Tim Ryan, the New York-based U.S. chairman and senior partner of the Academy’s longtime accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, has remained in Los Angeles after attending the 89th Academy Awards and has offered to meet this week with individual members of the Academy’s board of governors in an effort to preserve his firm’s 83-year-old relationship with the organization, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
While the Academy currently is reviewing its relationship with PwC, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has said that Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz, the two PwC accountants who were responsible for handing out the winners’ envelopes on Sunday, will never take part in another Oscar show, an Academy spokesperson confirmed.
Cullinan, who was tweeting during the final moments of the show, is responsible for handing presenter Warren Beatty a back-up envelope for best actress rather than the best picture envelope, which resulted in La La Land, rather than Moonlight, being announced as the best picture winner.
Meanwhile, Academy CEO Dawn Hudson has reached out to the 54 members of her organization’s board of governors and offered to set up one-on-one meetings between them and Ryan, ostensibly to address any questions or concerns they may have ahead of the next full-board meeting on March 28, at which the fate of the Academy’s 83-year relationship with PwC could be a matter of discussion.
Ryan was seated in the audience as chaos broke out at the end of the ceremony on Sunday. After the show ended, according to The New York Times, he spent hours meeting with Cullinan, Ruiz, Academy officials and the telecast’s producers, Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd. “I spent the bulk of the night with Brian trying to understand what happened,” Ryan told the Times. “There wasn’t much in terms of parties last night.”
Since the awards fiasco, PwC has issued no apologies and accepted responsibility for the incident, saying, “last night we failed the Academy.”
