When Julie Sweet needed to announce the biggest organizational change in Accenture’s history to her workforce of more than 770,000 employees, she broke with decades of corporate tradition. Instead of crafting a company-wide memo, the CEO opted for something different: a direct video message that would reach employees across 120 countries and fundamentally reshape how massive corporations communicate during times of upheaval.
“Reading it on a piece of paper would not have conveyed the why in the same way as hearing it—hearing the excitement in my voice, understanding the passion we have for why we’re changing,” Sweet said in a recent interview with Alyson Shontell, Fortune‘s editor-in-chief, for the first-ever episode of the Fortune 500 Titans and Disrupters of Industry vodcast (subscribe here).
Sweet’s communication strategy reflects the scale of challenge she faces as head of Accenture, the world’s largest consulting firm by revenue. The Dublin-based company generated $64.9 billion in fiscal 2024 and serves more than 9,000 clients, providing services spanning strategy consulting, cloud migration, data analytics, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and more. With hundreds of thousands employees spread across more than 120 countries, Accenture helps organizations reinvent themselves in the digital age, making it both a beneficiary of and participant in the AI-driven transformation sweeping global businesses.
Sweet herself represents an unconventional path to corporate leadership. Since becoming CEO in September 2019, she’s been the first woman to lead Accenture and the first CEO in the company’s history who didn’t start there straight out of college. Her background as a high-powered corporate lawyer—she spent 17 years at the prestigious firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, making partner within eight years—gave her an outsider’s perspective when she joined Accenture as general counsel in 2010. Under her leadership, the company’s revenue has grown more than 50%, and she’s been recognized as one of Fortune‘s Most Powerful People in Business.
The restructuring Sweet announced represents what she describes as reversing “five decades of how we’re working.” The move brings together previously siloed business units to better serve clients seeking comprehensive digital transformation, aligning Accenture’s organizational structure with its strategy to be “the reinvention partner of choice” for businesses navigating rapid technological change.
At the heart of Sweet’s strategy was recognition that this transformation had to be both decisive and deeply human. The restructure wasn’t a cost-cutting exercise, though Sweet acknowledges it inevitably uncovered efficiencies and duplications. Instead, the move was driven by client needs and Accenture’s ambition to deliver integrated solutions combining industry knowledge, technical expertise, data, AI, and functional capabilities as a single offering.
“In order to capture the opportunity with AI, you really have to be willing to rewire your company,” Sweet said, reflecting broader advice she gives to Fortune 500 CEOs. “Many times, when clients are saying, we’re not getting a lot out of AI, it’s because they’re trying to apply it to how they operate today.”
Sweet’s approach to managing the change went beyond just the medium of communication. She solicited feedback and critiques from her leadership team, refining her message through multiple iterations to ensure it resonated at every level. “I try to have no ego on communication, because it’s so important that we’re really clear,” she said, noting all her direct reports work with speech coaches to hone their communication skills.
The transformation also demanded what Sweet calls a balance of “art and science”—using metrics and benchmarks from Accenture’s transformation GPS database to provide the analytical foundation, while applying empathy and cultural understanding to ensure the human element wasn’t lost. Ultimately, Sweet’s leadership through this restructuring has become a case study in navigating sweeping organizational change in an era when traditional corporate communication methods may no longer suffice.
You can watch the first episode of Titans, featuring Sweet, below.
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