EY claims bragging rights at 2023 Australian Corporate Games

The Australian Corporate Games returned to Melbourne this year, with the 200-strong team from EY scoring five gold medals and sixteen overall to claim 2023 bragging rights over its consulting rivals.

Ignoring the inevitable ‘look at the (revenue) scoreboard’ response, Ernst & Young will enter the new year with Big Four bragging rights for what really matters to most Aussies; the firm having claimed the most medals among the accounting and consulting giants at this year’s 31st Australian Corporate Games hosted in Melbourne.

The team from EY finished fifth overall with sixteen medals (just quietly, the firm also had the most participants).

Conceived of by Australian Maureen Johnston and first held in San Francisco in 1988, the World Corporate Games have since spread around the world, with both national and state competitions taking place in Australia. Since its local inception, over 600,000 ‘weekend sports warriors’ have taken part, representing 4,500 organisations. This year the games returned to Melbourne, with 4,000-plus participants competing across seventeen pursuits.

While the 560-strong team from ANZ bank ultimately proved an unstoppable force – taking home 47 medals compared to the 18 awarded to second-placed Kapitol Group – the gold medal tally and minor overall standings were much closer affairs. Boasting the second largest squad, the 200-odd members of Team EY scored five gold medals between them, just one shy of ANZ, with a particularly strong showing in the running and swimming.

Indeed, taking individual line honours in the under-30 and 30-39 age brackets, EY climate & sustainability consultant James Harry and supply chain & operations senior manager David Hickox went one-two in the 5km running, the latter pipping his colleague by just 18 seconds with a time of 18.24. Meanwhile, senior manager Georgia Chalmers chipped in for a silver in the women’s 5km event, posting the 11th-fastest time among all genders.

EY also pulled off the double in the men's under-30 open water event, with strategy & transactions consulting pair Koa Peters and Rex Edwards taking first and second place, while their practice colleague and senior consultant Genevieve Perrignon took silver in the equivalent womens category. On an adjusted points basis, EY finished second overall in the swimming and third in the running – unfortunately behind rival KPMG in the latter.

KPMG, with a team of just 32, managed to bag five medals over the three days of competition – all from the pavement – including silvers to global mobility services partner Ursula Lepporoli in the 5km (40-49) race and tax dispute consultant Phoebe Maus in the 10km event for under-30s. With a bronze and fourth-place in their respective brackets, KPMG’s Cameron Dimeck (under-30) and Jake Ward (30-39) also posted top-ten times in the 10km running.

Elsewhere in the consulting realm, Accenture came out ahead of Argon & Co, Boston Consulting Group and Deloitte on the table for smaller teams of around ten competitors by taking silver in the mixed 4s beach volleyball (thus controversially earning four silvers, while Argon & Co only received one for placing second in the tennis women's doubles), while Moore similarly topped its size category over badminton-bridesmaids Mantel Group with gold in the mixed 8’s cricket.

But perhaps the biggest boil-over came in the karting event, with Origin Energy beating out Porsche for overall first place.