Speaker 1: One of the great growth businesses in the world right
Speaker 1: now is consulting. It seems like everyone is either using
Speaker 1: a consultant or is a consultant. With over six hundred
Speaker 1: thousand employees and a market cap of over two hundred
Speaker 1: billion dollars, Accenter is the largest consulting firm and its
Speaker 1: helm is Julie Sweet, who accelerated the company's growth through
Speaker 1: the pandemic, adding over one hundred thousand jobs in on
Speaker 1: this episode appeared Appear, I asked Sweet why everyone wants
Speaker 1: to either hire a consultant or be a consultant. So
Speaker 1: it seems as if everybody is a consultant these days.
Speaker 1: When people are being raised, they don't say to the
Speaker 1: little child, I hope you grew up to be a consultant.
Speaker 1: Why is everybody want to be a consultant? And what
Speaker 1: are all these consultants doing well? David, I think that
Speaker 1: we actually defy the label consultant because sometimes consultants seems
Speaker 1: to imply that we only give advice. And when you
Speaker 1: look at what Accenture does, we're really different than the
Speaker 1: traditional version of a consultant our client. It's looked to
Speaker 1: us for two things. Relevance, you know how to help
Speaker 1: them be relevant today and tomorrow, like a Jaguar land
Speaker 1: Rover who hired us to help them radically transform the
Speaker 1: marketing of their vehicles and the experience of their owners.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing they look for is results, right,
Speaker 1: so not just advice, but actually how do things change
Speaker 1: and how do you execute, Like someone who hires us
Speaker 1: for supply chain where we help digitize it and change
Speaker 1: their inventory results and their inventory turnaround. So we don't
Speaker 1: simply consult in a traditional sense. We're really about relevance
Speaker 1: and results, and that's what is driving our business. So
Speaker 1: let's suppose I'm a large corporation and I have a problem.
Speaker 1: And typically in today when you have a problem, what
Speaker 1: you do is you call a consultant, and so they
Speaker 1: call you up and say, would you consult with me,
Speaker 1: which is to help solve my problem? Do you then
Speaker 1: put in a team of people. That's a great question,
Speaker 1: you know, I think one of the most important things
Speaker 1: is we always start with what's actually the either the
Speaker 1: problem or the opportunity, and we're very focused on repeatable solutions.
Speaker 1: They get customized by the client, but not trying to
Speaker 1: be bespoke, you know, sort of The old consulting is
Speaker 1: let me come in, let me bring a bunch of
Speaker 1: people and study it. But today you can start with data.
Speaker 1: We serve the top five hundred of fortune five hundred
Speaker 1: uh and so what we're bringing to our clients often
Speaker 1: our solutions that then get customized, that are based on experience,
Speaker 1: and we invest a lot. You know, we'll spend four
Speaker 1: billion dollars this year and acquisitions. We'll spend about eight
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars in R and D. We have over
Speaker 1: seven thousand patents are patents pending. So all of these
Speaker 1: things are assets to help our clients achieve their goals faster,
Speaker 1: with higher quality than they can do on their own.
Speaker 1: And that's really the test, you know. And sometimes, by
Speaker 1: the way, we say to clients, don't hire us because
Speaker 1: either they're business cases and ambitious enough, or they don't
Speaker 1: need us. Well, what about a consulting project. And my
Speaker 1: example on the CEO, I have a problem, I call
Speaker 1: you up, I say solve my problem or give me
Speaker 1: a solution. How long does it usually take. Is it
Speaker 1: takes six months to come up with a a solution, a
Speaker 1: year or does it say it's going to take up forever?
Speaker 1: Solution it's gonna be five or ten years. Well, I
Speaker 1: think one of the most important things that's come out
Speaker 1: of COVID is the need to move very quickly. You know,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of clients post COVID would say
Speaker 1: we move so fast, um, you know, I want to
Speaker 1: keep going. And I would always ask a simple question, David.
Speaker 1: I'd say, well, what have you changed? And oftentimes you know,
Speaker 1: they haven't changed. And we we don't operate as big
Speaker 1: companies permanently in crisis mode. And so when you think
Speaker 1: about like how long does it solve things, A lot
Speaker 1: of it starts with, you know, the company being willing
Speaker 1: to set aggressive goals right, and so we're doing work
Speaker 1: for example with UM, a large consumer goods company, where
Speaker 1: we said we're going to in twelve weeks have a
Speaker 1: pilot to actually improve their manufacturing and that pre COVID
Speaker 1: probably would have been a six month project, not because
Speaker 1: of accenture, but because of how the client worked. And
Speaker 1: so what we are trying to do now is work
Speaker 1: with our clients to work differently and to work faster. Well,
Speaker 1: how do you charge? You charge by the hour? Do
Speaker 1: you charge by the project? Is a cost plus profit thing?
Speaker 1: What's the secret of your billing. So our preference is
Speaker 1: to either have a fixed fee or to have um
Speaker 1: something that shares, you know, upside or downside. And the
Speaker 1: reason for that is that we don't view ourselves as
Speaker 1: a vendor or a consultant, in that we are keeping
Speaker 1: ourselves at our length. We believe that the best way
Speaker 1: to get success is to co create solutions, have integrated teams.
Speaker 1: The advice I often will give CEOs is that our
Speaker 1: team at accenture and the science team should have the
Speaker 1: exact same performance objectives so that they're completely aligned. Now,
Speaker 1: not every client is willing to work that way, but
Speaker 1: we think it's really important, and so we have plenty
Speaker 1: of clients who want to build by the hour, and
Speaker 1: that's their choice, but that's not our preference. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: oppose somebody hires your firm and they have a one
Speaker 1: year consulting project and at the end they say, I
Speaker 1: don't like this consulting advice. I'm not going to follow
Speaker 1: it um. In fact, I'm not going to pay your bill.
Speaker 1: Does that ever happen? Well, look, we're not perfect, so
Speaker 1: it may happen, but shame on us if it takes
Speaker 1: a year to figure out that our client doesn't doesn't
Speaker 1: like what we do. I mean, one of the things
Speaker 1: that we focus on a lot is UH working with
Speaker 1: the client day in and day out, side by side,
Speaker 1: and not throwing things over a wall to consultant. So
Speaker 1: unlikely that that specific scenario would happen. So without violating confidences,
Speaker 1: can you give me an example of something where you
Speaker 1: advise somebody it turned out to be great for them
Speaker 1: and they're so happy, they're willing to brag about what
Speaker 1: the great job you did. Well, We've got lots of
Speaker 1: examples of that. So if you take, for example, what
Speaker 1: we're doing with Cesto, UH, and we've announced a partnership
Speaker 1: there and we're helping Cicto. We talked about Compressed a transformation.
Speaker 1: We're helping them digitize the experience of the end consumer.
Speaker 1: We're helping them redo their inventory and their systems, and
Speaker 1: so this is something that you know, we're both very
Speaker 1: proud of the work that we're doing together. Let's suppose
Speaker 1: you need a consultant. Who do you call? Do you
Speaker 1: call Mackenzie or do you call one of your own people?
Speaker 1: So normally we call one of our own people, but
Speaker 1: I will give you a great example, when I became CEO,
Speaker 1: I needed to put in a new operating model and
Speaker 1: I wanted to do it faster than any we've ever
Speaker 1: done in our past and any client had done to
Speaker 1: prove that you can move at scale. So six months
Speaker 1: biggest change in our history. At the time, our practice
Speaker 1: was completely sold out to do change management and new
Speaker 1: work design, and the head of my practice that I
Speaker 1: think you should hire this small company called Kate's Kessler,
Speaker 1: and I would tell you my leaders were like, why
Speaker 1: are we hiring a different consultant. Within two weeks, the
Speaker 1: same leaders all came back and said, we need Kate's
Speaker 1: Kessler to be part of Accenture, and they are today.
Speaker 1: So I'm grateful that they took the call because I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was a little intimidating to have Accenture hire someone.
Speaker 1: But you know, the lesson for that is, you know,
Speaker 1: to have humility. And one of the things that I
Speaker 1: think is really important that you know, when we look
Speaker 1: at leaders and industry around digitization, it's those who are
Speaker 1: willing to not always build it themselves, who think they
Speaker 1: have all of the answers, but that actually look outside
Speaker 1: and eccentric did the same let's talk about how you
Speaker 1: rose up to be the CEO. So you grew up
Speaker 1: where I grew up in Tustin, California, which has a
Speaker 1: little sign and it says work where you must but
Speaker 1: live and shop in Tustin, So southern California. I thought
Speaker 1: I would have a sign and say home of Julie
Speaker 1: Sweet doesn't have that signet. We're gonna have to work
Speaker 1: on that. So were you a star student in high
Speaker 1: school or a start athlete or something like that. I
Speaker 1: was a speech and debate star. So starting when I
Speaker 1: was a freshman, I used to do do two kinds
Speaker 1: of things. My dad used to get in his little
Speaker 1: v W and I would do the the circuit, the
Speaker 1: Lions Club, Optimus Club. And I'm greatly appreciative of all
Speaker 1: of those clubs because they helped me earn money for college.
Speaker 1: And then I was on the speech and debate team,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, really love that. My parents didn't
Speaker 1: love it so much at times because I was apparently,
Speaker 1: you know, use the skills against them. But it was
Speaker 1: definitely a great way of creating a skill that I
Speaker 1: used today. In other words, if you're a debate champion,
Speaker 1: you can debate your parents. Yes, they didn't like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: So where did you go to college? I went to
Speaker 1: Claremont McKenna College in southern California, and then I went
Speaker 1: to Columbia Law School. So did your parents say you
Speaker 1: should be a lawyer or you went to become a
Speaker 1: lawyer because you were good at talking in debating and
Speaker 1: so forth. Is that why you went to law school? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So you know, I wanted to be a lawyer since
Speaker 1: I was in eighth grade. Uh. And I remember my
Speaker 1: senior year in college, before I wrote you know and
Speaker 1: accepted going to Columbia, one of my professors said, have
Speaker 1: you ever met a lawyer? And I said no? And
Speaker 1: he said, I am not letting you sign away. You know,
Speaker 1: I was borrowing all the money to go to college
Speaker 1: to go to law school until you've met a lawyer.
Speaker 1: And I met a lawyer and I said, great, I
Speaker 1: still want to go to law school. And uh, and
Speaker 1: I went to law school. So you went across the country.
Speaker 1: I don't know why you went to Columbia because you
Speaker 1: like place at the beginning with the sea or what
Speaker 1: is it? What prompt you go from Claremont to Columbia.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. You know, I look back and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why i had this at the time.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because I'd gone to China during college. But
Speaker 1: I said, I've grown up in southern California, I should
Speaker 1: experience the East Coast. I fully intended to go back
Speaker 1: to southern California, but I fell in love with New York.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh and so it was actually a deliberate
Speaker 1: decision that I needed to diversify my experience. After you
Speaker 1: graduated from Columbia, you went to work at Krevat, Swain
Speaker 1: and Moore, which is a large firm in New York
Speaker 1: that I was a summer associate. Continuing to see it
Speaker 1: began with a sea But why did you pick Cravat.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a place that a lot of women have
Speaker 1: become partners at. It wasn't in fact at the time.
Speaker 1: I remember when I came back and I had accepted
Speaker 1: my offer, all my women friends were saying, what have
Speaker 1: you done? And all my male friends were like, congratulations.
Speaker 1: So it was definitely not the at the time selection
Speaker 1: of choice. It is now run by a woman, by
Speaker 1: the way, uh. And I picked it because I had
Speaker 1: no intention of staying a lawyer. It was the best
Speaker 1: in the world, and I wanted to go there for
Speaker 1: two years and then go off and and make my career.
Speaker 1: At the time, I thought in Asia. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: ultimately stayed became a partner, I think the third woman partner.
Speaker 1: I was a third woman corporate partner, the ninth woman
Speaker 1: partner in the history of the firm. Okay. So you're
Speaker 1: a corporate partner at Cravat, which is a well compensated
Speaker 1: law firm, let's say, and you're making a flair amount
Speaker 1: of money by any standard. Why did you decide to
Speaker 1: leave and give up that partnership? And where the people
Speaker 1: at Kravat, who usually don't have people leaving where they shocked,
Speaker 1: you know. I think they were surprised, but I was
Speaker 1: leaving for a great role, so they were very supportive.
Speaker 1: You know. I still remember being at my desk and
Speaker 1: picking up the phone when a recruiter called me about
Speaker 1: the accenture job. And it was a few months after
Speaker 1: my father had passed away at a very young age
Speaker 1: at and I think, looking back, that's why I took
Speaker 1: a meeting and uh, and I basically said, I'm forty
Speaker 1: two years old and I can see my future, and
Speaker 1: it would be a great future. I loved kvath H
Speaker 1: and Accenture offered me something different, uh, and I decided
Speaker 1: to take it. And I think it was the last
Speaker 1: gift of my dad, to be honest. So, UM, did
Speaker 1: you think when you joined the company that a female
Speaker 1: would become the head of this gigantic organization or did
Speaker 1: you think that it was going to be a typically
Speaker 1: a male run kind of thing. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: really think about it because I joined as general counsel
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, as the general counsel, you know,
Speaker 1: and coming in where the average tenure on the leadership
Speaker 1: team when I joined was thirty years. I didn't come
Speaker 1: in with the expectation that I would be CEO. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, really, when when we think about how
Speaker 1: do you how do you make a change in leadership
Speaker 1: and how do you continue to foster diversity in your leadership.
Speaker 1: Our former CEO, Pierre Antara, was a great example of
Speaker 1: someone who sponsored me, saw potential and created a new
Speaker 1: pathway that I certainly didn't have an expectation when I
Speaker 1: came into Accenture. You're one of the largest private employers
Speaker 1: in the United States, Is that right? That's right. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that's globally, of course. And last year we actually
Speaker 1: are really proud that we added a net one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand jobs around the globe. Second, during the period of COVID,
Speaker 1: you added that many jobs. I mean, why was business
Speaker 1: so good during the COVID period? You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: really interesting when you think about what happened in COVID.
Speaker 1: Sort of overnight there was we all moved online, and
Speaker 1: Accenture since has been building our capabilities and digital cloud
Speaker 1: of security, and so at the time of COVID, right,
Speaker 1: we became relevant and critical for really all of the
Speaker 1: world's leading companies. And when you look at this fiscal
Speaker 1: year which we just ended, we actually had more clients
Speaker 1: who had over a hundred million dollars in bookings in
Speaker 1: the first three quarters of our fiscal year than all
Speaker 1: of last year, driven by what we call compressed transformation,
Speaker 1: the need to digitize all parts of the business. Now,
Speaker 1: one of your competitors, and you may not admit you
Speaker 1: have competitors, but our company called McKenzie you've probably heard
Speaker 1: of them. They say, we don't want to be a
Speaker 1: public traded company, where a partnership it's easier to do
Speaker 1: this when you're not a publicly traded company. But you're
Speaker 1: a publicly traded company with a market cap of over
Speaker 1: two billion dollars. So what do you think about the
Speaker 1: view that consultant should be privately owned as opposed to
Speaker 1: publicly traded. You know, I think it's an interesting question
Speaker 1: for us. The markets are an important element of discipline,
Speaker 1: right be. You know, we're giving our results every quarter. Uh,
Speaker 1: and of course we think it really attracts talent. Our
Speaker 1: employee value proposition is a really strong one because of
Speaker 1: our stock you know, which is a huge part. We
Speaker 1: have a pay for performance and a culture that's tied
Speaker 1: to creating value for all our stockholders. And so it
Speaker 1: served us well in terms of attracting great talent. But
Speaker 1: you're not competing with private equity, I hope. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be trying to steal people from
Speaker 1: private equity to go into consulting. I hope. Now the
Speaker 1: private equity seems to be trying to compete with professional services,
Speaker 1: uh and hiring a few people and acquiring a lot
Speaker 1: in professional services these days, all that business has been
Speaker 1: a growth business. That's why you see a lot of
Speaker 1: quisitions there now you're doing this from Washington, d C. Washington,
Speaker 1: d C is a great place at the capital of
Speaker 1: our country, but it's not necessarily known as a place
Speaker 1: you run global businesses from. Um, why are you headquartered
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. We have not had a headquarters
Speaker 1: really since for thirty thirty years, three decades at least
Speaker 1: pre COVID, we were probably the largest organization running itself remotely.
Speaker 1: Our leaders are around the world, and so the sort
Speaker 1: of de facto headquarters has always been wherever the CEO is.
Speaker 1: So the last CEO was in Paris. That was in Paris.
Speaker 1: Before that, it was Boston. For that Dallas, and so
Speaker 1: d C is a great place to to be based.
Speaker 1: And in fact, this is the first time in thirty
Speaker 1: years the CEO and the CFO are out of the
Speaker 1: same office. And so I'm very fortunate to have Casey
Speaker 1: McClure here with me in d C. So during the
Speaker 1: COVID period of time, did you go into the office
Speaker 1: or you just work remotely? I worked remotely. One of
Speaker 1: the things that we are, you know, famous for us
Speaker 1: being very close to our clients and so our offices
Speaker 1: are not the center of our work. And because we
Speaker 1: have a distributed leadership team. I literally, even pre COVID
Speaker 1: would go to the office and beyond you know, teams
Speaker 1: calls uh. And so during COVID, I wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure that our people felt comfortable working from home and
Speaker 1: didn't feel pressured to go into the office. So how
Speaker 1: do you meet your clients? You you don't go meet
Speaker 1: him yourself so much because you've got other people around
Speaker 1: the world. And during the COVID period of time, I
Speaker 1: assume you really didn't go meet anybody. You were just
Speaker 1: traveling and uh from your office to your home if
Speaker 1: if that right. So pre COVID I did definitely travel
Speaker 1: a lot. And I think we've all learned, however, during
Speaker 1: COVID that connections can be built remotely. Uh and certainly
Speaker 1: you know, my fun fact was I became CEO September one,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, and literally six months and eleven days after
Speaker 1: becoming CEO UH COVID, you know, the pandemic was declared.
Speaker 1: And so I've a very interesting first couple of years
Speaker 1: and I've built really strong relationships by leveraging technology and
Speaker 1: really thinking about how do you build connections? And I
Speaker 1: think one of the great learnings out of COVID is
Speaker 1: this idea of omni connections. And I think too many
Speaker 1: people focus on remote work and hybrid work and physical
Speaker 1: location as opposed to you know, how do you connect
Speaker 1: with people? When do you need to do it physically?
Speaker 1: You know how to be intentional and you know what
Speaker 1: what what's required for connections. So how do you keep
Speaker 1: up with what's going on around the world? I mean,
Speaker 1: you have so many consultants and do you know all
Speaker 1: the big projects. Do you get reports daily or weekly
Speaker 1: or monthly about what's going on or if their problems?
Speaker 1: And do you have to go out and woo the
Speaker 1: clients yourself and get the business well? First and foremost,
Speaker 1: I lead by example, and our business is about clients.
Speaker 1: And so every quarter I published from my all of
Speaker 1: my managing directors how many client meetings I've had and
Speaker 1: how many things I've had with our ecosystem partners, to
Speaker 1: reinforce that our business begins with understanding our clients. I
Speaker 1: call it the proximity imperative, as I spend more than
Speaker 1: of my time with clients not just wooing them, you know,
Speaker 1: not in a sales mode, but understanding them, building relationships.
Speaker 1: And that's really what our entire foundation of Accenter is
Speaker 1: built on is that proximity to clients. And then with
Speaker 1: respect to how do I run the business? And one
Speaker 1: of the most important lessons that I think any leader
Speaker 1: has is you put you build a great team and
Speaker 1: then you rely on them for what they are you know,
Speaker 1: have been asked to do. And so I don't micromanage.
Speaker 1: I really focus on you know, who is doing what
Speaker 1: and what do I need to know and having a
Speaker 1: great team. Let's suppose I go to businesschool and I
Speaker 1: do reasonaly while there and I say I want to
Speaker 1: be a consultant, and you interview me or somebody interviews me.
Speaker 1: What are the skills you're looking for? Is that hard work? U, integrity, brilliance,
Speaker 1: what makes a good con Alton? All of those are
Speaker 1: I think table stakes, but one of the things that
Speaker 1: we really look for. So yes, we want people who
Speaker 1: work hard, who you know, have you have performed well?
Speaker 1: But the most important skill that we see is uh
Speaker 1: the willingness and to learn. Because the environment around us
Speaker 1: is changing. We know from a skills perspective, skills in
Speaker 1: them are obsolete today, and so we test for learning.
Speaker 1: We as really basic questions like what have you learned
Speaker 1: in the last six months that wasn't in a classroom?
Speaker 1: And uh and so learning, agility, curiosity are really core
Speaker 1: to our hiring philosophy. So what do you do when
Speaker 1: you're not consulting? Do you have any outside interests? Well?
Speaker 1: I took up tennis during COVID, which was pretty brave
Speaker 1: at fifty two, and I actually can hit the ball.
Speaker 1: I'm not great, but I can, you know, play game.
Speaker 1: And mostly I focus on my two daughters, who are
Speaker 1: thirteen and about to be fifteen. Have you thought of
Speaker 1: hiring consultant for your tennis game? You know, if you
Speaker 1: hire a consultant, that would improve your tennis game, right, Well, actually,
Speaker 1: most of the time I played tennis with a coach
Speaker 1: because that way I can actually hit the ball and
Speaker 1: get a little bit better. Okay, So if the President
Speaker 1: United States called you and said, you know, you're running
Speaker 1: a gigantic company. You've done a terrific job. I need
Speaker 1: some more, uh women leaders in my government. Why don't
Speaker 1: you come in and be secretary of something important? What
Speaker 1: would you say? I'd say, I'm honored to be asked,
Speaker 1: but I have really important work to do in the
Speaker 1: private sector. Okay, so you wouldn't go in right now,
Speaker 1: that is not my current aspiration. Okay, Now somebody who's
Speaker 1: watching this would say, this person has an incredible professional
Speaker 1: light rose up to be a partner at Kravat. Now
Speaker 1: she's the CEO of this gigantic company. Can you cite
Speaker 1: something that didn't work out in your professional life so
Speaker 1: that people could feel you're not just superhuman and that
Speaker 1: make people feel good that they can see that somebody
Speaker 1: made a mistake. Did you have any mistakes you've made
Speaker 1: or failures that you can talk about, you know, David,
Speaker 1: people ask that question as if the only challenge is
Speaker 1: at work, And for me, work has been a great place.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of success and I don't have
Speaker 1: these spectacular failure But in my own personal life, right
Speaker 1: my father died when he was sixty eight. I had
Speaker 1: breast cancer. Uh, we had drug addiction in our family,
Speaker 1: mental health issues, and so one of the things I've
Speaker 1: learned is that challenges come in a lot of different packages.
Speaker 1: And to have empathy for people. Uh, you know, when
Speaker 1: someone I was a bad day, you don't know if
Speaker 1: that bad day is because they've got something going on
Speaker 1: at home or in their personal life and uh and
Speaker 1: so my challenges haven't been about spectacular failures at work,
Speaker 1: but they have been challenges, and I talk about that
Speaker 1: because I think that's true for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen.