Ernst and Young chief executive provides update after senior auditor Aishwarya Venkatachalam fell to her death from accounting giant’s Sydney skyscraper
The Australian CEO of Ernst and Young has said he was ‘saddened and shocked’ by the death of a woman in the Sydney office last year and has admitted that the work culture at his company was ‘not perfect’.
The Oceania accounting firm’s CEO and regional managing partner, David Larocca, told public hearings with consulting firms on Monday that he had launched an independent investigation into the company’s culture, knowing the outcome would be “uncomfortable.”
“You are probably aware of the tragic death of one of our colleagues in our Sydney office last year … her death saddened and shocked me,” Mr Larocca told the inquiry.
Allegations of a toxic work culture surfaced at the consultancy after Aishwarya Venkatachalam, a 27-year-old senior auditor, committed suicide on August 27 last year.
Colleagues were shocked when the woman fell to her death from the 11th floor of the building, after previously telling friends she was having a hard time at work. There is no suggestion that workplace culture contributed to the woman’s death.
A public hearing at consulting firms heard that work culture was “not perfect” after allegations of a toxic work culture at the firm. The 27-year-old senior auditor took her own life.
Oceanic EY CEO David Larocca (pictured) told public hearings from consulting firms on Monday that he had launched an independent investigation into the culture at the firm knowing the outcome would be ‘uncomfortable’
Three women previously told Daily Mail Australia they found Ms Venkatachalam ‘crying her eyes out’ in a nearby car park just before midnight the night she died.
The Good Samaritans said Mrs. Venkatachalam was sobbing uncontrollably, apparently having a panic attack.
She said she was kicked out of a work position and needed her office key to get home — but told the women that building security wouldn’t let her in to get it.
Then she would have been helped back to the office tower by other passers-by.
Minutes later, she collapsed to her death at around 12:20 p.m.
The incident sparked a furious reaction to EY’s intense work culture, as Ms Venkatachalam’s grieving friends and family claimed she had been bullied and racially abused while working there.
Colleagues were shocked when Aishwarya Venkatachalam fell to her death from the 11th floor of the building (pictured), before telling friends she was having a hard time at work. There is no suggestion that workplace culture contributed to the woman’s death
Mr Larocca said the independent assessment ‘invites scrutiny’ as he accepted that he knew the workplace ‘wasn’t perfect’.
He said the company would also be “fully transparent,” releasing the full report first to the company’s employees and then to the public.
“It was clear to me and my leadership team that we needed to pause and rethink our workplace,” said Mr. Larocca.
“So one of the actions we took in September last year was to initiate a work culture survey at EY. We invited the audit because I know we’re not perfect.”
He said the review, led by an outside organization with a “strong reputation for independent fact-based truth-finding,” would be “independent, comprehensive and rigorous.”
EY has appointed former Commissioner on Gender Discrimination, Elizabeth Broderick, to conduct the review.
The research was told by making the review public there would be ‘no self-censorship’ and the company would be held accountable for improvement.
“The evaluation allows us to hear how we can become an organization that is more inclusive, an organization that creates a greater sense of belonging, an organization that embraces and learns more from the diversity of our workforce and partners,” said Mr. Larocca.
“I have no doubt that the publication of this review in public will be uncomfortable.”
Mr Larocca said that while it would be inconvenient, it would be “more inconvenient” not to be aware of workers’ day-to-day experiences and “do nothing about it”.
The report is not yet final.
The independent review follows the tragic death of worker Aishwarya Venkatachalam (left), 27, last year
Three women told Daily Mail Australia they found Ms Venkatachalam ‘crying her eyes out’ in a nearby car park (pictured) just before midnight the night she died
Mr Larocca revealed he earned a salary of $2.8 million – five times the salary of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
When asked if it seemed fair to earn much more than the country’s leader, Larocca said he was not there to “compare my income to the Prime Minister’s”.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about how privileged I am as the son of immigrant parents who came to this country without speaking a word of English,” Larocca said.
He continued to be asked what he would say to the Australian public about his income.
“It is not my role to judge what my income should be. I believe it’s an honest reflection of what I do,” he replied.
The investigation comes in the wake of the PwC scandal, in which it was revealed that some of the consulting firm’s senior partners misused confidential federal government information to help large multinationals reduce their tax bills.
Their Australian CEO has resigned, nine partners have resigned and the AFP is investigating the company’s international tax expert, Peter John Collins, who was the key player in the fiasco.
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