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 60 percent (161) are internal promotions and 106 are external hires.
Per the obligatory press release, these new appointments reflect the firm’s increased investment in its sectors, service lines and regional business, in areas such as Audit, Financial Services, Technology Consulting, EY Parthenon, Private Equity, and the Energy sector. 42% (112) of the new appointments are Equity Partners and around a quarter (62) of all the new Partner appointments are based outside of London.
“We are on track for our third year of double-digit growth in the UK and are making significant investments to meet client demand,” said EY UK Chair Hywel Ball in recycled press release comments. “These new appointments increase the size of our UK Partnership by 10% and put us in a great position to continue our outstanding growth in the years ahead.”
“The new appointments span all parts of our business, across all parts of the UK, with notable investments in areas such as audit, financial services, technology consulting, Private Equity and EY Parthenon,” he said. Yeah the press release already said that, my guy.
“I’m also particularly proud that 60% of this year’s Partner appointments are internal promotions and mark our commitment to developing top talent. We want EY to be a place where everyone is able to achieve their potential and we’re focussed [Brit spelling] on building a pipeline of talent across all parts of the firm.”
Project Everest, the ambitious plan to split audit and consulting in order to bypass current independence requirements, made things tough for the firm ever since the idea was announced in May 2022. Belts were tightened, travel was frozen, hiring slowed to a crawl in some areas, and at the end of it all the split’s failure left a $600 million hole in the global organization’s pocket. EY US and EY UK are taking the biggest reputational hits as they were Everest’s biggest cheerleaders, though to be entirely honest the US arm was not only cheerleader but the fat bald guy driving the bus to every cheer competition. So it’s nice to see
In April, a few months before EY’s fiscal year end in June, Financial Times reported that EY UK was planning cost cuts as a direct result of Everest’s failure. “We have inefficiencies in our business, which we can start to address now so we are already working on reducing our costs,” said Anna Anthony, UK managing partner for financial services, in a call with partners.
Mr. Ball was on that call as well and told partners to get ready for “a bit of a tough period” but softened the blow by assuring partners the firm was on course for a third consecutive year of “strong double-digit growth.” EY Global revenue for 2022 shook out at $45.4 billion, we’ll know in September just how strong any growth was given the distraction of Everest for most of the year.
Last year’s partner cohort of 75 internal promotions and 45 external hires was, at the time, EY’s largest ever number of new equity partner appointments in the UK.
