EY Global, US Leaders to Run Advisory, Audit After Split (2)

Ernst & Young’s global CEO Carmine Di Sibio and US chair Julie Boland will run the accounting giant’s advisory and assurance businesses, respectively, if the firm’s separation moves ahead next year as planned, the firm announced Wednesday.

The selections represent a key milestone as the firm expects to seek backing from 13,000 partners in the coming months and continues to prepare for splitting up the $45 billion revenue firm. It what would be the biggest shake-up the accounting industry has seen since Arthur Andersen’s collapse 20 years.go.

“This really sets the foundation for us to move forward,” said Trent van Veen, presiding partner of the firm’s global governance council. “We are going to change the landscape of professional services.”

EY leaders have said that the firm’s consulting work, along with much of its tax practice, would join a new business; the audit practice—along with some global affiliates not taking part in the split—would continue operating as a partnership.

Di Sibio and Boland will serve as the global chairs and CEOs of the post-split businesses. The appointments will take effect once the planned spin-off transaction is completed, which is expected late next year.

In the meantime, Boland and Di Sibio will continue in their current leadership roles and will begin building their teams, van Veen said.

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.”

Boland took over as chair of the US firm six months ago, succeeding Kelly Grier—after a leadership shuffle that took place just a few months before EY’s plans to restructure the firm became public. A former CFO for privately held companies, Boland has been an auditor and previously worked for J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

Di Sibio has led EY Global since 2019, navigating EY through the pandemic to a nearly two-decade high in revenue in the latest fiscal year. He previously chaired the firm’s global financial services practice and launched a risk and regulatory services practice, EY said.