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EY restructures Australian tech, media and telecommunications practice, promoting Jenny Young as local head

Consulting firm EY is revamping its local Technology, Media and Telecommunications operations with Jenny Young, the practice’s lead manager taking a seat on the firm’s executive leadership team and assuming a new role.

EY’s changes come as the major consultancies prepare for an anticipated wave of mergers and acquisitions in the Australian media sector following the government’s lifting of ownership restrictions late last year.

Jenny Young, newly appointed EY partner

Young takes the newly created role of Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) Consumer Products Market Segment Leader within the consultancy as part of a restructuring to streamline the firm’s industry segments. It is the first time EY has had a senior lead for the TMT sector.

The TMT consulting space has been hotly contested by the big four consulting firms with PwC’s Entertainment and Marketing practice having the highest profile due to partner Megan Brownlow’s annual Australian Entertainment & Media Outlook being widely publicised.

Rivals Deloitte have their own long standing TMT practice which produces its own annual TMT report while KPMG has been aggressively building its media practice following the appointment of Paul Howes to run its Customer, Brand & Marketing advisory arm.

EY has largely kept out of the industry’s move into the advertising industry that has seen competitors Accenture, KPMG and PwC all buy into media and creative agencies over the past 18 months.

Those acquisitions have included Accenture buying independent agencies The Monkeys and Maud, while PwC took a stake in creative agency Thinkerbell shortly after high profile marketing personality Russell Howcraft joined the firm as chief creative officer and head of CMO advisory in December 2016.

EY’s TMT Consumer Products practice is one of three new market segments that consolidate nine of the firm’s previous divisions. The two other new industry leads are Selina Short who will cover Energy, Industrial & Real Estate and Lucille Halloran whose responsibilities cover GPS, Health Life Science & Transport Market Segment Leader.

“Industry convergence is here and our operating model needs to reflect this. The changes we’ve announced today will strengthen the connection of our Partners with the market and we’re reflecting this reality in a lean, agile and more efficient operating model,” said EY CEO and Oceania Managing Partner, Tony Johnson.

“This efficiency helps our people focus on doing what they love and do best – being active in the market, providing advice to clients and helping build a better working world.”

“The new appointments provide a great balance of functional service line expertise with the insights of market segment leaders. That diversity of thought is further enhanced by the increased gender diversity in our leadership team, which is now 50 per cent female, providing us with the diversity so critical for driving innovation in our operating model,” concluded Johnson.

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