EY is primed to potentially witness the ascension of its first-ever female head in the UK. The firm has announced a prospective list of successors for Hywel Ball, its current UK managing partner. The majority of candidates on the shortlist are women. The announcement was made on a webcast meeting with the firm’s equity partners, in which it was revealed that Anna Anthony, Stuart Gregory, and Kath Barrow had made the cut.
Ball has been leading the firm since 2020 but confirmed in June that he was planning to step down from his role as UK managing partner and chair at EY. The process for selecting his successor is much less democratically influenced than at rival firm PwC. While all of PwC’s partners have the opportunity to vote in leadership votes, at EY the process is controlled by an elect partner forum and overseen by the company’s global leaders.
The ensuing procedure, which is believed to be quite political, will entail consultations with approximately 200 out of the 930 UK equity partners of EY. This is set to commence this week and continue for several weeks. Separately, there will be a different process to select a new chair as EY splits the roles of the partner and chair.
EY’s leaders have been trying to steady the ship following the failure of Project Everest last year, which was an original scheme to separate their accountancy and consultancy divisions globally. The downturn in the market has also put the firm under pressure resulting in several job losses as well as a tighter grip on staff salary increments and bonuses.
The shortlist, as first publicised by Sky News, highlights the possibility of EY leading the way amongst the Big Four accounting firms in naming a female leader on a permanent basis. While Mary O’Connor held the acting UK boss role at KPMG this year, and Janet Truncale holds the global leader title at EY, a woman has never held the top position in EY’s UK unit, which is the second largest in the company’s international network.
In a statement, EY stated: “Our firm boasts an incredible array of leaders, and our elected partner forum is managing an exhaustive process to determine the subsequent EY UK & Ireland managing partner.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024.