How can today's actions create sustainable value for tomorrow?

With emerging technologies and external forces shaping the market landscape at an unprecedented pace, operating with resilience and agility is now more important than ever. By keeping our purpose of building a better working world at the heart of our strategy, the EY organization continues to lead our clients through increasingly complex challenges around the globe, while also providing exceptional experiences for all our people.

We remain committed to addressing the evolving needs of our clients, people, industry and society, grounded in our relentless focus on integrity, quality and living our values. I, along with our EY US leadership, am proud of our ability to create long-term value for all our stakeholders and make a positive impact in the communities where we live and work.

Continuous innovation and value for our clients

Across all our service lines, we are creating value with 20,000 clients every single day. EY US revenues grew 12% from FY22, with total revenues at $21.5 billion in FY23 as our multidisciplinary teams delivered more than 165,000 engagements. We continued to lead in foundational services across Tax and Assurance, with growth across Consulting and Strategy and Transactions. We also expanded our capabilities and investments in our alliances and technologies to better support our clients, with a critical focus on the market and capitalizing on opportunities that emerge amid changing dynamics.

We understand the enormous trust that is placed in us as independent auditors, and we embrace our responsibility to perform audits that promote confidence in financial reporting and help make the US capital markets the most trusted in the world. We continue to focus on simplifying, improving and standardizing our audit approach, building centralized teams to provide audit support on various topics and embedding a mindset of continuous improvement within our culture. We are also investing in innovative technologies to continually enhance audit quality and build capabilities across our organization.

Over the past year, we brought together our artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and development efforts under one platform, EY.ai. This unified platform, combined with a global $10 billion three-year investment that started in 2021, has fueled new AI capabilities and offerings that will help enable clients to efficiently access the benefits of AI at every stage of their journeys. Our goal is to increase transparency, trust and confidence in AI and use these new capabilities to serve the broader interests of society and contribute to a more inclusive, equitable future for all.

A better working world for our people

Our people deliver exceptional client service. We are proud to support them from the time they join the EY organization and throughout their career journey. It is an honor to be recognized in the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For^® list for the 25th consecutive year and in Fair360’s Top 50 Companies Hall of Fame. In line with our purpose, we are committed to fostering an inclusive work environment that supports learning, growth and balance for all our people.

A commitment to lifelong learning is a core pillar of our people strategy. We have invested more than $385 million globally in learning and development opportunities, of which $110 million is exclusively for our people in the US. These investments support mentoring programs, online learning, annual in-person events for important milestones and three EY-funded master’s degree offerings. This year, I want to congratulate the 28 people in the US who achieved a master’s degree from our degree offerings, including the inaugural class of Master of Sustainability graduates!

We also recognize the importance of wellbeing for our people and offer benefits to support emotional, physical, social and financial wellbeing, including our expanded Wellbeing Fund, which now covers everything from physical fitness to vacation getaways, and includes 25 no-cost counseling and mental health coaching sessions per year. As we move through FY24, we are learning from our employees how to create more sustainable hybrid work opportunities, where people connect in person for the moments that matter, while preserving the flexibility to work around life events.

Our EY US leadership sets clear expectations for the quality of work our professionals deliver each day, and we are committed to continuous improvement and fostering an environment in which all our people can thrive. To underscore this commitment, we recently appointed a Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer who reports directly to me and is focused on ensuring all our people understand the importance of doing the right thing in every circumstance.

An ambitious vision for our society and planet

Along with supporting our people and clients, we recognize the importance of reducing our environmental footprint and making a positive impact in the communities where we live and work. We are on track to achieve our 2025 climate ambition and continue to create long-term value for society through our corporate responsibility program, EY Ripples. This year, we impacted more than 10.5 million lives across the US through EY Ripples flagship programs, such as Earthwatch and the EY College MAP program, and through new partnerships with local nonprofits across the country.

For the third year in a row, we offset emissions associated with our office electricity through virtual power purchase agreements from two wind farms in Texas. The biggest part of our footprint, our business travel, saw an expected increase as we have been reconnecting with clients and colleagues in person more frequently. We have adapted our ways of working with enhanced guidance that provides clarity on why, when and how we travel to best support the current needs of our business, while also continuing to invest in new technology to make connecting remotely easier. We are also piloting collaboration with clients across industries to jointly decrease carbon emissions associated with our work. We are excited to be on a decarbonization journey with our clients and look forward to capturing more opportunities for innovation and impact.

An impactful year and a look ahead

With these pillars at the core of our strategy, I am excited to share our EY Value Realized: 2023 US progress report, which provides an in-depth review of our accomplishments over the last year as well as our vision for the future. I’m proud of the impact our organization and 57,000 people across the US have delivered — from the value we create through our work with clients, to the development of new learning and professional upskilling opportunities and volunteering with local nonprofits in our communities.

Looking ahead, we are transforming our business based on our learnings from key internal and external discussions, including accelerated opportunities for innovation and collaboration with clients and updated ways of working. I am also pleased to share that our partners and principals recently approved a modernized governance model that will drive accountability and trust in the way we govern and manage our US firm now and into the future.

I am optimistic about the path ahead and look forward to working with the new global CEO-elect, Janet Truncale, as she drives our global ambitions. Together, we will embark upon another year of creating long-term, sustainable value for all our stakeholders, continuing to grow and evolve our business with collaboration and connectivity at the center.