Julie Sweet

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Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture since 2019, has been an advocate for diversity and responsible business practices.

© Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images

Julie Sweet broke barriers as the first woman to lead Accenture, one of the world’s largest consulting and technology services companies. A former corporate attorney who combined her legal expertise with strategic skills, she became chief executive officer in 2019 and later board chair. Under her leadership, Accenture has embraced sweeping technological change, deepened its focus on cloud and digital services, and advanced innovation, diversity, and inclusion throughout its global operations.

Julie Sweet (née Julie Terese Spellman) was born in 1967 and raised in Tustin, a small city in Orange County, California. Her father worked as an automobile painter and her mother as a beautician. Both valued education—her mother began attending college when Sweet was in eighth grade. It was at that time that Sweet decided she wanted to become a lawyer.

At Tustin High School she excelled in speech and debate and was awarded a scholarship to Claremont McKenna College, where she studied international relations. Encouraged by a member of the college’s scholarship board, she began studying Chinese and spent six months each in Taiwan and Beijing during her junior year. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1989 and then attended Columbia Law School, where she was named a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She received her Juris Doctor in 1992.

After receiving her law degree, Sweet joined the New York City law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore. She represented underwriters, private equity funds, and corporate clients in financing, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate matters. As an associate, she helped the firm open its Hong Kong office in 1994 and worked there for two years. She became a partner in 1999 and returned to Hong Kong in 2001 to cohead the office until it closed the following year.

Accenture recruited Sweet in 2010 as general counsel. In that role she led the company’s legal department and was principal counsel to the board of directors and senior leadership, as well as chief compliance officer and corporate secretary. Working closely with Chief Executive Officer Pierre Nanterme, she helped expand Accenture’s business through strategic mergers and acquisitions.

In 2015, Sweet was named CEO of Accenture’s North America business, the company’s largest market. Four years later, in September 2019, she became the first woman named CEO of Accenture. Marjorie Magner, then nonexecutive chair of the board, cited Sweet’s leadership record, business experience, and commitment to innovation and company values in noting her appointment. Sweet assumed the additional role of board chair in September 2021.

Beyond her role at Accenture, Sweet has been a prominent advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace; responsible business practices, including environmental sustainability and digital ethics; and technological innovation and the ethical use of artificial intelligence in business growth. She has also taken a firm stance against antisemitism and hate speech, for which she received the Anti-Defamation League’s Courage Against Hate Award in 2024.

Sweet is a member of the board of trustees for the World Economic Forum, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Bridges from School to Work, a nonprofit established by the Marriott family. She is cochair of both the New York Jobs CEO Council and Welcome.US and is also a member of Business Roundtable.

Sweet’s leadership and advocacy have earned her recognition within the business community. Fortune magazine has included her among the 100 most powerful women in business each year beginning in 2016, and Forbes has regularly ranked her among its world’s 100 most powerful women. In 2019, The New York Times called her “one of the most powerful women in corporate America,” and in 2024, Time magazine named her to its list of the 100 most influential people.