Julie Sweet’s Path From Lawyer to Leading 770,000 People

26:35In 2023, Accenture cut about 19 ,000 jobs, or 2.5 % of its workforce, as clients pulled back on spending and companies across the sector adjusted to new expectations around return to office policies and hybrid work. So what about when those changes mean that the org has to change and get smaller? It seems like the vanity metric in Silicon Valley right now isn't necessarily even revenue, it is the size of the workforce. And then when you have a workforce as large as the center, and I know you have done some downsizing as well. How do you think about that metric and making sure you're staying really efficient, but that obviously has a cost to morale and all sorts of implications as well?

27:15I think there's a few things that I always keep in mind. First of all, transparency. Transparency builds trust. And, you know, this change to our model that we made was not about cost, but it absolutely will be affected because whenever you bring together business units, you find duplication, and you find more efficiencies. It wasn't what drove it. What drove it is what do our clients need and how do we make Accenture better able to be a company for reinventors and better able to be AI enabled, but it absolutely will also make us more efficient. And I think being transparent is super important.

27:52And when it comes to the time when we identify those efficiencies, being very clear about it. The other piece is, you talked a little bit about communication. I cannot emphasize the importance of really working on what that communication is. So when I went out to go ahead and make this announcement about our new growth model, the first thing I did was we innovated. It was the first time ever we announced something as big as this, and it is going to be the biggest change in our history. And we did it with no memo. Like no company-wide? No company-wide. Great innovation or anything. Okay. Because reading it on a piece of paper would not have conveyed the why in the same way as hearing it, right?

28:33Hearing the excitement in my voice, understanding like the passion we have for why we're changing. Now, I didn't know if anybody was going to open it. And by the way, like 500 ,000 people have opened it, right? And watched the video, which is unbelievable numbers, right? But it started with sort of like that understanding, like the communication really matters. And the second thing is I've done this and I did this back in 2019 and I've done again in here is the practice. So it's very hard, especially a CEO. Like, you know, sometimes it's not easy to be told like that doesn't, you know, that's not very good, Julie.

29:07Right. But I try to have no ego on communication because it's so important that we're really clear. And so I begin by like saying, okay, I'm going to say it right now. Like this is what I tell our people. And then I show it to leaders and I get their feedback. And I do that like over and over. It's not the last minute. It's not right before we're sending it out. It's from the beginning. And that feedback makes the communication better. It also oftentimes provokes like maybe we don't have something right or the clarity is not there. I just can't tell you like how important this idea of really working on communication skills all of the leaders become my direct reports like get a speech coach right get someone and they're sort of like wait a minute I'm super successful and I'm like yes and your job is to be the best communicator we have a leadership essential that says have the courage to change and the ability to bring people along that journey and so you have to be a great communicator and it's something I really work on a lot.

30:10So it's really hard to communicate to your team and to learn how to master that, which I assume it's not really intuitive to a lot of people. And is that something that you've learned over time? Do you think like judging back on how you were when you were starting to be CEO, has your process changed for how to kind of master the communication strategy? Well, first of all, I think about it as a change strategy and change is both an art and a science. And the science part is, for example, working on communication skills, thinking about like what the mediums are, but it's also measuring and using data.

30:43And so a lot of times when I'm advising clients and I talk to them about like what we do at Accenture, I was the first CEO to use the tools that we actually use with our clients. We have something called the Transformation GPS, which is a database of change. And then we compare where people are against that database to get benchmarks. And it can be brutal, right? Because like, oftentimes, people are not exactly where you want to know, or they make say, like, you know, they don't understand your strategy. But that data is super important, because it then informs, right, how to communicate what actions to take.

31:18And that's the science part. The art part is being able to be empathetic, to have the messages to people to put yourself in the, you know, the position of someone, and also to understand your culture. And I often will start when I'm talking to clients with to say like, just describe to me your culture because if you don't understand that, that's the art part that you don't kind of get right. And what I would say is I think I've honed these skills over major transformations because I started my, when I first became CEO, put the biggest change in our history six months in. And then a few months later, after putting in a big new, we call it our growth model and operating model change the pandemic hit and we changed again and there was a time when someone would have said wait a minute you just you just changed like march 1st and now it's september 15th and you're putting another organizational change in that was when we created our cloud first business and the thing is that we were we were creating this narrative that says we are big and we can be agile and we understood that that because we had all the data that people were excited about that, right?

32:28They liked the idea that we could be agile. And so we didn't hesitate when the market conditions changed to go ahead and make another change. And, you know, in September of 2020, we created Cloud First. It was a$12 billion business. 12 months later, it was an$18 billion business. It wouldn't have had that kind of growth that we hadn't had that courage to change. But a lot of that was tied to understanding like where people were from a data perspective, what did excite them, and then how to communicate that, like what would resonate. And at Accenture, what always resonates is this is what our clients need.

33:03And so that art and science is something that I think about a lot and then evolving it over time. So we're not static. You know, what worked in 2019, like that's why when I talked earlier about I went out without a video, without memo, like that was new. And you have to keep it fresh, particularly at Accenture. I have like amazing, amazing people. They're super innovative. we have to be innovative to meet them where they are. So I want to talk about how this leadership mindset that you have formed, even going back to the really, really early formative years, Jane Frazier, again, she described you as a woman on a mission.

33:39And I'm curious, when you go back to your upbringing, what created that woman on a mission? What was it that created that ambition in you? Because certainly you don't reach the level that you are without some sort of personal drive. What do you think about your upbringing maybe set you on this path without you even realizing it at the time? Well, first of all, I had incredible parents and they were so innovative and didn't realize it either. So think about my mom. So she grew up on a farm. When she graduated from high school, she wanted to be a nurse and her father said, you can be a beauty operator, you know, and she got her beauty license.

34:13She ended up moving to California, married my father. And there she is with three kids. And she goes to school, to college when I'm in eighth grade. And she ended up graduating my freshman year. And so I watched my mom, you know, move from housewife to raising three kids, working part-time and going to college at a time when middle-aged women were not in college, right? And, you know, that was reinventing herself, right? And then I look at my father. He was a high school dropout, went to the army. And, and he would, you know, he did so many things with me, but I saw him later in life, raise my nephew, and then go to school himself to like do flower arranging and then start another business, right.

34:59And so I had this incredible role model of parents who didn't put themselves in a box, right, they dared to dream, and they gave me that sort of dare to dream. And they did it, right, which is a great role model. And I'm sure I didn't exactly understand it at the time. But when I look back, it's not surprising to me that, you know, I did a lot of things. Like when I was 17, I was a senior in high school. I won a scholarship. My parents didn't have passports. And I went to the dinner for the scholarship. And I sat next to a man who was on the board of directors. He asked me what I was going to study in college, which, of course, that's what you ask every high school graduate.

35:41And I studied international relations. And he said, well, what language? And I'm like, well, you know, I studied French. It was a little boring. And he said, how about Chinese? And this was in 1985. People were not going to China in 1985. If they were going any place in Asia, it was Japan. And in Southern California, you know, it's the perfect place to never leave, right? So it was not a lot. And, you know, I went home that night and I said to my parents who didn't have a passport, I'm going to go to college. I'm going to study Chinese. I'm going to spend a year abroad. And they said, that sounds great.

36:14You know, that sounds great. That sounds great. That sounds crazy. That sounds great. You know, and like, and you think about like, first of all, what a gift, right? But I had the, the kind of courage to be able to do it. It didn't even occur to me because I'd sort of grown up with like believing that I could do some, you know, really do anything. And my parents were, you know, kind of proving that, right, because they were changing. And I lived in a household where they were modeling that behavior. So I feel very fortunate when I think about like, you know, how do I get here? Because, you know, you fast forward to Accenture, like when I joined here as a general counsel, I knew nothing about technology.

36:55I mean, when I say nothing about technology, I mean, I had no idea. Like if someone had said what the cloud was, I'd like point to the sky. And it sounds like both of your parents, your whole family upbringing, I'm sure shaped you tremendously. Your dad came up a few times in the profile we wrote. One particular lesson after you had lost a debate, and he gave you some really good but tough, your first piece of critical advice. And I was wondering if you could share that. Yeah, you know, it's amazing because I'm 57. And I remember this like it was yesterday. I was a sophomore in high school and I was trying to make money for college.

37:29And so the different service clubs would have these speech contests. And Lions Club had one. And I was in the semifinals. And my dad, who, as I said, he painted cars for a living. He had this little VW bug that made a lot of noise. He had one suit coat and he would put his coat on. He would take me to these contests. And so I went and I lost. And I lost to the daughter of one of the presidents of one of the Lion Clubs who was in the competition. And so on my way home that night, I was complaining because she was also kind of cutesy and I've never been cutesy. So I was like, oh, she's cutesy and she's the daughter of the president.

38:07And my father looks at me and he says, well, first of all, you were never going to be the daughter of the president of the Lions Club, Right. And he's like, that's not the family you were born into. He's like, but I totally believe that you can do anything. But you have to be so much better than everyone else that they have to give it to you. And then he delivered the line. And tonight, you are not that much. Oh, man, the cold truth. And, you know, it was it was hard to hear. And it was really my first piece of constructive feedback. But like, what a gift to me. And and so here I am, 57 years later.

38:48I mean, not 50, I'm 57 now. And I remember him telling me that. And it really changed me. And it first of all, like unconditional love and belief in me, right? Like you can do anything. and then really good advice, right? Because the truth was like, you know, I didn't grow up in a lot of the places where I, you know, and I didn't have the experience and I was gonna need to work harder in order to be in some of the places I wanted to be. And it was great that he told me that. And I think when you think about like, you know, am I on a mission? It's like, I know that to achieve things and whether that's something I wanna do in the community or for the company or for my personal life, Like, I need to be both fearless and prepared.

39:35Right. And those are the things that I think about a lot, fearless and prepared. What do you think defines a good leader today that maybe was different than a few years ago? I think the idea of being a deep learner at the top is really critical. And that is not usual in a lot of companies, right? Because many times the senior leaders, whether it's the CEO or one level down, right, they're the ones with all the wisdom, right? They've gotten these big jobs. And so the idea of training for leaders is often like really odd to think about. And when I think back to 2013, when Accenture went through a big transformation, and that was with the advent of digital, and we said every business would be a digital business.

40:23And at the time, I remember that I, a couple years later, became the CEO of North America, and I got my technology leaders together. And we were in the middle of this incredible transformation. And I asked my top leaders how many of them had taken training in the last five years. And it was a handful of people. And I was sitting there saying like, guys, we have to have leader led learning because we're doing something brand new. There isn't talent out there. Like you can't just go hire your way out of it. Digital is brand new. And I talk a lot about that now because we're in another moment where the leaders have to learn.

41:06And it's actually much more difficult than 2013 because AI actually touches everything and it touches the front office. It touches the products. It touches the customer. It's not plumbing. And in many ways, like moving to the cloud can be seen sort of as like more like the plumbing of a company. Super important, but not something that every business unit leader necessarily had to understand. And AI is totally different. And if you think about most leaders today are not thinking that as a senior leader, one of my number one jobs is being a great learner because that's not how we've developed leaders.

41:44It hasn't been necessary. So it's a major shift. And that's why when I talk about how CEOs are talking to each other, it is very different, the skill set. And you've got to want to learn. In early 2022, before ChatGPT made headlines, Suite was already talking to CEOs about artificial intelligence. The next year, the company took its AI focus a step further by committing$3 billion to AI investments. Combined with a string of AI-focused acquisitions, that investment has strengthened its ability to deliver results. This fiscal year alone, it already completed more than 2 ,000 generative AI projects.

42:22Past projects include work for Mars, where it centers robots and AI teams built a system to standardize every Skittles pack. And for L 'Oreal, work created precise product finding tools. There's something democratizing about AI in that it affects every job in every role from entry level up to CEOs. And I think very humbling in that, you know, there's a lot of talk about what's happening to entry level workers right now. And I'd be curious your thoughts on how you would advise entry level workers at this moment. because it does seem like simple entry-level tasks can be done by AI. But I also think there's not a CEO on the planet or a leader on the planet that's not thinking, am I still going to be relevant as AI hits in a year from now and six months from now, even three months from now, if I'm not doing something about it?

43:05Is that something that you've been experiencing yourself? Well, Alison, I think the important word you use was the word humbling. So one of our leadership essentials, we have A leadership essentials. And I always say that, you know, I read them once a week, at least they are laminated on my desk, like I'm old fashioned in that sense. And one of the most important says lead with excellence, confidence and humility. And humility is what allows you to be a learner, to say, I don't know everything. It helps you build great teams and it allows you to see that like what you've done and how you like led the company to the point you are, however successful, may not be the right answer to really challenge yourself.

43:52Which, look, six years in, I am now blowing up things that I put in place six years ago as being like the brand new cool thing. And I truly believe that humility as a character trait is so critical right now as a leader. When do you think it will actually start to affect the bottom lines of businesses? Because right now, a lot of people are throwing a lot of money trying to figure out this AI thing. And really, it's a big money pit, but it's not really putting more efficiencies in terms of profitability into their balance sheets. So I'm curious, when do you think that change will happen? And when will we see real progress?

44:31Alison, I love your questions. It's like you're sitting in my client meeting. Good. Okay. You know, and we did not prepare this, right? Like, I will just tell you. So one of the things that I am talking every day about is that we have moved out of the period where as a CEO, you can kind of green light something because you need to learn, right? Like in early stages of any kind of big evolution of technology, and I would argue this is a revolution. You do experimentation where the return isn't necessarily clear. You're trying to learn things. Since November 2022, when ChatGPT burst on the scene, we've done a lot of learning.

45:08It is super clear. That's a very powerful technology. And so my number one piece of advice is that as a CEO, you should not greenlight something that doesn't have a direct tie to your P &L or something measurable that you already measure. Like, so for example, at Accenture, we're using agentic AI to speed our thought leadership to market. So in some cases, we've improved our, from idea to like creative brief by 90 % using, you know, agentic AI. And that's something I measure, right? So it's on a financial metric. But if you're in my business, right, where ideas are everything, right, like that's my currency, being able to show that I can get them to our clients faster is something that creates real value for me.

46:01And we really have to shift to working on projects where it's going to show up in the P &L. Like I'm going to take out a certain percentage of my corporate function costs in this coming fiscal year. It starts September 1st. it's reflected in the budget, right? So it's going to come from the use of advanced AI and the budget for my fiscal year 26 will reflect it. And that's what you have to kind of get to. And that's another turn of the dial now on how you execute. And I am a broken record right now across the industry. The phase of which you see some of the people you read about using AI, even agentic AI, it might not be for everybody.

46:44You might not be ready for that yet. So I think an important point is, even though there's all this hype, there's probably a way to implement it that's relevant for your business today and probably for your leadership today. I'm curious how you personally are using it. Like, how do you use AI in your personal life, in your work life? How does it make Julie more efficient? So first of all, yes, I use it in both my personal life and my work life. In my work life, it's super interesting. I was recently, we're refreshing kind of our strategy. And I wanted to look at the strategies for different parts of our business and kind of really understand, do we have the right alignment?

47:22it. And, you know, once upon a time, I would have called somebody off the line, I would have taken a senior manager, I would have said, hey, go look at this stuff, and then come back to me with the analysis. And, you know, instead, I'm, you know, Gen AI is like reviewing it, summarizing it, and then turning it into the PowerPoint that I need, right. And it's doing it like really in minutes, you know, as opposed to take two weeks and kind of look at that. And it's just a very tangible, great example. However, let's be clear, that's not going to change my bottom line, right. So AI is a tool that's like, it's our workbench, right?

47:55It's like once upon a time, you know, I'm old enough to remember when, you know, we didn't have PCs and now we didn't, you know, and then we suddenly had PCs. It was a new tool. And that's incredibly important. And this is the new tool bench. What you have to do, though, like the real promise of it is to use it at the core of your business and be able to, you know, change your trajectory. But you make a really good point. It was something we were talking about, which is that it's just like the old days when automation came in and we said don't automate bad process, right? Like in Accenture's case, in fiscal year 20, our corporate functions cost about 9 % of revenue.

48:34Today, it's about 6%. And we grew our revenue 58 % during that time period. And we grew from 500 ,000 to 800 ,000 people. So it's like incredible the amount of costs we've taken out. We did that with classical AI and location and spans and layers and transforming processes without the use of, and for most of that time it didn't exist, Gen AI or Agentec AI. The next chapter where we're going to take out significant cost is going to come from Gen AI and Agentec AI. But if you haven't gone on that first part of the journey, it's not going to be effective to try to jump to agentic AI because you're going to be using it on processes that don't make sense.

49:16You're going to be paying to give people tools where the people probably shouldn't be part of the organization any longer because you need efficiency. So, you know, that's, of course, our job is to help companies kind of understand where they are and where they should make strategic bets versus, you know, partnering. and of course at the center of all of this is the technology ecosystem you know and these companies are spending a ton of money to invest to be able to deliver to our clients you know the technology that's going to enable that leapfrog moment and we partner with those companies to make sure that you know that leapfrog moment can happen for each company which is really at the intersection of their readiness their strategy and the ability of the technology to deliver Despite strong gains from its AI bets, Accenture is navigating geopolitical headwinds.

50:08Consulting clients are pulling back spending amid trade uncertainty, global conflicts, and recession fears. Accenture Federal Services, which builds tech for U.S. agencies and made up 8 % of its global revenue last year, has also been hit hard by Doge contract cuts. Industry-wide, client demand is softening. Many firms expanded rapidly during the pandemic boom, only to face a slowdown that left new hires without enough work. Some delayed start dates. In 2023, Accenture offered recent graduates up to$25 ,000 to push their start dates back. Over the last 18 months, rivals like McKinsey have laid off more than 10 % of their global workforce.

50:47Then there's the looming quest of Gen.AI, which has the potential to disrupt the consulting industry itself. But sweet as betting, it will also fuel the next wave of reinvention, forcing companies to reimagine how they operate and creating new opportunities for growth. I want to get some of your future-looking thoughts, given that you are speaking to so many CEOs all the time. You're immersed in AI. You guys do it here at Accenture, but you're advising people on how to transform their companies as well. There was something that I saw recently, an interview with a venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla.

51:18And he has bold predictions. I love it. I'm sure you have some too, and I want to get them. But one of his bold predictions is that in the 2030s, we will see the biggest demise of Fortune 500 companies that we've ever seen. I think it's probably your job to make sure that doesn't happen. Is that true, do you think? Could that be possible at the rate of change we're seeing now with AI? This feels like a bigger wave of technology change than we've seen in our lifetimes. Well, I always bet on companies and CEOs. And, you know, I'm privileged. I'm working around the world, right? I'm in Thailand, Malaysia, I'm all over Europe, I'm in Japan, Australia, of course, the US and LATAM.

52:02So I can tell you, look, with absolute conviction that CEOs today are focused on making AI the biggest growth opportunity, and not the thing that causes their demise. And it's really different than prior technology waves in the speed at which CEOs and boards have recognized the importance. When you go back and think about the move to the cloud, it took several years to convince people that this made sense. And now it's, you know, totally different with AI, right? It's happening much faster. And when you see that kind of conviction universally across industries, I would predict that that prediction is not going to be the outcome, right?

52:55Because companies, when they do embrace the technology as opposed to fight it, that's where you're able to use it. And this technology should amplify growth. There are going to be challenges. There's certainly going to be challenges on like skills that go away. There's a lot to manage. But it's just, it's hard to explain just how different it is since I've now lived through, you know, the whole digital transformation. The mindset at the top is very different. And that's why I have a lot of confidence that we will figure this out to be a net positive. But do you think it needs to be a drastic overhaul of organizations, of processes, of everything for that survival to happen?

53:42Like, what do you think needs to happen for these Fortune 500s to stay on top? You're seeing some of them do some really unusual things. But I'm curious kind of what you think about what they need to actually do to stay relevant for what's to come. One word, reinvention. You know, I first introduced this concept back in 2022. Like full-stop reinvention, like top to bottom? Top to bottom. Like the entire enterprise. And we first set it in 2022. And at the time, I think, And I understand why, but people were like, oh, consulting is, you know, this is like a consulting thing, right? It wasn't supposed to kill you guys.

54:15You know, exactly. And, you know, in 2022, I said, this is going to be the decade where people have to reinvent using tech data and AI. And now that language is not just being used by Accenture, right? Our clients are using it on their own. Like, so what it takes is reinvention. And that is where I spend a lot of time making sure that companies understand what that means. This isn't about using AI on top of what you do today. If you're not significantly changing the way you operate, then you're not reinventing and you're not going to capture the value. But if you stay focused on that, and what I'm seeing is in every industry, there are leaders who are absolutely embracing reinvention.

55:04And, you know, you're seeing it, whether it's in, you know, manufacturing, where people are starting to use digital twins. And, you know, manufacturing is one of those areas where factories are still kings, right? Like there's very little standard process, even among the biggest companies. And yet you have major companies saying, no, we're going to reinvent manufacturing. And that's, you know, really going at the core of the business. You're seeing it in the core banking. You're seeing it really in every industry, you know, underwriting and insurance. The list goes on and on. And that is what it takes.

55:37It really does take reinvention. And then what happens is if you have leaders in every industry who are driving it, it then requires that everyone else catch up. Right. And it's just happening so much faster than the last big technology evolution, which was digital. And for a final question, as you're looking out, maybe Vinod Khosla's prediction about 2030s isn't right. But as you're looking at it from your vantage point, and as a CEO, it's your job to try as best you can see around that corner. What's your boldest prediction for where AI will take the workforce and just the future of work in the next decade?

56:10I do think in the next decade we will get to AGI, which is the big question. I don't know what that's going to look like. Super intelligence. Super intelligence. AI is smarter than us humans. Yes. So if you go out a decade, I think we will reach a level of AI where it is super intelligence. It's scary, though, kind of, right? Like, I mean, the P-Doom level that people talk about, which is like, what's your percentage that this might actually kill us all? is high even for like a Sundar Pichai who's building it at Google. You're like, oh God. Yeah, no, it is. But I think if you're talking a decade that you're going to have a new level of AI, and I don't think we know today how that will actually affect the workforce.

56:55What I do know is that the level of discussion among corporates and governments to that's like, they're not, Nobody's putting their head in the sand. They're saying this is a super powerful technology. It's going to get even more powerful. And rather than wake up and figure out, like, with the internet, no one thought about the dark web. And then you had to kind of deal with it when it already existed. I'm very confident because I'm in these conversations all the time that companies and countries are focused on making sure that we're thinking through what will the implications be? What are the guardrails?

57:36How do we make sure that when superintelligence comes, it isn't like another dark web moment and that instead we're controlling it? But you asked for my boldest assumption, and I do think that that will happen in the next decade. And I'm also optimistic that we'll be ready, and we need to continue to have those conversations. And it's something that I have a personal commitment to, and as a company, we have a company commitment to is the responsible use of AI, and I'm seeing that across the globe. So I'm very optimistic that we're going to be able to continue to use this technology for good. Well, Julie, thank you so much.

58:17I have really, really enjoyed our conversation. I could keep you here for so much longer, but I won't. Thank you. I really appreciate your time. Well, Allison, thanks for having me and congratulations on the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Fortune 500 Titans and Disruptors of Industry is a Fortune vodcast. Our producer and editor is Amber Bragdon. Art direction by Nayeon Cho. Filming was done on location by Zach Wood and Alex Rosen. Our production manager is Sam Freund. Our executive producer is Lydia Randall, and Fortune's head of video is Adam Banachy.