Earlier this week, EY’s global chairman and CEO Carmine Di Sibio announced his planned retirement for June of 2024, and his exit may trigger a new era of leadership for the accounting giant, with a focus on reworking a recent proposed deal known as “Project Everest,” according to attorney Mathieu Shapiro, a Philadelphia-based managing partner at law firm Obermayer who specializes in commercial split transactions.

This is the latest change to Di Sibio’s term agreement, which was originally intended to end this month, and was then extended to see through the breakup of the Big Four accounting firm’s consulting and auditing arms. 

“Project Everest,” was Di Sibio’s brainchild, and hit a wall back in April after U.S. leaders spoke out in opposition to the terms of the planned breakup. 

“Having not gotten where EY wanted to go with Everest, and having extensive press coverage on it, adds complications to an already monumentally complicated deal,” he told CFO Dive in a recent interview.

Behind the scenes

Everest — the name coined for the breakup which aimed to mitigate conflicts of interest between corporate clients through a split of their consulting and auditing arms entities — cost EY $600 million, as well as a great deal of time and resources. 

Once separated from the accounting business, consulting operations would have been more profitable, being that they would be less restricted by regulatory pressures. 

“It is more than just the amount of time and money they've put into this,” said Shapiro. “There were also underlying business reasons as for why they were trying to split up to begin with, like conflicts of interest, that's why ultimately, we're going to have to get back to this in some way, shape or form.”

With Di Sibio’s exit, and the abandonment of Everest, the accounting giant may be plotting for a new era of leadership, as well as a new plan to successfully follow through with the split, according to Shapiro. 

“What I assume is going on right now behind the scenes, is extensive conversation about what they're doing instead of Everest, and I assume that we will see a new leadership that is committed to and trusted to handle and figure out whatever the replacement is,” he said. 

Leadership appointments for Everest were already underway, with Di Sibio set to lead the consulting arm, and the former CFO of Minnetonka, Minn.- based agribusiness giant Cargill, Jamie Miller, leaving her post to work alongside Di Sibio as the global CFO. 

“I am proud of the bold vision we set out in Project Everest. The courage that we displayed set the entire sector on a new course that will only become apparent in the years to come,” Di Sibio said to partners in a webcast Tuesday announcing his retirement. 

“This news has nothing to do with Everest and is not connected in any way. EY has mandatory retirement, when you reach retirement age, which Carmine has done,” an EY spokesperson wrote to CFO Dive along with a copy of the outgoing CEO’s statement. 

Di Sibio reached EY’s mandatory retirement age of 60 back in March, but did not change his retirement plans until four months later.

“Whether the retirement is related to Everest or not is kind of semantics,” said Shapiro.

“My take on all of this is that it is likely part of finding new ideas and new leadership, interested in pushing through whatever they're actually going to do,” he said.