26-year-old EY Pune Employee Succumbs to ‘Work Stress’ Four Months After Joining, Mother Writes to Firm’s India Boss

A 26-year-old woman working at EY Pune, one of the Big Four accounting firms, tragically lost her life due to what her family described as work stress within four months of her joining. Anna Sebastian Perayil, a young Chartered Accountant (CA) from Kerala, lost her life after the company “burdened her with backbreaking work”. In the wake of this devastating loss, Perayil’s mother, Anita Augustine, has written an email addressed to the company’s India boss Rajiv Memani. In her letter, she condemned the company for “glorifying overwork” and highlighted how the company’s human rights values ​​starkly contradicted the reality her daughter experienced.

Perayil cleared her CA Exams in 2023 and joined EY Pune in March 2024 as an executive. Since it was her first job, she “worked tirelessly to meet the expectations,” but the effort took a heavy toll on her physical, mental, and emotional health. According to her mother, “She began experiencing anxiety, sleeplessness, and stress soon after joining, but continued to push herself, believing hard work and perseverance were the path to success.”

Her mother claimed that since many “employees resign due to the excessive workload,” her daughter’s boss told her to “stick around and change everyone’s opinion about the team.”

“Her manager would often reschedule meetings during cricket matches and assign her work at the end of the day, adding to her stress. At an office party, a senior leader even joked that she would have a tough time working under her manager, which, unfortunately, became a reality she could not escape,” Augustine added.

She also stated that her daughter worked “late into the night and even on weekends”: “Anna confided in us about the overwhelming workload, especially the tasks assigned verbally, beyond the official work. I would tell her not to take on such tasks, but the managers were relentless. She worked late into the night, even on weekends, with no opportunity to catch her breath.”

Augustine recounted an incident where her daughter’s boss assigned her a task at night with a deadline next morning. She added, “Her assistant manager once called her at night with a task that needed to be completed by the next morning, leaving her with barely any time to rest or recover. When she voiced her concerns, she was met with the dismissive response: ‘You can work at night; that’s what we all do’.”

She went on to describe her daughter’s deteriorating condition: “Anna would return to her room exhaustively exhausted, sometimes collapsing on the bed without even changing her clothes, only to be bombarded with messages asking for more reports. She was putting in best efforts, working very hard to meet the deadlines. She was a fighter to the core, not someone to give up easily. We told her to quit, but she wanted to learn and gain new exposure. However, the overwhelming pressure proved too much even for her.”

In her email to the company’s India head, Augustine accused the company of “glorifying overwork”. She added that her daughter, being new to the “organization, location, and language,” felt “overwhelmed by both assigned and unassigned tasks.”

“Anna was a young professional. Like many in her position, she did not have the experience or the agency to draw boundaries or push back against unreasonable demands. She did not know how to say no. She was trying to probe herself in a new environment, and in doing so, she pushed herself beyond limits. And now, she is no longer with us,” Augustine further expressed.

Augustine further highlighted stark difference between the company’s human rights statement and what her daughter went through. She asked, “How can EY begin to truly live by the values ​​it professes?”

The grieving mother said that her daughter’s death should serve as a “wake-up call” for the company: “It is time to reflect on the work culture within your organization and take meaningful steps to prioritize the health and wellness of your employees.”

Augustine further claimed that EY Pune employees skipped her daughter’s funeral, adding, “This absence at such a critical moment, for an employee who gave her all to your organization until her last breath, is deeply hurtful… After her funeral, I reached out to her managers, but received no reply. How can a company that speaks of values ​​and human rights fail to show up for one of its own in their final moments?”

While the exact cause of her death is not clear, the email highlighted that weeks prior to her death, Perayil had been complaining of “chest constriction”. “We took her to the hospital in Pune. Her ECG was normal, and the cardiologist came to allay our fears, telling us she wasn’t getting enough sleep and was eating very late. He prescribed antacids, which reassured us that it wasn’t anything serious.” The 26-year-old woman died on July 20.

There was no immediate reaction from the company. The exact circumstances around the death of the woman were not clear from the email.