Wednesday 14 September 2022 10:11 AM EY death: Australian CEO David Larocca is trolled on LinkedIn over Aishwarya ... trends now

The Australian CEO of accounting giant Ernst and Young has been trolled on LinkedIn over the suicide death of a senior auditor after he refused to say her name in a conference call with staff.

David Larocca has come under fire over the Big Four firm's reaction to Aishwarya Venkatachalam, 27, falling to her death from the 11th floor of the company's Sydney headquarters. 

A recent town hall speech by Mr Larocca to his 9,000 staff was slammed by some workers for not even mentioning Ms Venkatachalam's name when discussing the fatal incident. 

Insiders claimed part of the reason the company was reluctant to use her name was because she went by Venkat, an abbreviated version of her surname, at work. 

Mr Larocca had insisted the company was 'working to maintain space and privacy for Ms Venkatachalam's family' - reasoning that did not pass muster with some staff, who complained to Daily Mail Australia.

Now he has been pursued on executive networking site LinkedIn - with a recent online comment by Mr Larocco about a fellow executive's selfie skills copping a damning three word reply from a furious businessman: 'Say her name'. 

The CEO did not reply to the trolling, but the company released a lengthy letter about Ms Venkatachalam and the safety of its CBD headquarters when approached by Daily Mail Australia on Thursday night. 

There is no suggestion EY - as Ernst and Young is now called - or Ms Venkatachalam's co-workers or her superiors were in any way responsible for her death.

'This has been an incredibly difficult time for the family, friends and colleagues of our audit colleague Aishwarya Venkatachalam, following her tragic death late last month. It has shocked and saddened all of us at EY,' the statement said.

'Since the tragic event, we have been consulting with independent experts specialising in workplace culture, healthy work practices and psychological safety to shape the framework for a rigorous and wide-ranging review of EY Australia. 

'We will shortly be announcing details of the firm engaged to undertake this review. We are fully committed to transparency with the findings and implementation of the review recommendations.'

Ms Venkatachalam was at a work drinks function at Sydney's The Ivy nightclub on August 26 before she later returned to her George St office in the CBD and fell to her death. 

The incident sparked a furious backlash against EY's pressure-packed work culture. 

It also raised accusations of racism and bullying among staff, which Ms Venakatachalam had alleged to friends she had faced.

But Mr Larocca's recent hour-long address to workers spent just four minutes on her death, infuriating many who branded it 'entitled', 'indulgent' and displaying a 'tin ear' to the trauma suffered by staff.

The anger increased when he took to LinkedIn to comment on a fellow executive's picture of himself at a conference, telling him he 'needs to work on his selfie skills'. 

'EY's CEO commenting on LinkedIn a week ago to an unrelated public post only days after one of his employees ended her life,' one worker fumed to Daily Mail Australia.

A poster calling himself Patrick Chaperon, general manager of 'Victorian Lub Pty Ltd' then posted the 'Say her name' comment. 

Others have also relived their grim experiences at EY after Daily Mail Australia revealed how Ms Venkatachalam spoke to Good Samaritans who tried to help her just 30 minutes before she died.

They found her sobbing uncontrollably in a city centre car park where she told them 'everyone was so mean to her in her office and that white people are not nice and are mean people and racist.' 

It echoed similar comments she had earlier made to her friend Neeti Bisht in April that 'mean colleagues' had been making her new life in Sydney a misery.

She told the three women she met in the car park that her house key was in her office but she couldn't get into the building to collect it and had nowhere else to go. 

Her newlywed husband Nakul Mulari, whom she married in a spectacular three-day Tamil-Brahman ceremony in January 2021, was on a flight home from Singapore to Sydney at the time of her death.

Other bystanders helped her back to her office around midnight, but 20 minutes later she plummeted to her death onto the glass and wood awning over the building's front entrance.

Now others have taken to social media to reveal the racism they say they also faced at the firm.