10 FORTUNE APRIL 2020both data science and creativity.
We were hired recently by Kim
berlyClark to change the relation
ship they have with moms around
their babycare products. Their chief
growth officer said that she wouldn’t
have hired Droga5 on its own or Ac
centure on its own. The combination
is why they hired us.
The hard part is not just having
those capabilities but also the scale
behind them in terms of technology
to serve major enterprises.THE PEOPLE BUSINESSSpeaking of scale, you’ve got more
than half-a-million employees across
the world.^7 Will your workforce a
decade from now be anywhere near
as big, particularly as you continue
to digitize operations?
We actually have constant change in
our workforce because we build au
tomation into everything we’re doing.
We’re growing because we’re serving
more clients, doing highervalue
things. So it isn’t, like, “Oh, wait a
minute, now we need to automate.”
So I don’t focus too much on how
many people I have. I focus on, What
are those people doing? And we
do what we tell our clients to do:
focus relentlessly on making sure
that we’re using the most advanced
technologies and reskill our people
to use them. When we automated
40,000 jobs in our businessprocess
outsourcing business, we reinvested
60% of the upfront savings to upskill
those who had those roles. We invest
$1 billion a year in training, reskill
ing, and leadership development—
training over 300,000 people in the
last three years alone.
And we have a growing business,
which is why we’re able to do it.
Most important is that we’re trans
parent from the start. In this case, we
said to our people, Help us automate
what you’re doing now, and then
we’re going to invest to upskill you.
That’s why we have no change in our
average 10year attrition.You’re one of just 14 women CEOs
at a Fortune Global 500 company.
There was a moment, when you
were in your early thirties, that
became a turning point for you in
your mission to help other women
navigate their careers. You were
about to make partner at white-shoe
law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore—
and there was a meeting at the firm
about unconscious bias.
It was in 1999, and I can still see
myself walking up to our conference
room floor. We had an oldfashioned
conference room, big table. I know
exactly where I sat. It was literally
two weeks before they were going to
make the partnership decision. Ev
erything was fine. I go in, I sit down,
and they have this facilitator who
turns to me at one point and says,
“Julie, you’re a senior woman in the
world. Have you ever experienced any
of these things, unconscious biases?”
I opened my mouth to speak ...
and I started sobbing. Big loud sobs,
and I could not get myself under
control. I got up, went back to my
office, and shut the door. Maybe
half an hour later, the first woman
corporate partner, a good friend of
mine, came in.
And she said, “Okay, the men have
met. They asked me to come see if
you’re okay.”
And she looked at me, and she
knew. She knew there wasn’t some
big scandal. Because at that very mo
ment, when that woman asked me
that, it was like everything kind of
came crushing down: All the things
that I had endured at that time to get
to where I was.
And I do talk about it now because
it was a turning point for me. And I
thought, “Now that I’m going to be a
partner, I have to make it so it’s not
the same for other women.”
And it was something that I
worked hard on as a partner, and it
shaped who I am today. And as I’ve
grown and learned, it became not
just around gender^8 but around all
kinds of diversity.THE CONVERSATION(5) Getting
acquisitive:
Accenture spent
more than $6 billion
on 129 acquisitions
in its past six
fiscal years.(6) An ad, ad, ad,
ad world: Accen
ture Interactive,
the firm’s digital
“experience” agency,
paid a reported
$475 million for the
Madison Avenue
shop last spring. In
the past two years,
Accenture has
purchased similar
firms in Brazil, China,
Denmark, France,
Germany, Mexico,
the Netherlands,
Spain, Sweden, the
U.K., and the U.S.(7) GLOBAL
WORKFORCEAccenture passed
halfamillion em
ployees in late 2019,
after its fiscal year
ended.(8) Doubling down
on diversity: Ac
centure was ranked
No. 1 on Refinitiv’s
Global Diversity &
Inclusion Index in
both 2018 and 2019.FY 2015 2019492,
EMPLOYEES358,SOURCE: BLOOMBERGCNV.W.04.20.XMIT.indd 10 FINAL 3/10/2020 8:04:31 PM