Jump to content

Carmine Di Sibio

The comprehensive free global encyclopedia of CEOs, corporate leadership, and business excellence
Carmine Di Sibio
Born
Frigento, Province of Avellino, Campania, Italy
NationalityAmerican (born in Italy)
EducationColgate University (BA, Chemistry); New York University Stern School of Business (MBA)
OccupationBusiness executive, certified public accountant
CompanyEY
TitleFormer Global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of EY
PredecessorMark Weinberger
SuccessorJanet Truncale
ChildrenFour

Carmine Di Sibio is an Italian-born American business executive who served as Global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of EY, the professional services network formerly known as Ernst & Young, from 1 July 2019 until 30 June 2024.[1][2] He joined the firm, then known as Ernst & Young, in 1985 as an auditor and spent his entire career there, rising through its financial services audit and advisory practice before being elected to lead the global organization.[3][4]

As chief executive, Di Sibio launched NextWave, the first global strategy the firm had adopted for the entire organization, and oversaw a compounded annual revenue growth rate of 9.5 per cent that added about $13 billion in revenue over his five years in office.[2] He is best known outside the accounting profession for championing Project Everest, a 2021 to 2023 plan to split the firm's audit business from its consulting and tax advisory operations and float the latter on public markets. The plan, which would have been the largest restructuring in the accounting industry since the collapse of Arthur Andersen in 2002, consumed an estimated $600 million before it was abandoned in April 2023 after the firm's United States executive committee declined to proceed.[5][6]

Di Sibio's tenure also included a $100 million penalty that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission imposed on EY in June 2022, at the time the largest such penalty against an audit firm in the agency's history, after finding that EY audit professionals had cheated on CPA ethics exams and that the firm had misled investigators looking into the matter.[7] Di Sibio announced in June 2023 that he would retire the following year, shortly after Project Everest collapsed, and he stepped down on 30 June 2024, having reached the firm's mandatory retirement age of 60.[8] He was succeeded by Janet Truncale.[2]

Since leaving the firm, Di Sibio has joined the boards of PayPal Holdings and Prudential Financial as an independent director, and he serves as an Operating Partner at Advent International and a Senior Advisor to Consello.[3][4]

Early life and education

Carmine Di Sibio was born in Frigento, a town in the Province of Avellino in the Campania region of Italy.[9] He emigrated to the United States with his family as a young child.[3][9] He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Colgate University and went on to receive a Master of Business Administration from New York University's Stern School of Business.[3][1][9] He became a practicing certified public accountant, a credential that remained the foundation of his subsequent career in audit.[3][4]

Career

Early career in financial services audit, 1985 to 2013

Di Sibio joined Ernst & Young in 1985 and spent his career almost entirely in the firm's financial services practice, working as an advisory and assurance partner for some of its largest financial services clients.[1][4] He went on to chair the firm's Global Financial Services Markets Executive and to serve as regional managing partner for the Americas Financial Services Organization.[3][1][4] In that role he started the firm's Risk Management and Regulatory Services practice, which EY later described as having grown into "a multibillion-dollar global business."[3][4] He also co-chaired the firm's Global Diversity and Inclusiveness Steering Committee for more than ten years.[3]

Global Managing Partner for Client Service, 2013 to 2019

From 2013, Di Sibio served as EY's Global Managing Partner for Client Service, a post in which he led execution of the firm's global strategy and had overall responsibility for its four geographic areas, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa, Asia-Pacific and Japan, and its four primary service lines of assurance, tax, transaction advisory services and advisory.[1][10] He also had responsibility for a US$1 billion programme of investment in new technology that the firm committed to over a two-year period, and he helped create the firm's Global Innovation team, intended to redefine how EY used technology to transform existing services and build new ones.[1][11] By his employer's own account, he was also one of the architects of the firm's acquisitions and alliances strategy during this period.[1]

Election as Global Chairman and CEO, January 2019

On 17 January 2019, the firm's global board elected Di Sibio as its next Global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for a four-year term, to take effect from 1 July 2019, succeeding Mark Weinberger, who had led the firm since 2012 and announced in December 2018 that he would step down.[1][12][13] At the time of his election, EY reported close to $35 billion in annual revenue, up 7.4 per cent year on year, and employed more than 270,000 people in over 150 countries.[1][10] Announcing the appointment, Weinberger called Di Sibio "an outstanding and inclusive leader who has a foundation in audit and in serving the largest EY clients."[1][13] Di Sibio said: "I am honored to be chosen to lead this great organization, which I have been part of for over 33 years."[1][13]

Global Chairman and CEO, 2019 to 2024

Di Sibio formally became EY's Global Chairman and CEO on 1 July 2019.[1][2] He led the development of NextWave, which EY has described as the professional services industry's first global strategy, built around expanding the firm's stated purpose of "building a better working world" and creating long-term value for its people, partners, clients and society.[2] Under his leadership the firm reported a compounded annual revenue growth rate of 9.5 per cent and roughly $13 billion of additional revenue over his tenure.[2] In July 2022, on a call with the firm's then 312,000 staff, Di Sibio said it expected to report record revenues of $45.4 billion for the year.[14]

Di Sibio also drove a series of investments in artificial intelligence and technology, including what the firm later described as the US$1.4 billion EY.ai platform.[2] On sustainability, the firm appointed its first Chief Sustainability Officer during his tenure and committed to being carbon negative by 2025, a commitment under which it said it had reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40 per cent since 2019.[2] On diversity and inclusion, Di Sibio sponsored a Global Social Equity Task Force in 2020 and oversaw an increase in the proportion of women on the firm's Global Executive board to 33 per cent.[2]

In June 2022, Kelly Grier, the head of the firm's United States business and the first woman to lead its US practice, announced she would not seek re-election and would leave her post that month, after what the Financial Times reported, and Fortune relayed, was a clash with Di Sibio over the direction of the planned restructuring and over the balance of authority between the firm's US leadership and its global centre.[15] Grier was replaced by Julie Boland, who went on to play a central role in the collapse of Project Everest the following year.[15][14]

Project Everest

The defining strategic initiative of Di Sibio's chairmanship was Project Everest, a plan to separate most of the firm's consulting, tax advisory and transaction business from its audit and assurance business, with the consulting arm to be floated on public markets under the working name NewCo and the remaining audit-focused partnership referred to internally as AssureCo.[5][6] Discussion of a possible break-up began internally in 2021, and reporting on the plan first became public in May 2022, with the firm confirming it was exploring a public listing or partial sale of its advisory business.[14] Its bosses formally approved the plan on 8 September 2022 and put it to a vote of the roughly 13,000 partners; the China and Israel practices subsequently opted out of the plan.[14] Press reporting at the time indicated that the restructuring would have involved about $30 billion of financing for the new consulting entity, including roughly $11.5 billion raised through an initial public offering and about $18.5 billion in borrowing, and that some partners stood to receive payouts reported at around £6.5 million each, seven to nine times their annual salary.[6][14]

Di Sibio had been expected to lead the new, separately listed consulting business, and his planned retirement, originally due in 2023, was extended by two years so that he could see the transaction through.[5] Jamie Miller, the former chief financial officer of Cargill, left her post in January 2023 to become global CFO of the proposed new consulting company.[5]

The plan encountered serious resistance in early 2023. In March 2023, the firm's United States chief, Julie Boland, said the plan would need to be reworked amid internal disputes over how much of the tax practice should remain with the audit business rather than move to the new consulting entity; according to the Financial Times, as relayed by the Accountancy Age timeline of the deal, the dispute centred on a proposal under which tax would make up about 30 per cent of the US audit-side business, against 14 per cent globally.[14] Reporting also described opposition from more than 150 retired partners concerned the split could weaken both resulting firms, and from current partners worried about unfunded pension obligations to retirees.[6] On 12 April 2023, the U.S. Executive Committee decided not to proceed, and the global executive, in a letter to partners, confirmed the plan had been paused while stating it "remains committed to moving forward with creating two world-class organizations that further advance audit quality, independence and client choice."[5][16] The firm subsequently confirmed that the plan, as designed, had been formally abandoned.[14]

Subsequent reporting, drawing on the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, put the direct cost of the failed project at approximately $600 million, and said the firm had taken on more than $700 million of additional debt on its global operating business in connection with the aborted transaction.[6] EY's own later reporting acknowledged that Everest "did not proceed," while describing it as a "bold plan" that nonetheless prompted internal reflection.[6] KPMG's global chairman and CEO, Bill Thomas, responded publicly to the decision by reaffirming KPMG's commitment to the traditional multidisciplinary model.[16]

SEC penalty over CPA ethics exam cheating

On 28 June 2022, during Di Sibio's chairmanship, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Ernst & Young LLP had agreed to pay a $100 million penalty, which the SEC described as the largest it had ever imposed on an audit firm, after admitting that a significant number of its audit professionals had cheated on the ethics component of CPA licensing exams and continuing education courses over multiple years, and that the firm had withheld evidence of the cheating from the SEC's Enforcement Division during its investigation.[7] The SEC's Enforcement Division director, Gurbir S. Grewal, said the case involved "breaches of trust by gatekeepers within the gatekeeper entrusted to audit many of our Nation's public companies" and called it "simply outrageous" that auditors responsible for policing client conduct had cheated on ethics exams themselves.[7] Beyond the fine, the SEC's order required the firm to retain independent consultants to review both its ethics and integrity policies and its handling of the disclosure failures in the case.[7] The SEC's order did not name Di Sibio personally; the finding was against the firm.[7]

Retirement, 2023 to 2024

Di Sibio announced in June 2023 that he intended to retire in 2024.[3][8] He had reached the firm's mandatory retirement age of 60 earlier that year, in March 2023.[8] In a webcast to partners announcing his departure, he defended the Everest project despite its collapse, saying: "The courage that we displayed set the entire sector on a new course that will only become apparent in the years to come. We challenged the status quo, we asked tough questions and we were bold in our ambitions."[8] On 15 November 2023, the firm announced that Janet Truncale, then regional managing partner of its Americas Financial Services Organization, had been elected to succeed him, effective 1 July 2024.[2] Announcing the succession, Di Sibio said of Truncale: "She is a great choice to lead our organization through the next chapter of its history."[2] The announcement credited Di Sibio with having served on the firm's Global Executive for eleven years prior to his departure.[2] Di Sibio stepped down as Global Chairman and CEO on 30 June 2024.[2][4]

Post-EY roles, from 2024

Because of a firm policy restricting partners from joining public company boards until after retirement, Di Sibio could not take outside directorships until he left EY.[4] On 28 March 2024, PayPal Holdings announced that its board intended to appoint Di Sibio as an independent director effective 1 July 2024, the day after his retirement took effect, to replace the retiring director Belinda Johnson.[4] PayPal's chief executive, Alex Chriss, said the company was "very pleased about the planned addition of Carmine to our Board given his demonstrated record of championing innovation, extensive experience advising regulated financial companies, and keen understanding of what it takes for global companies to succeed."[4] Di Sibio also joined the board of Prudential Financial as an independent director effective 1 July 2024.[3] He subsequently took on roles as an Operating Partner at the private equity firm Advent International and as a Senior Advisor to Consello, a global advisory and investing firm.[3]

Leadership and management style

Di Sibio's tenure as chief executive was marked by large, centrally directed bets rather than incremental change. He committed the firm to a US$1 billion technology investment programme early in his time as Global Managing Partner for Client Service, later expanding its artificial intelligence push into the US$1.4 billion EY.ai platform as chief executive.[1][2] His most consequential wager, Project Everest, sought to unwind the integrated audit-and-consulting model that had defined EY and its Big Four peers for decades, a model the firm itself had operated under since before his tenure.[6][16] Even after the plan collapsed, he characterised the attempt as a necessary act of institutional courage rather than a mistake, telling partners that "challenging the status quo" would shape the profession "in the years to come," a framing that drew a public rebuttal from KPMG's global chief executive, who used the firm's retreat to reaffirm the value of the traditional multidisciplinary model it had tried to abandon.[8][16]

His approach to the firm's US business produced friction with at least one senior leader: the Financial Times reported, as relayed by Fortune, that Kelly Grier's departure as the firm's US chair in 2022 followed disagreements with Di Sibio over the restructuring plan and over how much authority the US partnership should retain relative to the global organization he led.[15] Project Everest's later collapse was attributed in large part to similar US-versus-global tension, when the US Executive Committee that Grier's successor, Julie Boland, led declined to proceed with the plan.[5][14]

On diversity, equity and inclusion, Di Sibio co-chaired the firm's Global Diversity and Inclusiveness Steering Committee for more than a decade before becoming chief executive, then sponsored a Global Social Equity Task Force as CEO in 2020 and oversaw an increase in the share of women on its Global Executive board to 33 per cent by the end of his tenure.[3][2] On sustainability, he oversaw the appointment of its first Chief Sustainability Officer and a commitment, which it said it had substantially met, to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40 per cent since 2019 on the way to a carbon-negative target for 2025.[2]

Major deals and strategic decisions

The central strategic decision of Di Sibio's chairmanship was Project Everest, described above, which would have been the most significant restructuring of a Big Four accounting firm since the 2002 collapse of Arthur Andersen had it proceeded.[14][6] Its proposed financing, roughly $30 billion including an $11.5 billion initial public offering and $18.5 billion in debt for the new consulting entity, would have ranked among the largest professional services transactions ever attempted.[6] Its abandonment in April 2023, after the firm had already spent an estimated $600 million and taken on more than $700 million of additional debt pursuing it, stands as one of the largest unconsummated corporate restructurings of the period.[6][5]

Alongside Everest, Di Sibio directed sustained investment in technology and artificial intelligence throughout his tenure, from the US$1 billion commitment announced in 2019 to the US$1.4 billion EY.ai platform the firm later said it had built under his leadership.[1][2] His former employer has also credited him with helping shape its broader acquisitions and alliances strategy during his years as Global Managing Partner for Client Service, though its own published materials describe this role in general terms without naming individual transactions.[1]

Financial and market performance

When Di Sibio was named CEO-elect in January 2019, EY reported annual revenue of close to $35 billion, up 7.4 per cent on the prior year, and a global headcount of more than 270,000 people across more than 150 countries.[1][10] By July 2022, on an internal call, Di Sibio told a staff of 312,000 that the firm expected to report $45.4 billion in revenue for the year.[14] At the time PayPal announced his board appointment in March 2024, EY was described as employing more than 380,000 people in 150 countries.[4] Its own retrospective on his tenure, published when Truncale was announced as his successor, credited Di Sibio's leadership with a 9.5 per cent compounded annual revenue growth rate and about $13 billion of additional revenue over his five years as chief executive.[2] In the firm's current description of its business, published after his departure, it reports more than $50 billion in revenue and about 400,000 people serving clients in nearly 150 countries.[3]

The abandoned Project Everest transaction would itself have been a significant capital markets event: press reporting at the time described a financing package of roughly $30 billion for the proposed consulting spin-off, including an approximately $11.5 billion initial public offering, alongside partner payouts reported at around £6.5 million each.[6][14] Its collapse left the firm, according to later Financial Times reporting cited in secondary analysis of the deal, carrying more than $700 million in additional debt on its global operating business.[6]

Board memberships and outside roles

During his time at EY, Di Sibio served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Colgate University and on the boards of the Foundation for Empowering Citizens with Autism and Family Promise.[11] His former employer's current biography of him also lists membership of the Wake Forest University Business School Board of Visitors.[3] He is a founder of the Sustainable Markets Initiative and has participated in the World Economic Forum, including as a member of its International Business Council.[3] Earlier in his career he served as an adviser to the Future Economic Development Board for China's Guangdong Province.[11]

Since retiring from EY on 1 July 2024, Di Sibio has served as an independent director of PayPal Holdings, Inc. and of Prudential Financial, as an Operating Partner at Advent International, and as a Senior Advisor to Consello.[4][3]

Controversies

Two episodes dominate the controversies associated with Di Sibio's chairmanship. The first was the SEC's June 2022 finding that audit professionals at the firm had cheated on CPA ethics exams over multiple years and that it had misled SEC investigators looking into the matter, for which it paid a $100 million penalty, the largest the SEC had imposed on an audit firm at the time.[7] The SEC's order was directed at the firm rather than at Di Sibio individually, and the announced penalty required it to retain independent consultants to review both its ethics culture and its handling of the disclosure failures.[7] Commentary on the matter, including a later case-study analysis of Project Everest, noted that the episode reinforced a climate of regulatory scrutiny and diminished public trust in the firm's culture in the period leading up to the attempted break-up.[6]

The second was Project Everest itself. Reporting described "frustration and chaos" inside the firm as the plan unravelled, opposition from more than 150 retired partners who argued the split would weaken both resulting organizations, and disputes over unfunded pension obligations to retired US partners that delayed the process.[6] Litigation connected to the firm's audit of NMC Health in London was also reported to have complicated the restructuring, after claimants raised concerns that a reorganization could affect its ability to satisfy a potential judgment against it.[6] The project's collapse coincided with, and was linked in press reporting to, the earlier 2022 departure of Kelly Grier as head of its US practice, which the Financial Times reported had followed a clash with Di Sibio over the restructuring and over the balance of power between the firm's US and global leadership.[15]

Personal life

Di Sibio is married and has four children.[3] He lives in New Jersey in the United States.[3] He has described himself as a sports enthusiast.[11] He remains a practicing certified public accountant, a credential tied to his original training as an auditor.[3]

Philanthropy

Di Sibio has served on the board of the Foundation for Empowering Citizens with Autism and on the board of Family Promise, an organization working with homeless and low-income families.[11] He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Colgate University, his undergraduate alma mater, and of the Wake Forest University Business School Board of Visitors.[11][3] He is a founder of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, a body focused on aligning private-sector activity with sustainability goals.[3] No specific donation amounts associated with Di Sibio personally were identified in the sources reviewed for this article.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 <ref>"Carmine Di Sibio elected as next EY Global Chairman and CEO; effective July 1, 2019".PR Newswire / EY.18 January 2019.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 <ref>"Janet Truncale selected as next EY Global Chair and CEO; effective July 1, 2024".EY.15 November 2023.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 <ref>"Carmine Di Sibio: Former EY Global Chairman and CEO".EY.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 <ref>"PayPal Plans to Appoint Carmine Di Sibio to Board of Directors".PayPal Holdings, Inc..28 March 2024.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 <ref>Flood, Elizabeth."EY split hits wall".12 April 2023.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 <ref>"Case Study 22: The $600 Million Failed EY Split ("Project Everest")".Henrico Dolfing.19 March 2026.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 <ref>"Ernst & Young to Pay $100 Million Penalty for Employees Cheating on CPA Ethics Exams and Misleading Investigation".U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.28 June 2022.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 <ref>"EY CEO Carmine Di Sibio to step down".14 June 2023.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 <ref>Caccavello, Giovanni."Chi è Carmine Di Sibio, l'italiano che guiderà Ernst & Young".20 January 2019.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 <ref>"Carmine Di Sibio elected to succeed Mark Weinberger as head of EY".22 January 2019.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 <ref>"Carmine Di Sibio".EY.19 January 2019.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  12. ↑ <ref>Rapoport, Michael."Ernst & Young Taps Carmine Di Sibio as Next Global Chairman and CEO".18 January 2019.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 <ref>Cohn, Michael."EY elects Carmine Di Sibio as global chair and CEO".18 January 2019.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  14. ↑ 14.00 14.01 14.02 14.03 14.04 14.05 14.06 14.07 14.08 14.09 14.10 <ref>Alberti, Sam."EY split timeline: The abandoned break-up plan".13 April 2023.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 <ref>Kidwai, Aman."EY's head of American operations is leaving at a tricky time for the organization".1 June 2022.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 <ref>"EY abandons historic split of audit and consulting businesses".12 April 2023.Retrieved 28 September 2026.</ref>
Retrieved from "https://ceo.wiki/index.php?title=Carmine_Di_Sibio&oldid=9020"