EY New Zealand's chair leaves after 'historical behavioural matter': reports

The chair of EY New Zealand has left the company following a "historical behavioural matter," according to reports.

Stuff reported last week that EY New Zealand chair Braden Dickson, who was also an EY Oceania partner and business development leader, left the organisation in February.

"Following a historical behavioural matter being raised in December 2023, EY conducted an investigation and Braden Dickson departed EY in early February. He is no longer a partner of the firm," an EY Oceania spokesperson confirmed to Stuff.

According to the spokesperson, they don't go into further detail.

"We are aware there has been some discussion about the circumstances, but we are not in a position to comment on those," the spokesperson told Stuff.

Dickson has yet to comment on his departure, according to Stuff's report, but he has updated his LinkedIn profile to "Strategic Advisor - Speargrass Consulting."

Allegations on workplace culture

One former employee told Stuff that she was "not surprised" at Dickson's departure, adding that the conduct at EY was "horrific."

Further allegations on EY's workplace culture were raised to the news outlet, calling it "unhealthy" and "toxic," with a concerning "excessive drinking culture."

Another former employee accused one of the audit partners of making remarks such as "Nothing worse than a team of females when it's that time of the month."

That individual would also joke about someone being gay, the former employee told Stuff.

Low trust in reporting on harmful behaviour

Simon O'Connor, EY NZ managing partner, said employees who have concerns on the workplace are strongly encouraged to come forward and report them.

But EY Oceania's reporting mechanism has been suffering from low trust, according to a review on the company's workplace culture released last year.

The report revealed that only a "minority of those who experienced a harmful behaviour in the last five years" reported them formally or informally to the organisation or to an independent of external party.

The same report also found that many people experienced retribution when they reported their harmful experiences.

The report recommended, among other things, for the organisation to "optimise" its reporting mechanism and strengthening accountability arrangements, which EY accepted.

O'Connor reiterated this commitment to Stuff.

"We're confident that recommendations of the review, which have all been accepted by EY, will make meaningful improvements to our culture," the managing partner told Stuff.

"When we undertook this review, we committed to sharing the full report publicly, and have since committed to reporting on our progress against the recommendations."