Ernst & Young EY Global Chairman and CEO Mark Weinberger will step down effective July 1, 2019 – the start of EY's financial year 2020, the Big Four accounting, professional services and IT consulting firm disclosed today.
EY plans to vet candidates and name a successor sometime in January 2019, allowing a six-month transition from Weinberger to the new leader, the company notes.
Ernst & Young (EY) By the Numbers
Amid the global shifts to cloud services, digital and cybersecurity services, EY's massive business remains in growth mode. Among the metrics EY shared today:
- The company has 270,000 employees in over 150 countries;
- 65,000 people joined the business last year.
- The talent pool includes more than 20,000 data and analytics practitioners, and more than 2,000 data scientists in EY.
- The company's revenue generated a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.5 percent under Weinberger's leadership. He moved into the CEO post in 2012.
- The company has made more than 120 acquisitions over the past six years in such areas as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and data. Recent deals, as ChannelE2E has reported, include Adelphi Digital and Riverview Law to dive deeper into the legal managed services market.
- EY has 2,000 software robots (bots) at work, with 1,300 of these for clients and 700 in use internally.
- There are now over 20,000 data and analytics practitioners and more than 2,000 data scientists in EY. Best-in-class blockchain, cyber and digital solutions have been developed in EY.
EY company also points to its diversity. At the global executive level, 26 percent of leaders are now women. And nearly 30 percent of the partner class was women in fiscal year 2018. EY did not mention how those figures have specifically changed in recent years.
In a prepared statement about the CEO transition, Weinberger said:
“When I reflected on the massive changes we have navigated over the last seven years and the strong position we command to enable EY to excel in the years ahead, I realized that the time is right for me to step aside. I know there is an even brighter future for EY and I’m excited to see what will be shepherded in by the next generation of exceptional EY leaders. I have great confidence in the extraordinary talent that extends across our organization. I’m thankful for the opportunity to have served EY clients and people around the world."
No doubt, EY continues to face intense competition. Among the examples: Accenture, armed with a $1 billion war chest, has been very active on the IT consulting acquisition front. Similarly, Deloitte has been buying up Salesforce, Amazon Web Services, multi-cloud management, and analytics companies.
