantime, check out what The Guardian ran this morning. EY has reportedly told UK staff to brace for a wave of cuts, after the business spent $600m (£480m) globally preparing for […]
The EY Split Is Officially DEAD
Called it! Financial Times reported moments ago: EY has called off the plan to break up its audit and consulting businesses after months of internal disagreement. The decision is set to be communicated to partners in a note on Tuesday, said people with knowledge of the matter. More to come shortly.
EY Hasn’t Finished That Independent Review Into Procedures to Prevent Another Cheating Scandal
TL;DR: After getting fined by the SEC for cheating on CPE and ethics exams in June 2022, an independent consultant review into EY’s testing procedures was supposed to be completed by March. It was not and the SEC has granted the consultants more time to get it done. As you may recall, last June the […]
Turnover at EY Australia Was Significantly Higher Than Competitors’ Turnover Last Year
One difficult thing about observing and reporting on the happenings at professional services firms is that they tend to be really tight-lipped about internal metrics, attrition, and salaries. They know exactly how many people they’re losing in any given period, we do not. Not so much the case in Australia where the Workplace Gender Equality […]
EY Split Update: There’s a Battle Royale Going Down This Week
Does anyone still care about the EY split? Did anyone ever? Well, here’s your semi-weekly update anyway. Wall Street Journal reports that EY Global CEO Carmine Di Sibio and EY US Chair Julie Boland will be going head-to-head in Palo Alto this week to hash things out. As you may remember, Boland dared to raise […]
Former Client Cockblocks the EY Split to Make Sure They Get the $2.7 Billion They’re Suing EY For
While it appears the EY split is going off the rails, despite assurances to the contrary from people who stand to make many millions of dollars from it, one former client — or rather, the client’s administrators as the client burned to the ground three years ago — is not satisfied with letting the drama […]
TIL EY Has Commoditized Space
Is there any limit to the robust and ever-growing suite of services offered by professional services firms? Apparently not. As we’ll learn in a sec, not even the sky is the limit. It was less than a year ago that EY put $3 million Aussie bucks into a space business in partnership with Swinburne University […]
With Project Everest on Pause, Let’s Pause a Sec to Shed a Tear For EY’s Reputation As Transaction Advisors
Not a good look, you guys. Then there’s this — unconfirmed and now removed — post on Fishbowl a couple days ago: “This will be resolved within weeks, not months, because we not only need momentum across the deal but we need clarity for all our stakeholders,” said Patrick Winter, EY’s Asia-Pacific managing partner a […]
Deloitte Global CEO Joe Ucuzoglu Just Mic Dropped EY’s Messy Split Drama
Joe Ucuzoglu, the former head of Deloitte US and current Deloitte Global CEO, has recorded a 20 minute video which was circulated to all firm leadership yesterday and then, just to be sure EY sees it to be as transparent as possible, had it published to the Deloitte website for all to see. In it, […]
The EY Split is Falling TF Apart
Ever since “Project Everest” was announced last year there have been delays, complaints, and constant reassurance from leadership that things are going forward as planned, depending on market conditions. Only a week ago Global Managing Partner Andy Baldwin told Bloomberg Radio that a few details needed to be hammered out — specifically how legal liability […]
Legal Liabilities and Pensions Are Holding Up the EY Split
Although EY has already decided who will lead the divided factions of audit and consulting, the necessary vote through which roughly 13,000 partners will decide whether or not to split has a few more hurdles standing in the way before it can happen. When the news of the split first broke in May of last […]
EY Hong Kong Consultant Alleges Sexual Assault, Bullying, and Ghislaine Maxwelling By Her Superiors in This Detailed Account
Late last week, South China Morning Post reported that a consultant at EY Hong Kong has accused Steven Xiong, Head of Greater China Business Consulting, of sexually harassing and assaulting her and another colleague at a karaoke bar. It appears the accuser, Nicole Wang, has written a detailed account of the incident in which she […]
New Recruits Are Allegedly Telling EY They’re Really Excited About the Split
Amanda Iacone has written a piece for Bloomberg Tax about the EY split and how it stands to shake up an already shaken industry, the whole thing is worth a read. We already know there is a talent war, and we also know that PwC in particular is eager to snap up unhappy EY talent […]
BDO Will Audit EY Consulting, or Whatever That Business is Gonna Be Called
The Wall Street Journal has written a pretty detailed account of comments EY Global Chairman and CEO Carmine Di Sibio made to WSJ’s CFO Network Summit earlier this week, scroll down to skip past a bunch of words and watch the clip. Of note, the split vote is now expected to happen in April. “I […]
EY OMPs in Philadelphia and Kansas City Have a Food Wager on Super Bowl LVII
The last time we wrote about EY and the Super Bowl it was regarding the firm’s cringey “Question Everything” ad—loved by then-U.S. chair Kelly Grier—that aired two years ago during Super Bowl LV between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs are back in the Big Game this Sunday against the Philadelphia […]
Advice on How to Get Hired at EY From the Vice Chair of Talent
Insider has published an ‘as-told-to- essay from EY Americas Vice Chair — Talent Ginnie Carlier in which she offers insight on what the firm is looking for from prospective hires. One takeaway: add a “personal purpose statement” to your résumé if it doesn’t already have one. This is not a bland objective — those have […]
EY Germany Gives 40 Partners and 380 Staff the Boot to Boost Profitability After That Whole Wirecard Thing
EY has been tightening the purse strings over the past several months ahead of the big Project Everest split, the vote on which remains delayed and should happen before the end of this quarter. The firm did not hand out mid-year bonuses in December and sources say that travel, training, and even hiring are on […]
Local Accounting Firm Baffled That Desperate Laid Off People Don’t Want to Work There
When big layoffs began in tech last year, accountants everywhere justifiably celebrated for having chosen a career that may not be the most prestigious (or exciting or lucrative…) but will always be in demand. While their employees were quietly boasting about not losing their jobs, it seems EY leadership was waiting in the wings hoping […]
Woman Quits Her Job to Be CFO For Big 4 Business That Doesn’t Exist Yet
Although EY’s 13,000 partners have yet to vote on the audit/consulting split, the firm continues to march ever onward toward separation, announcing in December that Global Chairman and CEO Carmine Di Sibio would head up consulting and US chair Julie Boland will oversee audit. And a few days ago Financial Times reported that EY has […]
EY’s Auditing Has Reverted Back to Being Bad, 2021 PCAOB Inspection Report Shows
Next up on the PCAOB’s hit list is EY, whose 2021 inspection report was released on Dec. 19. The Black and Yellow had been slowly but surely not screwing up as many audits in recent years. After having a not-great audit deficient rate of 31% in its 2017 inspection report, EY’s error rate had dropped […]
Carmine Di Sibio Will Be King of Advisory If EY Splits
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 […]
EY Dumbly Nixes Mid-Year Bonuses
On a Friday all-hands call, EYers learned not to expect a bonus from Santa this year. This despite EY having its best year in 20 years. In September, EY announced revenue of $45.4 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2022, an increase of 13.7% from prior year and the most year-over-year growth the […]
Sounds Like the EY Split is Going Forward Whether Partners Want It to Or Not
EY Global Managing Partner Andy Baldwin was on a Reuters Breakingviews podcast recently and in the interview — besides suggesting that other Big 4 firms will follow EY’s lead toward a split despite these other firms saying they have no plans to do that — he made it sound like the split is happening one […]
PwC Declares a Poaching War on EY
As EY continues to hammer out the details of the audit and consulting split, PwC has set its sights on adding EY partners to The New Equation. Lots of EY partners. In October, PwC Global Chairman and 2012 Going Concern Hottest Accounting Firm Leader winner Bob Moritz told the Financial Times in no uncertain terms […]
EY Reports a Rise in Naughty Behavior Now That People Have Returned to the Office
EY Oceania has released its second Value Realised Scorecard — a wide-ranging report on how the firm is doing — and Daily Mail Australia immediately latched on to page 33: Workplace Incidents: DM’s salacious headline “EY rocked by soaring number of sexual misconduct and bullying complaints as big four accounting firm workers return to the […]
What Shortage? EY Is Supposedly Hiring 220,000 People This Year
According to the horse’s mouth, EY is buried under millions and millions of resumes and on track to hire nearly a quarter of a million people this fiscal year. Bloomberg: EY is on track to hire around 220,000 people in the twelve months to July 2023, having achieved its highest growth in nearly two decades […]
EY Survey Ironically Finds the Four-Day Workweek is the New Standard at Many Companies
According to the latest EY Future Workplace Index survey, many companies are moving toward a four-day workweek thanks in part to competition for talent. The survey reveals surprisingly optimistic attitudes from company leadership on real estate investment despite economic tightening, says the press release, a sign that employers want you back in the office at […]
EY Reminds Us That Audits Provide ‘Reasonable Assurance,’ Not a Guarantee That Billions of Dollars Aren’t Hidden From the Balance Sheet
The NMC Health collapse of 2020 is still haunting EY UK, this time in London High Court as NMC administrators accuse the firm of failing in their duties and not noticing “one of the biggest frauds ever alleged at a FTSE 100 company.” The administrators, whose job it is to find some funds to repay […]
EY Israel Has Rejected the Split
Financial Times is reporting that EY Israel is joining EY China in rejecting the proposed split of audit and consulting services. “From our point of view in the Israel business, the split will not create benefits,” said EY Israel Managing Partner Doron Sharabany to FT. EY China’s decision was based on regulatory hurdles that could […]
This EY Split Thing is Going to Be Responsible For a Lot of Dinners and Golfing in the Year Ahead
The EY split is yet to be official — that should come late next year after a vote in a few months — but technology consultants that would have to go up against “the competitive edge” of a liberated EY consulting house for clients should get to work now if they want to stand out […]
EY Is Haunted By Some Lingering Independence Problems
Yesterday the PCAOB made public additional portions of EY’s 2018 inspection report “because the firm did not address certain quality control issues to the satisfaction of the Board within the 12 months following the date of the report.” EY’s 2018 PCAOB inspection report is dated April 28, 2020 and in it, the Board said EY […]
PwC Plans to Poach Unhappy Senior Managers From EY
While the pundits are talking about how the EY split could completely change the accounting industry as we know it and inspire other firms to split once they see the truckloads of cash pulling up to EY partners’ houses, one industry vet is perched at the periphery with a stack of offer letters just waiting […]
EY UK Chair Insists Audit Will Not Be the Red-Headed Stepchild of Professional Services if the Split Goes Forward
For years, audit has struggled to attract talent and especially leadership because let’s be honest, audit is awful. You’re clients least favorite person, you have regulators breathing down your neck, and one little mistake can ruin your whole career. Plus the pay is…not great compared to other service lines. EY UK Chair and Managing Partner […]
EY Basks in the Glory of Third-Place Revenue (Maybe for the Last Time) in 2022
The Big 4 firm with a split personality officially announced today its fiscal 2022 revenue of $45.4 billion—a figure we knew several weeks ago thanks to the Financial Times. EY has always seemed perfectly fine with being the third biggest accounting firm in the world by revenue, knowing it’ll never catch PwC for second place […]
EY Might Not Make Buckets of Money From This Split Thing After All
The Wall Street Journal has an article today suggesting that the EY audit/consulting split may not be the big money pay day EY is banking (heh) on. Why? Consulting is a competitive market and the economy isn’t looking so great these days, and EY’s separated consulting biz will not necessarily have the brand recognition in […]
EY China: We Are Not Splitting, Sorry
The Financial Times was one of the news outlets that reported last week about EY China saying it wasn’t going along with Carmine Di Sibio & Co.’s plans to split EY into separate auditing and consulting entities. Not because EY partners in the firm’s Mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, and Mongolia offices don’t wanna become rich […]
EY HAS BIG NEWS, YOU GUYS
This announcement is the most exciting thing since…uh…yeah, I got nothing. Anyway, the EY split is official. The vote, that is. “EY leaders have reached the decision to move forward with partner votes to separate into two, distinct, multidisciplinary organizations. The next steps include ongoing engagement with partners to provide them with more information in […]
Some Folks at EY Spent Labor Day Working Out the Details of the Audit/Consulting Split
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the EY split is moving forward thanks in part to the big wigs getting together over the holiday weekend to hammer out the plan. Ernst & Young’s leaders are expected this week to give the green light to splitting its auditing and consulting businesses, paving the way for […]
EY Staffers Feel Left in the Dark After Death of Their Colleague Last Weekend
In the early hours of last Saturday, the body of a 27-year-old woman (note: she was incorrectly identified as 33 in early reports) was found at EY’s Sydney office and since then, questions have been raised about the events of the final hours of her life. Most reports say she went out for drinks with […]
Did the SEC’s Acting Chief Accountant Have EY in Mind When He Wrote This?
The Australian Financial Review reported today that EY had hoped to temporarily share the EY brand name between a new independent consulting firm and its existing auditing firm if a decision is made to split the two businesses into separate entities. But according to a statement this week from SEC acting chief accountant Paul Munter, […]
A 27-Year-Old Woman Working For EY Died at the Office Over the Weekend in Australia (UPDATE)
Ed. note: the earliest reports identified the woman as 33 years old, this has now been corrected to 27 based on new information. Tragic news coming out of Sydney, a 27-year-old woman working for EY died at the office over the weekend. The original Australian report is behind a paywall so we’re getting some details […]
EY Gone Wild? 1200 Rowdy EYers Are Partying Like It’s 1999 in the Netherlands
A tipster has directed us to some news coming out of the Netherlands this week that otherwise would have flown under our radar so thanks for that, tipster. The tip: 1200 Scandinavian employees of EY partying in a beach hotel in the Netherlands. OK that sounds tame enough, how much trouble can 1200 EYers cause? […]
Here’s the Deck EY Put Together to Sell the Audit/Consulting Split to Staff
Australian Financial Review has published slides shown to EY staff in a July global webcast led by Carmine Di Sibio and in them we learn more about EY’s plan — code-named Project Everest — to split off consulting and audit. First up, the why. “The transformative forces reshaping professional services are evolving at unprecedented speed and […]
Compensation Watch ’22: Here’s Everything We Know About EY Raises and Promotions
First it was Deloitte, then PwC, and most recently EY that waded into the Big 4 compensation discussion waters with its employees. We’ve written quite a bit over the past several months about EY being the only Big 4 firm that didn’t give its grunts a mid-year salary adjustment. But Uncle Ernie did make one […]
Let’s Take a Quick Tour of EY’s Metaverse Space (It Doesn’t Suck)
When the first glimpses of KPMG’s metaverse space appeared earlier this summer, my first thought was how much it looked like first-person shooters I played 20 years ago. I was also struck with a sense of deja vu, it looked oddly similar to the Maryland Association of CPAs’ CPA Island in Second Life which existed […]
This EY Canada Recruitment Video Said ‘Belong’ So Many Times the Word Lost Its Meaning
You ever repeated a word so many times in a row the word becomes alien? Belong. Belong. Belong. Belong. Belong. Belong. Belo…..
EY Is Leaving $10 Billion in Consulting Fees On the Table If It Doesn’t Split, Says Global Chairman Carmine Di Sibio
In comments to Financial Times, EY Global Chairman and CEO Carmine Di Sibio says splitting consulting and audit “would win its consulting division up to $10bn in extra fees by liberating it from conflicts of interest that block partnerships with the world’s largest tech groups.” Those consulting fees are as yet out of EY’s reach […]
EYers Are Waking Up to Overdrafts This Morning Due to a Serious Payroll Snafu (UPDATED)
We’re learning this morning that folks at EY will not be getting lunchtime DoorDash today, their paychecks from last Friday have been unceremoniously yeeted from their bank accounts. Per a tipster: There’s a payroll snafu of some sort at EY and seems just about everyone had their payroll reversed. Mass panic and overdrafts. And a […]
EY Continues Streak As Big 4’s Busiest Audit Firm
EY has had a few firsts in recent years: first Big 4 firm with unlimited PTO, first audit firm to get a $100 million fine from the SEC, first Big 4 firm to compare men and women with waffles and pancakes, and first place among the Big 4 in public company audit clients for the […]
Promotion Watch ’22: EY Admits 1,033 New Partners Across the Globe
Move over, EY new partner class of 2021. There’s a much larger class of brand-new rainmakers at the firm this year: The EY organization announces that 1,033 people have been promoted to partner across the globe, the largest ever cohort of new partners. Women and the Assurance service line represent 32% and 33% of this […]
Let’s Bid EY U.S. Chair Kelly Grier a Fond Going Concern Farewell
Today is Kelly Grier’s last day building a better working world. So in honor of her retirement, we wanted to take a look back at KG’s career at EY, especially the last four years as the firm’s U.S. chair and managing partner and Americas managing partner, and all the fun Kelly Grier moments (fun for […]
This 5 Year Old Fishbowl Thread About EY WBLs Aged Badly
“In real life you’re allowed to use other teams work papers, google, etc. there’s no difference” Digging around a bit for shits and gigs I found this, which was posted on Fishbowl five years ago: I know you’re just dying to hear what the Kool-Aid chugger EY6 said. Here you go: LOL. Full discussion on […]
How Exactly Did EY Auditors Cheat on CPE Exams? Details From the SEC Order
With the EY cheating scandal making headlines even outside of our precious little accountosphere we decided to take a look at the full SEC order to answer the question — how and why were EY auditors cheating on CPE exams? This post will be long so we’ll get deeper into the CPA ethics portion of […]
EY New Hires Are Gonna Have a Tough Time Getting Straight Answers From Reddit For the Time Being
In case you’ve been in a 24 hour coma and missed the news, we heard yesterday of an EY cheating scandal that led to the SEC slapping them with a $100 million penalty, the largest ever imposed by the SEC on an audit firm. Well Reddit certainly didn’t miss the story. Good luck to any […]
EY Auditors Cheated on Ethics Exams and Tried to Cover It Up, Will Pay a Record Fine for Naughtiness
Well this is bad. The SEC has fined EY a record $100 million after an investigation revealed auditors at EY were cheating on ethics exams (open book ethics exams we presume) and CPE; worse than cheating alone, they actively tried to cover it up and hide the cheating from the SEC. From the SEC news […]
Former EY Partner Calls Newly-Released Tax Salary Data “Disturbingly Low”
Australian Financial Review said this morning they are in possession of tax salary data that EY is providing to some of its teams internally: Staff in EY’s tax division have learnt for the first time the salary ranges paid for graduates, consultants, managers and directors as part of a pay transparency drive at the big […]
KPMG CEO Pats His Firm on the Back For Being So Behind the Times, Roasts EY While He Does It
Sky News has obtained part of an internal memo KPMG Global Chairman and CEO Bill Thomas sent to firm partners earlier this month in which Mr. Thomas turns his nose up at EY’s plan to split consulting and audit practices. Some choice quotes from the memo: We are a partnership that has been strong and […]
EY Throws a Fit When Your Job Circumstances Change
I got an offer in a corporate role and turned in my two week notice at EY. Everything was fine: HR treated me well and wished me luck in the next chapter of my career. However, on my LAST DAY at EY, the new company rescinded their offer for reasons that I won’t get into […]
Partners Stand to Make Millions (Maybe) If EY Breaks Up
The big hurdle in EY’s plan to split audit and consulting lies in whether or not its partners want to take the risk per earlier Wall Street Journal coverage in which people familiar with the matter told WSJ its roughly 12,000 partners will need to vote to approve the spinoff. Well according to this it […]
EY Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is on Audit Quality With a Technology Investment
EY announced today it is making a $1 billion investment in audit technology just weeks after WSJ reported that the firm is in the process of splitting its audit and consulting arms. $13.6 billion of EY’s $40 billion global revenue last year came from audit. From EY: EY today announces an investment of more than […]
You Know Things Are Bad at EY When Its US and Global CEOs Are Beefing
We now know the reason, courtesy of the Financial Times, why Kelly Grier decided not to seek a second term as EY US chair and managing partner and Americas managing partner. Apparently there’s no love lost between her and Carmine Di Sibio, EY global chairman and CEO. FT reported today: The head of EY’s US […]
Young People Want to Return to the Office Says Old Guy Who’s Never Spoken to a Young Person
EY Global Chairman and CEO Carmine Di Sibio is out here making some wild claims, namely that EY’s 20-somethings are eager to get back to the office. From CNBC: In the tug of war between returning to the office and working from home, Ernst & Young (EY) CEO and Global Chairman Carmine Di Sibio falls […]
RIP Norah Bruther, EY Senior Associate Who Was Killed By Alleged Drunk Driver
Funeral services were held this past weekend for 23-year-old Norah Bruther, an EY assurance senior associate from New Jersey who was struck and killed by a vehicle on May 7 while on vacation in Arizona. NJ.com reported: Norah Bruther was hit by a car around 1:30 a.m. Saturday while trying to cross Camelback Road near […]
The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: EY #52 (2022)
Coming in at No. 52 on the 2022 Fortune BCTWF is the ol’ Black and Yellow. EY has made quite a few head-scratching, unpopular decisions over the last couple of years, but here they are on the BCTWF for the 24th time in the ranking’s 25-year history. While doors will open for someone with experience […]
Former EY Consultant Won LinkedIn Today
Remember last week when EY tried to convince all of us that employees prefer empathetic leadership over raises and promotions? LOL, good one EY. Anyway, Brandon Hall, founder and managing partner of Hall CPA in Raleigh, NC, who was a senior consultant with EY earlier in his career, knew the empathy-over-raises social media post from […]
The Thing Workers Want Most Is Not Better Pay But Empathetic Employers Says Employer Unwilling to Pay You More
Yesterday I came across this screenshot while combing Reddit one hour after my weekly newsletter column was due as I often do on Tuesday afternoons when I’m procrastinating. At first I thought there’s no way this is real. I mean, it’s on the internet so obviously it’s real but … really? Oh, it’s real y’all. […]
This Might Be the Reason Why EY Employees Did Not Get a Mid-Year Salary Adjustment
Let’s wildly speculate as to why EY was the only Big 4 firm not to give their employees some sort of mid-year raise. You might recall that EY leadership told their people the reason why they didn’t give out salary adjustments is because the firm is already the market leader in salaries among the Big […]
In Honor of International Women’s Day, Let’s Recall Some Important Rules For Women In the Workplace
Happy International Women’s Day, everyone! Yes, even you men. Actually, especially men. We’re counting on you all to lead the way and set a good example for those among you who may not have gotten the memo that women contribute so much more to society than clean dishes. Even something small like recognizing the achievements […]
Here Is What PwC Russia and EY Russia Said About Being Ousted From Their Big 4 Firm’s Global Network
The dust hadn’t even settled before PwC Russia and EY Russia released statements on their respective websites about being told they were no longer part of the global networks of PwC and EY due to Russia’s war with Ukraine. The statements from PwC Russia and EY Russia are pretty much what you’d expect—acknowledging they were […]
EY Joins Big 4 Exodus From Russia
In the span of 24 hours or so, we’ve gone from the Big 4 practically saying nothing about separating themselves from their member firms in Russia over the country’s attack on neighboring Ukraine to three of the four—PwC, KPMG, and now EY—saying their affiliates in Russia would be leaving their global networks. EY released the […]
One Big 4 Firm Wishes All the Ladies a Happy National Pancake Day
Today is National Pancake Day, and in order to build a better working world, EY (probably) thinks that it should include this recipe for “Brain Booster Pancakes” for all the women whose brains are “6% to 11% smaller than men’s” and “absorb information like pancakes soak up syrup so it’s hard for them to focus.” […]
Compensation Watch ’22: EYers Should Expect Raises to Hit Their Bank Accounts Come August
EY sent out a very ambitious, repetitive email to its loyal US grunts yesterday that can be summed up in one short statement: here’s some money so you people stop complaining. Will it be enough to stop the bleeding at this particular Big 4 firm and keep warm bodies in their chairs? Time will tell. […]
EY Has Picked Kelly Grier’s Successor As US Chair and Managing Partner
EY today confirmed the news we broke in October that Kelly Grier would not seek a second four-year term as US chair and managing partner and EY Americas managing partner. The person who will step into that role later this summer is Julie Boland, current EY vice chair and managing partner of the firm’s Central […]
EYers, What Would Your Candy Heart Message Be to EY On Valentine’s Day?
EYers, can you feel the love your employer has for y’all in this post on Instagram today? Awww, so sweet. Do you have a sweet message in return for EY? Eh, probably not. They would probably be more along the lines of: I Quit EY Sux Mo’ Money #1 PTO W&P (Waffles & Pancakes) or […]
Compensation Watch ’22: It Appears EY Employees Who Work In FAAS (Only?) Are Not Getting a Salary Adjustment (UPDATE)
[UPDATE] If this is the script Kelly Grier is giving her managing partners to tell their staffs about EY being the market leader in salaries among the Big 4, I unfortunately don’t see any type of mid-year salary adjustment coming for you guys and gals. This was a tip we got last night on what […]