How Accenture’s CEO Took the Leap From Law to Consulting

Fortune

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet leads one of the world’s largest workforces—and is navigating an era defined by AI disruption, geopolitical volatility, and shifting global markets. In this segment of the Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors of Industry vodcast, she shares how she advises fellow CEOs to reinvent their companies, reflects on her unconventional leap from law to CEO, and opens up about the lessons that shaped her rise to one of the most powerful roles in business.

Transcript

00:00You are able to take a lot of noise and just be like, this is the path going with conviction.

00:04How do you make those decisions?

00:06It starts with a great team.

00:07We are constantly challenging each other and our assumptions.

00:12And that makes me able to make decisions with a lot of confidence.

00:18AI is transforming every industry and it puts even the biggest companies at risk.

00:23Top venture capitalist Vinod Khosla predicts that the 2030s will see the demise of more

00:28Fortune 500 companies than at any point in history.

00:32This transformation is the number one thing on every Fortune 500 CEO's mind,

00:37especially for Julie Sweet, who runs one of the largest workforces in the world with more than

00:42770,000 employees.

00:45In order to capture the opportunity with AI, you really have to be willing to rewire your company.

00:52I recently sat down with Julie about how she's advising other CEOs to transform their companies

00:58and how she's trying to keep AI from eating Accenture's own lunch.

01:01Our conversation was packed full of advice and it was personal.

01:05Her journey from a small California town to becoming one of the most powerful people

01:09in global business is inspiring, especially as she has battled and beaten cancer now twice.

01:15I'm your host, Importance Editor-in-Chief, Alison Chantel.

01:19Please enjoy the first episode of my vodcast, Fortune 500,

01:22Titans and Disruptors of Industry with Accenture's CEO, Julie Sweet.

01:27Julie, it is so nice to be here with you today. Thank you for joining me.

01:32It's the inaugural Fortune 500 podcast vodcast episode of Titans and Disruptors of Industry,

01:38and who better to have than you?

01:40Julie Sweet Well, thank you, Alison. And I'm

01:41really honored to be your first. So that's really exciting for me. So thank you for having me.

01:47Julie Sweet Since becoming CEO, Sweet has nearly doubled Accenture's value and grown its workforce

01:52to over 770,000 employees across 52 countries. That's more than 20 times the size of a key rival,

02:00McKinsey, ranked number 211 on our Fortune Global 500 list. It's also among the mere 5% of Fortune

02:07Global 500 companies that's run by a woman.

02:09Julie Sweet First off, you run Accenture.

02:11Julie Sweet You've found it since 2019. It is in the top five largest workforces in the world. On

02:16top of that, you generate some of the largest revenue in the world. You're number 211 on our

02:21Fortune Global 500 list. That ranks companies by revenue. I think it's like $65 billion a year or

02:26something that Accenture does. And then also just you are incredibly powerful. You rank number 11 on our

02:32most powerful people and business list. So I'd just love to start with an economic snapshot. From your

02:37vantage point, what are the major things on your radar that are affecting your business,

02:42but also the businesses of all the CEOs that seek your counsel and work with Accenture?

02:47Jennifer Well, there's a lot of trends that are literally affecting the world, right? So one,

02:52the obvious one has been tariffs and trade. And that affects countries differently. But there

02:58isn't a country that's not being touched by that. So that's one. Second, there has been an ongoing

03:05shift in geopolitics. And, you know, sometimes people say to me, like, oh, right now, it's so

03:11volatile and uncertain. And, you know, I've been CEO for six years. And I'm kind of like,

03:17that's been the story of the last six years. And, and we'll talk about that later, I'm sure. But

03:24you've been seeing a shift in geopolitics for some time, like the role of the Middle East. We look at

03:29Southeast Asia as things have changed with China. And so making sure that you understand the

03:36opportunities and the challenges. So oftentimes, people think about the supply chain, but it's also

03:40a huge opportunity. And are you positioned to take advantage of where growth may come

03:45in the future? So those are two of the big ones. And of course, then you can't go, you know,

03:51you can't walk past AI. So you'll notice I didn't start there, the obvious one.

03:55When I think about AI, the thing that for me is so exciting is that, you know, the last several

04:02years have been a series of what were once black swan events. And now the CEOs around the world have

04:10a powerful set of tools that they didn't have for some of those events before. Now, those tools are

04:16hard, and they're complex, and they have a lot of different, you know, aspects to consider. But as I

04:21look forward, it's, you know, very rare as a CEO that you're handed something that is brand new,

04:28wasn't part of the toolkit, and allows you to look at the world and really shape your future.

04:34And we talk a lot about, you know, how do you set the next performance frontier? And AI is definitely

04:40something that allows you to think very differently about your future trajectory. So those are the three

04:46of the big ones. There's more demographic changes, we can go on and on. But those are three that

04:50I'm talking to a ton of CEOs about. And of course, underlying all of that are the talent implications.

04:57Unlike traditional strategy focused consulting firms, Accenture doesn't just advise. It also takes

05:02on operations and services on behalf of its clients. And its clients span a wide range of industries,

05:07from banks like Citi and Barclays, to Nestle, Saudi or Emco, and pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer.

05:13Since Sweet took the helm in 2019, she's helped boost the company's revenue more than 50% to $65

05:19billion. But Sweet's path to CEO was far from typical. In her years before joining Accenture,

05:25Sweet had a high profile legal career, earning a scholarship to Claremont McKenna College,

05:30graduating from Columbia Law, and making partner at an elite firm within eight years. In 2007,

05:36she landed on the cover of American Lawyer as Dealmaker of the Year.

05:41So when you decide to come to Accenture, by the way, you've already had a tremendous career as a

05:45lawyer, a career that I think most people wouldn't have said, oh, I'm just going to forget this path.

05:50You rose to partner at one of the top law firms within eight years. And I'm curious, why did you

05:56make that career change? Why say, I'm going to go into this crazy tech consulting firm that I don't

06:01really don't know that much about, and I'm going to leave this really cushy setup I've created for

06:06myself, and go try something totally different? How do you weigh a big career change like that?

06:11Well, and Allison, one of the things I look back to now that's like not many people realize was I

06:15made the change when I had a two-year-old and a three-year-old as well.

06:19I respect that. I took this job when I had a newborn.

06:22Exactly, which I'm like looking back.

06:23Just blow it all up at the same time.

06:24Exactly. You're like, I'm like, oh my gosh, what was I thinking? Well, you know, it was interesting

06:29because I was in my office and I love my law firm. So I love the job. And I got a call and my

06:37assistant had stepped away. And this was like a very, you know, like a law firm where you had

06:43somebody answer always answers your phone, you know, and we had like iced tea delivered three

06:47times a day to my office, you know, I had a beautiful office. And so I pick up the phone because she'd

06:53stepped away and it was a headhunter talking about like this great opportunity. And, you know,

06:59I look back, I was 42 and my father had actually just passed away recently. And I think that

07:06definitely affected me because he died quite young at 68. So I'm like listening to this and I'm like,

07:12you know what, I'm going to take a meeting. And when I did that, I, I said to myself, like,

07:17I know I'm 42, I'm super successful. And I absolutely know what my future is going to be like

07:23at Cravath, right? Like, cause it's like the deals would change, but I made partner and I was like,

07:29okay, I could see my future. And then I went and I interviewed with Accenture who I knew about

07:35because I'd done actually a securities deal for a competitor where, you know, we had to like learn

07:40about Accenture as a competitor. And so I respected the company. Their CEO, Bill Green was incredibly

07:46charismatic. He had the best line ever for me. Like I was, I just fell for it hook, line and sinker

07:52in my interview. He said, I'm not looking for a lawyer, which is kind of funny because he was

07:56hiring a general counsel. He said, I'm looking for a business leader with legal experience.

08:03And I'm like, that's what I want to be. And so I ended up taking, you know, taking the leap and it was

08:09the, it was the right time. And, you know, when I think back to it, I'm sure my dad's passing had

08:15something to do with it, but also just the possibilities of making an impact. And, you

08:22know, I've just, I was so fortunate because I absolutely love Accenture. It's an amazing

08:26company. I was very privileged to join and I feel really privileged every day to leave this place.

08:32So it sounds like a big new opportunity and challenge, a chance to try something new,

08:37but to really expand who you were. So you've said that when you were 42 and you came in as general

08:41counsel to Accenture, you didn't have the skillset then to be the CEO, but you're the CEO. So what

08:48happened? What was missing? And how did you work on those things and know to work on those things?

08:53Well, just to start with, I didn't understand technology when I joined and Accenture is all

08:57about technology. And I figured out pretty quickly that if I wanted to be the business leader with

09:04legal experience, I had to deeply understand the business. And so after I'd been here nearly 12 months,

09:10probably, I made friends with someone named Bhaskar Ghosh, who was running our India technology

09:15practice at the time. He would eventually become our global head of technology and now my chief

09:22strategy officer. And I asked him, I said, will you teach me technology? And it really was because

09:28I thought of myself as a business leader and I didn't deeply understand the business that we were in.

09:34And so we used to meet every two weeks for about 18 months and he would send me off to meet people

09:40to learn things. I still remember the guy that taught me, you know, what cloud was. And that really

09:45set me on a very different path because I think my boss at the time, Pierre Nanterme, saw me

09:51differently too. He saw me showing up differently and so did my colleagues. And so that was important.

09:55And you weren't embarrassed to do it because sometimes it can feel like, oh, I just want to act like I know

09:59this thing, but I really don't know this thing. But you seem pretty fearless about just going and

10:03say like, nope, don't know it. Tell me everything.

10:05I think one of my superpowers is asking for help. You know, I, and maybe that goes back to humility

10:10and the idea of building great teams. And so I've always been that way. I've always, you know,

10:16if you focus on how you deliver value, then it becomes very natural that you have to have a team and

10:22you have to ask for help. Because at the level that we operate, no one delivers value alone.

10:29And one of the things I coach a lot of people, because people come to me and say, well, how do

10:34I network, et cetera? And I'm like, look, don't think about networking. Think about connecting with

10:40people that can help you deliver more value or who you can help deliver more value. And focus on that

10:47as opposed to someone who can get you your next job. Because the more value you can contribute

10:52your company, the more likely you're going to get that best next job. And I've always thought

10:58about that with my clients, right? It's like, what do my clients need? They need me to better

11:02understand this. And when I was the general counsel, my client was actually the company. And what did

11:07they need from me? They needed me to understand the business better, to be a better general counsel.

11:12And so that focus on value has really been, I think, a big part of my career trajectory.

11:22you

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended