EY’s global head to retire in wake of failed split

EY’s global head and CEO, Carmine Di Sibio, has announced he will retire in June 2024, a year before his term runs out, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move comes in the wake of EY’s failed plan to break off its consulting practice from its auditing practice.

Di Sibio has been with EY since 1985, and was named global head and CEO in 2019. The firm has been highly profitable during his tenure. Its global revenues jumped from $36.4 billion in 2019 to $50 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2023.

The mandatory retirement age for partners at EY is 60. The firm granted Di Sibio, who is 60, a two-year extension to his term so he could implement Project Everest, the firm’s name for the initiative that would split its consulting and auditing branches. The breakup would have allowed EY to avoid conflict-of-interest regulations that prevented its consulting personnel from working with its audit clients.

Di Sibio was slated to lead the consulting practice, and would have received a payout in the “tens of millions,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

EY spent more than a year and $600 million on Project Everest, but the deal fell apart this spring under pressure from a vocal group of partners and retirees in the US. Opponents were concerned about how the split would send many of the firm’s tax associates to its consulting arm.

Changing economic conditions also made the deal, in which the consulting firm would go public, less financially viable. The consulting market hasslumped during the recovery from the pandemic, and EY laid off around 3,000 people, mostly in its consulting division, in April.

EY will begin looking for Di Sibio’s successor this summer, according to the WSJ.