EY Mission Statement Analysis

Company: Ernst & Young Global Limited
CEO: Janet Truncale
Year founded: 1989
Headquarters: London, England
Number of Employees: 400,000+
Type: Private
Annual Revenue (2024): $51.2 Billion

Did you know? EY is one of the Big Four accounting firms, with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC.

Ernst & Young (EY) is a professional services enterprise with over 36 years of experience and having global presence. It offers assurance, tax, IT services, consulting, and financial advisory. EY’s mission, values, and sustainability goals drive growth and success. In 2023, EY was the world’s third-largest accounting firm based on revenue, behind Deloitte and PwC. It has continuously ranked on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for a stagerring 26 years, longer than its competitors. [1]

EY is one of the world’s sizeable professional services networks. It isn’t one service provider but several independent accounting firms working under a single brand. Each member firm is structured as a separate legal entity in a partnership. In 2024, EY’s annual revenue was $51.2 billion, a 3.9% increase from 2023. All EY service lines reported revenue growth, including tax at 6.3%, assurance at 6.3%, strategy and transactions at 2.3%, and consulting at 0.1%. [2]

To understand why EY is so successful, here is an in-depth analysis of its mission statement, values, and sustainability goals:

EY’s Mission Statement

Building a better working world. [3]

Here is our analysis of EY’s mission statement:

1. Deliver quality services and insights

EY aims to provide insights and quality services to help build trust and confidence in global economies and capital markets worldwide. Its integrated assurance, consulting, strategy, transactions, and tax service lines offer deep sector knowledge to help clients capitalize on new opportunities. As of Oct 2024, 70% of EY employees were trained in responsible AI use. Customers can rely on EY’s insights to manage risks and achieve financial growth.

EY’s high-performing, multidisciplinary teams help clients fulfill regulatory requirements. They educate and guide investors to maximize their gains. In Jul 2024, EY was recognized as a Market Leader at the Horizon 3 level in the HFS Horizons Healthcare Providers category. The report praised EY for deep healthcare expertise, strategic domain-oriented ecosystem, speed to value, inclusive innovation, and independence in perspectives. Its industry-specific insights and services deliver meaningful outcomes and care to clients globally. [4]

2. Dedicated to creating value

EY is a global professional service powerhouse dedicated to creating value for customers, EY stakeholders, employees, and society. The firm continually strengthens its offering for clients to maximize their ROI. EY has invested in 85 acquisitions and over 100 ecosystem relationships in the past 5 years, including 20 alliances in 2024. These investments expanded EY’s AI and sector-based solutions, accounting for 48% of EY’s annual growth in FY24. They create value for EY stakeholders and clients.

EY strives to increase value by adopting cutting-edge data and AI technologies. Its AI-based EY Fabric tech platform is deployed across 180 countries and serves over 2 million clients. In Sep 2023, the firm launched EY.ai, which leverages leading-edge EY technology and AI to streamline strategy, tax, transactions, digital transformation, risk, and assurance services. It unified its AI innovation and development efforts under EY.ai to help clients efficiently access AI benefits from a single platform. Since Sep 2023, over 75% of EY team members have used its EYQ conversational AI assistant, generating over 68 million prompts. [5]

3. Shaping the future with confidence

EY aims to shape the future by leading its stakeholders and clients through the complex, fast-evolving AI and tech-driven era. The firm launched its new “All in” global strategy in Jul 2024. This initiative is encapsulated in the tagline, “Shape the future with confidence.” It will guide EY’s next $50 billion revenue through future-focused investments. In Oct 2024, EY unveiled a brand expansion focused on the “shape the future with confidence” initiative. [6]

EY achieves this mission by helping customers navigate emerging challenges and grab more opportunities. It builds a better world for society by ensuring its products and services deliver a positive impact. EY Ripples has impacted over 192 million lives and contributed over 3.8 million hours to community initiatives since its launch in 2018. In 2024, EY invested $169m and devoted 934,000 hours to community-strengthening projects. Over 168,000 EY team members participated in 2024 initiatives, benefiting over 64 million people. [7]

4. Empowering people

EY strives to empower its employees with the right mindsets and skills to help customers navigate a changing world. The firm develops outstanding, transformative leaders to deliver its promises to all stakeholders. In 2024, EY refreshed its people empowerment strategy to focus on developing skills, prioritizing wellbeing, and building an inclusive culture. EY has delivered over 100 million learning hours and invested $2.1 billion in training focused on diversity and inclusion in the past five years. It is committed to enhancing access to resources, networks, and opportunities by promoting social mobility and socio-economic inclusion. [8]

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EY’s Values

EY’s values are the founding blocks of its culture. They define the firm’s business approach and guide employees to fulfill EY’s mission. The company values team members who build relationships based on doing the right thing and demonstrate integrity, respect, teamwork, inclusiveness, and courageous leadership. [9]

How does EY live by its values?

Integrity: EY is committed to upholding ethical business standards and ensuring appropriate and timelt compliance with relevant laws and regulations. The SEC fined EY $100 million in 2022 for a test-taking scandal by its auditors. The company reasserted its commitment to ethics and integrity to regain public trust.
In Oct 2024, EY terminated several employees for violating its Global Code of Conduct and US Learning Policy. “Our core values of integrity and ethics are at the forefront of everything we do,” said EY spokesperson. EY also took a tough ethical stand in Oct 2024 by resigning as Super Micro Computer’s registered public accounting firm because it had questions about the company’s commitment to integrity values. [10]

Respect: EY promotes a workplace culture that respects everyone and welcomes diverse viewpoints. The company believes respectful relationships catalyze creative ideas, innovation, and teamwork. Passionate employees can join EY Networks and Communities to support their colleagues. These groups nurture respect and a sense of belonging. For example, the EY Unity Network provides a place for LGBT+ It celebrates people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, ensuring they’re respected in the workplace. [11]

Inclusion: EY is committed to advancing social equity and inclusive growth. The firm stands against injustice, bias, discrimination, and racism. Its CEO launched the Uplift storytelling campaign to educate employees on inclusion through their colleagues’ experiences in social settings and interactions at work. In 2020, EY formed the Global Social Equity Taskforce (GSET) with 40 senior EY leaders from different backgrounds to amplify all voices. GSET has implemented several initiatives to bolster inclusion company-wide. [12]

Leadership: EY values people with the courage and enthusiasm to lead. It nurtures future leaders through ongoing learning and development programs. In 2017, the firm launched its EY Badges program. It had issued over half a million EY Badges accreditations as of 2024. This program includes advanced learning in transformational leadership, sustainability, data visualization, and AI. Over 250,000 individuals completed EY’s AI learning courses within six months after the training was launched. [13]

Constructive collaborations: EY values people who build relationships based on doing the right thing. The company applies this principle to create a next-generation workforce. For example, EY partners with 60 organizations through the Teach For All global network to develop promising future leaders in under-resourced schools and communities.
EY teams created EY Future Skills Workshops and collaborated with Teach For Lebanon to train 82 teachers to deliver modules to students. This initiative has already reached over 3,600 students across Lebanon. As of 2023, Future Skills Workshop text-based courses accessible via mobile phones had 10,000 completions in eight countries. [14]

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EY’s Sustainability Goals

EY is committed to driving a more environmentally sustainable future. The firm announced its global science-based decarbonization targets in Jan 2021. It seeks to achieve net zero in 2025 with a 40% reduction in absolute Scopes 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions against the FY19 baseline. This goal includes reducing its travel emissions by 35% by 2025. [15]

How is EY progressing on its sustainability goals?

EY seeks to achieve its net zero target by switching operations to renewable energy. The company started procuring renewable electricity for its UK offices in 2007 and switched from natural gas to renewable biogas in 2019. EY UK announced a 10-year zero-carbon power purchase agreement, allowing the branch to construct a new solar power station in Norfolk. In Oct 2021, Thornham Solar Farm went online to provide 100% renewable energy to EY UK. [16]

EY Global combines several strategies to achieve the net zero target. Its GHG emissions for FY23 were 777,000 tCO2e, a 43% reduction compared to the FY19 baseline. In 2024, the firm reduced absolute GHG emissions by 40% and decreased Scope 3 travel emissions by 42% against its FY19 baseline. EY has 4,000 professionals dedicated to helping clients advance their sustainability efforts. Its insights and initiatives prevented an additional 98,000 tons of CO2e emissions in 2024, equivalent to almost 20% of all EY travel emissions. [17]