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
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