Important changes at E&Y.... This is a serious breadcrumb
For those who are following the serious fun and games of Hedera working with the big Four, most will know that Hedera has already made serious progress (not exclusive,but serious) with three of them. Namely Deloitte, PwC and KPMG. However, there was always one significant hold out which was E&Y.
Paul was (is) a very serious ETH Maxi and was also Chairman of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance. He has (IMO) bitterly fought Hederas progress within E&Y and indeed on a wider level for years. However I have long suspected the walls were closing in on him. For a number of reasons, but four significant ones below.....
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E&Y are a serious ServiceNow partner and Hederas deep integration with ServiceNow was causing Paul numerous challenges and issues. Its hard to keep a platform out when your closest partner provides connectivity to them `out of the box`.
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E&Y have recently been made a major partner with Nvidia and, when it comes to AI Verification, Hedera obviously has a very strong position in this space, especially so with Nvidia.
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E&Y is a truly massive player in ESG Auditing. The Hedera Guardians progress in this market meant having Hedera skills was an increasingly important requirement.
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As if all that was not bad enough, the emergence and rapid growth of AI Agents (Something which frankly speaking ETH is just not fit for purpose in dealing with for numerous reasons) meant that Pauls `ETH Maxi` stance was coming under increasing scrutiny.
I suspect last year E&Y were losing ground to projects building on Hashgraph and recognised the writing on the wall.
Paul announced his leaving on the day he left (which is both unusual and does make you wonder why?).
These are the kind of changes that, to my mind at least, add credibility to the idea that Hedera is becoming a standard in Enterprise DLT for the big four. Paul was (is?) a massive figure in Blockchain and specifically the ETH community. I do not believe E&Y would have let him go if they truly viewed ETH as playing a primary (or even secondary) role in E&Y`s DLT strategy going forward. He is replaced by his assistant Clare Adelgren, who has been FAR more pragmatic in her statements regarding E&Y`s strategy going forward. I do not expect her to come forward tomorrow with a Hedera policy (indeed I am amazed that some of the Big Four have been so open about their relationship with Hedera as they typically like to be Technology Agnostic, indeed I suspect it is a sign of the pressure they feel to have a relationship with Hedera (from clients and the market more generally) that they are so open about their Hedera ties.
I would say this. This change signifies something very important. Frankly what was a major blocker in the Enterprise Space to Hederas progress has now been removed. Most likely as a result of vociferously pushing back against Hedera. That sends a very powerful message across the market which is something Hedera has not had in its camp before. Imagine you are in `Team Ethereum Enterprise Alliance` today and run the DLT Practice of any major company. Those people are not stupid. They will see what exactly has happened to Paul, for exactly what it is, and be compelled to question their own positioning potentially opening up much more opportunity for Hedera. As Blockchain Lead at E&Y and Chairman of the Ethereum Alliance Paul would have carried the hopes and aspirations of many in the ETH space. His loss of those roles would have been a blow to many of them.
IMO Something very important has changed......
Posted Apr 6, 2026, 1:23 PM UTC