EY UK boss gets another term with yet another retirement exemption
EY has extended its UK boss term by another year, for yet another exemption for him of the firm’s mandatory retirement age.
According to the Financial Times, Hywel Ball has had his tenure as the firm’s UK chair and UK and Ireland managing partner expanded until June 2025.
Ball is 61-year-old, leading the firm to allow another exemption to its mandatory retirement age policy of 60.
He has been at the firm for over 40 years and was first appointed to the leadership role back in July 2020, succeeding Steve Varley.
This comes as EY’s global managing partner Andy Baldwin lost the global chief executive election to Janet Truncale, as he would have required an exemption to serve a full term.
Truncale, who is based in New York, was announced to replace the current global chair and CEO Carmine Di Sibio, who is set to retire in July. She is also the first female to be appointed to the leadership role.
Ball recently spoke to the Sunday Times in a rare interview about how the problems EY’s failed split plan was supposed to answer are still lingering. He highlighted that the firm’s need to “find a response” to the questions that led it to the split plan.
The Big Four firm had proposed a plan that would overhaul its businesses in order to address regulatory concerns over potential conflicts of interest. The plan, also known as Project Everest, would have split its consulting and auditing businesses. It was was cancelled in April after push back from EY’s US unit.
A spokesperson said EY said: “As has been standard practice for many years, EY partner tenures are regularly extended in the UK and across the global network for a variety of reasons including client delivery and leadership responsibilities.”