An Ernst and Young executive in India has tragically died almost two years after an Australian employee took his own life following allegations of a toxic work culture.
Anna Sebastian Perayil, 26, passed away on July 20, just four months after assuming her role as an Audit and Assurance Executive at EY in Pune, western India.
He had completed his chartered accountancy exams in November last year and travelled the 1,300 kilometres from his hometown in Kerala to Pune to work at the notoriously competitive accounting firm.
At the time, she posted her excitement about her new position on LinkedIn.
Her heartbroken mother, Anita Augustine, has since written a letter to EY’s Indian regional president, Rajiv Memani, demanding that something be done about EY’s work culture where, she says, “mental and physical well-being is sacrificed for the sake of productivity.”
Adding to her anguish, Ms Augustine wrote, was the fact that no one from EY showed up for her funeral.
“My heart is heavy and my soul is broken as I write these words, but I feel it is necessary to share our story in the hope that no other family will have to endure the pain we are going through,” she begins her letter.
Ms Augustine said when her daughter passed her exams she was “full of life, dreams and excitement” about her future.
“He worked tirelessly at EY, giving his all to meet the demands placed on him,” he continued.
Anna Sebastian Perayil, 26, died on July 20, just four months after taking up her position as an audit and assurance executive at EY in Pune, western India.
‘However, the workload, the new environment and the long hours took their toll on him physically, emotionally and mentally.’
Mrs Augustine said her daughter began to suffer from anxiety, stress and insomnia.
When her parents came to visit her for Ms Perayil’s CC completion ceremony, she had to go to the hospital after suffering chest constrictions.
The doctor discovered that she had not slept enough, but even after being discharged, Ms. Perayil insisted on returning to work.
“It breaks my heart to tell you that even during those two days, which were the last we would spend with our daughter, she was unable to enjoy them because of the pressure of work,” her mother said.
Ms Augustine said her daughter had been told that many of her colleagues had resigned due to an “excessive workload”.
“My daughter didn’t know she would pay for it with her life,” she said.
Ms Perayil’s death comes after EY employee Aishwarya Venkatachalam, 27 (pictured with her husband) in Australia, plunged to her death from the terrace of the company’s building in Sydney on 27 August 2022.
‘Anna would return to her room completely exhausted, sometimes collapsing onto the bed without even changing her clothes.
“He didn’t know how to say no. He was trying to prove himself in a new environment and in doing so, he pushed himself beyond his limits. And now, he’s no longer with us.”
The grieving mother also demanded answers as to why none of Ms Perayil’s colleagues attended her funeral.
Ms Augustine said she reached out to senior members of the firm after the funeral but received no response.
“This absence at such a critical time, of an employee who gave everything for her organization until her last breath, is deeply painful,” he said.
‘My heart aches not only for the loss of my daughter, but also for the lack of empathy shown by those who were supposed to guide and support her.’
EY said in a statement that it was “deeply saddened” by Ms Perayil’s death.
“That his promising career was cut short in this tragic way is an irreparable loss for all of us,” he said.
‘While no measure can compensate for the loss suffered by the family, we have provided every assistance as we always do in times of distress and will continue to do so.
‘We are taking the family’s correspondence with the utmost seriousness and humility.
Ms Perayil’s mother said none of her daughter’s EY colleagues attended her funeral.
“We place the utmost importance on the wellbeing of all employees and will continue to look for ways to improve and provide a healthy workplace for our 100,000 people across EY member firms in India.”
Ms Perayil’s death comes after Aishwarya Venkatachalam, 27, an EY employee in Australia, fell to her death from the terrace of the company’s building in Sydney on 27 August 2022.
The Indian national, who moved to Australia 10 months earlier, had complained to friends that other EY workers were “mean and racist”.
The Daily Mail Australia’s reporting on the story prompted an investigation into harassment, racism and workplace culture at the financial giant by Elizabeth Broderick, Australia’s top Sex Discrimination Commissioner.
David Larocca, chief executive of Oceanic EY, promised that Ms Broderick would look into the company’s culture, working practices and psychological health and safety in an “independent and rigorous” review.
Ms Venkatachalam, who used her name Venkat as her professional abbreviation, died after attending a business meeting at Sydney’s The Ivy nightclub on August 26.
He returned to the EY building and managed to access the café terrace, where he fell and died.
Good Samaritans told the Daily Mail Australia how, moments before Ms Venkatachalam died, they found her distraught in a nearby car park, sobbing at the harassment she was suffering.
A group of women returning to their car found her sobbing uncontrollably in a downtown parking lot, where she told them that “everyone was so mean to her in her office and that white people are not nice and they are mean and racist people.”
She echoed similar comments she had previously made to friend Neeti Bisht in April that her “bad colleagues” had been making her new life in Sydney a misery.
He told the three women he met in the parking lot that his house key was in his office, but he couldn’t get into the building to pick it up and he had nowhere else to go.
Her newlywed Nakul Murali, whom she married in a spectacular three-day Tamil-Brahmin ceremony in January 2021, was on a return flight from Singapore to Sydney at the time of her death.
Other passersby helped her back to her office around midnight, but 20 minutes later she collapsed and died on the awning above the building’s main entrance.
Ms Venkatachalam’s death sparked further accusations of racism within the company and allegations of a toxic workplace culture.
There is no suggestion that EY or Ms Venkatachalam’s co-workers or superiors were in any way responsible for her death.
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