Item 1. Business
Item 1. Business
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We were pleased that among our people who participated in the globally recognized Great Place To Work ® Trust Index Survey™ in June 2026, 76% agreed that “Taking everything into account, I would say this is a great place to work.” In addition to earning the No. 4 spot on the World’s Best Workplaces™ 2025 list by Great Place To Work®, we are recognized as a Great Place To Work ® in 16 countries, representing more than 80% of our people.
To drive reinvention, innovation must be at the forefront, which requires us to attract, develop and inspire top talent. Our focus is to create talent and unlock the potential of our people, to create strong leaders, and to help them achieve their professional and personal aspirations, while continuously evolving to meet new client needs.
During fiscal 2026, we invested approximately $1.0 billion in learning and professional development. With our digital learning platform, we delivered approximately 46 million training hours. We continually invest in strengthening the industry, technology, functional and AI skills of our people. As part of our strategic focus on driving reinvention and growth with AI, our global learning program integrates tools, platforms, and role-based learning, along with partnerships with leading educational institutions and certification programs. Additionally, Accenture’s industry learning framework and technology certification strategy are an important part of our competitive differentiation.
At the end of fiscal 2026, we had nearly 110,000 skilled AI and data practitioners, exceeding our three-year goal to double our AI and data workforce, through a combination of developing our people and hiring specialized talent.
We promoted approximately 124,000 people in fiscal 2026, demonstrating our continued commitment to creating vibrant careers and opportunities for our people.
We balance our supply of skills with changes in client demand. We do this through adjusting levels of new hiring and managing our attrition (both voluntary and involuntary). We believe people are drawn to our strong purpose, values and reputation.
Accenture’s total rewards consist of cash compensation, equity and a wide range of benefits. Our total rewards program is designed to recognize our people’s skills, contributions and career progression. Base salary, bonus and equity are tailored to the market where our people work and live. Certain rewards, like equity and bonuses, are opportunities for our people to share in the overall success of our company. As our people advance in their careers, they have greater opportunities to be rewarded. Accenture’s equitable rewards go beyond financial rewards and include health and well-being programs and practices—including physical, mental, emotional and financial well-being—that care for our people.
Global Reinvention Centers
A key differentiator is our global reinvention capability. We have one of the world’s largest networks of centers with deep capabilities that allow us to help our clients create exceptional business value. Our global approach provides scalable innovation, standardized processes, methods and tools, automation and AI, industry expertise and specialized capabilities, along with cost advantages, foreign language fluency, proximity to clients, and time zone advantages—to deliver high-quality solutions and services. Our global reinvention capability combines deep industry expertise with AI-enabled delivery, intelligent operations and digital engineering to help clients unlock new sources of value. Emphasizing hyper-productivity, quality, security, resilience, speed-to-market and predictability, our global delivery model supports all parts of our business to provide clients with price-competitive solutions and services.
Innovation and Intellectual Property
We are committed to developing leading-edge ideas and leveraging emerging technologies and we see innovation as a source of competitive advantage. We use our investment in R&D—on which we spent $1.0 billion, $0.8 billion and $1.2 billion in fiscal 2026, 2025 and 2024, respectively—to help clients address new realities in the marketplace and to face the future with confidence.
Our innovation experts work with clients across the world to imagine their future, build and co-create innovative business strategies and technology solutions, and then scale those solutions to sustain innovation. We believe our combination of people, platforms, assets and capabilities, including our global network of Innovation Centers, makes Accenture one of the leading strategic innovation partners for our clients.
This is all supported by our innovation approach, which includes Accenture Research, Accenture Ventures and Accenture Labs, our Innovation Centers as well as our Global Reinvention Centers. Our research and thought leadership teams help identify market, technology and industry trends. Accenture Ventures partners with and invests in growth-stage companies that create innovative enterprise technologies. Accenture Labs focuses on developing novel intellectual property (“IP”) as well as incubating and prototyping new concepts through applied research and development projects. Within this, we incubate and apply emerging technology innovations to business architectures, including robotics, quantum, computational biology and advanced AI along with many other disruptive technologies and ideas.
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We harness our unique IP to deliver these innovation services. We have a global portfolio of patents and pending patent applications covering various technology areas, including AI, cloud, cybersecurity, automation, analytics and quantum. We leverage patent, trade secret and copyright laws as well as contractual arrangements and confidentiality procedures to protect the IP in our innovative solutions and services. These include our proprietary platforms, software, reusable knowledge capital, and other innovations. We also have policies to respect the IP rights of third parties, such as our clients, ecosystem partners, vendors and others.
To protect Accenture’s brands, we rely on IP laws and trademark registrations held around the world. Trademarks appearing in this report are the trademarks or registered trademarks of Accenture Global Services Limited, Accenture Global Solutions Limited, or third parties, as applicable.
Competition
Accenture operates in a highly competitive and rapidly changing global marketplace. We compete with a variety of organizations that offer solutions and services competitive with those we offer—but we believe no other company offers the full range of services at scale that Accenture does, which uniquely positions us in a highly competitive market. Our clients typically retain us on a non-exclusive basis.
Our competitors include large multinational IT service providers, including the services arms of large global technology providers; offshore IT service providers in lower-cost locations, particularly in India; accounting firms and consultancies that provide consulting, managed services and other IT solutions and services; solution or service providers that compete with us in a specific geographic market, industry or service area, including advertising agency holding companies, engineering services providers and technology start-ups, AI-native companies and software companies that can scale rapidly to focus on or disrupt certain markets and provide new or alternative products, end-to-end solutions, services, or commercial or delivery models; and in-house IT departments of large corporations that use their own resources rather than engage an outside firm, such as global capability centers (“GCCs”). Our ecosystem partners also offer solutions and services that compete with some of our solutions and services.
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Information About Our Executive Officers
Our executive officers as of October 16, 2026 are as follows:
Melissa Burgum, 54, became our chief accounting officer in September 2022 and has served as our corporate controller since September 2021. Prior to that, Ms. Burgum served as our assistant corporate controller from December 2016 to September 2021 and as controller for Accenture Federal Services from May 2013 to December 2016. Prior to joining Accenture, Ms. Burgum held controllership roles at two public companies and was previously an auditor and consultant for Arthur Andersen. Ms. Burgum has been with Accenture for 13 years.
Kate Clifford, 50, became our chief leadership and human resources officer in September 2025. From September 2024 to September 2025, Ms. Clifford was our chief human resources officer—the Americas. From June 2022 to September 2024, she served as our chief human resources officer—North America. Prior to that, she served as our North America human resources service delivery lead from December 2018 to June 2022. Ms. Clifford has been with Accenture for 28 years.
Atsushi Egawa, 61, became our co-chief executive officer—Asia Pacific and chief executive officer —Japan in September 2024. Since September 2015, Mr. Egawa has served as our market unit lead in Japan. Prior to September 2015, Mr. Egawa led our Products industry group in Japan. Prior to that role, he led our Consumer Goods business in Japan. He has partnered closely with numerous global clients on their digital transformations and was integral in the opening of Accenture’s Innovation Hub in Tokyo. Mr. Egawa has been with Accenture for 37 years.
Kate Hogan, 50, became our chief operating officer in September 2025. From September 2024 to September 2025, she served as our chief operating officer—the Americas. From September 2023 to September 2024, she served as chief operating officer—North America. Prior to that, Ms. Hogan served as our US West lead from September 2022 to September 2023 and chief operating officer—North America from March 2020 to August 2022. Ms. Hogan has been with Accenture for 28 years.
Mauro Macchi, 61, became our chief executive officer—EMEA in September 2024. From September 2021 to September 2024, Mr. Macchi served as our market unit lead for Italy, Central Europe and Greece. From March 2020 to September 2021, Mr. Macchi served as the Strategy & Consulting lead for Europe. Previously, he served as our Financial Services lead for Europe from November 2019 to March 2020, Financial Services lead for Italy, Central Europe and Greece from October 2017 to October 2019 and global Banking industry lead for Strategy from March 2015 to September 2017. Mr. Macchi has been with Accenture for 36 years.
Angie Park, 54, became our chief financial officer in December 2024. From September 2023 to December 2024, she served as our Business and Commercial Finance lead. From September 2022 to September 2023, she served as our chief financial officer—Technology. Prior to assuming that role, she served as our head of investor relations from December 2016 to September 2022 and finance director—Health & Public Service from April 2014 to December 2016. Ms. Park has been with Accenture for 30 years.
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Ryoji Sekido, 59, became our co-chief executive officer—Asia Pacific and chief executive officer—Asia Oceania in September 2024. From April 2023 to September 2024, Mr. Sekido served as our Technology lead for Growth Markets. Prior to March 2023, Mr. Sekido served as the Technology and Cloud First lead for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. In his earlier roles, he led several industry and technology teams and served as the Financial Services client service group lead and the Financial Services technology consulting lead for APAC. Mr. Sekido has been with Accenture for 34 years.
Manish Sharma, 58, became our chief strategy and reinvention services officer in September 2025. Prior to that, Mr. Sharma served as our chief executive officer—the Americas from September 2024 to September 2025, chief executive officer—North America from September 2023 to September 2024 and chief operating officer from March 2022 to September 2023. From March 2020 to March 2022, Mr. Sharma served as our group chief executive—Operations. Prior to that, he held key leadership positions in Operations, including as group chief operating officer and global business process outsourcing delivery lead. Mr. Sharma has been with Accenture for 31 years.
Julie Sweet, 59, became chair of our Board of Directors in September 2021 and has served as our chief executive officer since September 2019. From June 2015 to September 2019, she served as our chief executive officer—North America. From March 2010 to June 2015, she served as our general counsel, secretary and chief compliance officer. Prior to joining Accenture in 2010, Ms. Sweet was a partner for 10 years in the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, which she joined as an associate in 1992. Ms. Sweet has been with Accenture for 16 years and has served as a director since September 2019.
Joel Unruch, 48, became our chief legal and risk officer in September 2026 and has served as our general counsel since September 2019 and corporate secretary since June 2015. Mr. Unruch joined Accenture in 2011 as our assistant general counsel and assistant secretary and also oversaw ventures & acquisitions and alliances & ecosystems practices for our legal group. Prior to joining Accenture, Mr. Unruch was corporate counsel at Amazon.com and previously an associate in the corporate department of the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. Mr. Unruch has been with Accenture for 15 years.
John Walsh, 62, became our chief executive officer—Americas in September 2025. Prior to that, Mr. Walsh served as our chief operating officer from September 2023 to September 2025. From March 2020 to September 2023, Mr. Walsh served as our chief strategic accounts and global sales officer. From November 2019 to March 2020, he served as our group chief executive—Communications, Media & Technology. He served as senior managing director—Communications, Media & Technology in North America, from 2013 to 2019. Mr. Walsh has been with Accenture for 40 years.
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Item 1A. Risk Factors
In addition to the other information set forth in this report, you should carefully consider the following factors which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations (including revenues and profitability) and/or stock price. The disclosures in this section reflect our beliefs and opinions as to factors that could materially and adversely affect us in the future. References to past events are provided by way of example only and are not intended to be a complete listing or a representation as to whether or not such factors have occurred in the past. Our business is also subject to general risks and uncertainties that may broadly affect companies, including us. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently deem to be immaterial also could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and/or stock price. Risks in this section are grouped in the following categories: (1) Business Risks; (2) Financial Risks; (3) Operational Risks; and (4) Legal and Regulatory Risks. Many risks affect more than one category, and the risks are not in order of significance or probability of occurrence because they have been grouped by categories.
Business Risks
Our results of operations have been, and may in the future be, adversely affected by volatile, negative or uncertain economic and geopolitical conditions and the effects of these conditions on our clients’ businesses and levels of business activity.
Global macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions affect us, our clients’ businesses and the markets they serve. Volatile, negative and uncertain economic and geopolitical conditions have in the past undermined and could in the future undermine business confidence in our significant markets and other markets, which are increasingly interdependent, causing our clients to reduce or defer their spending on new initiatives and technologies, and resulting in clients reducing, delaying or eliminating spending under existing contracts with us, which negatively affects our business. Growth in some of the markets we serve has slowed and could continue to slow, or could slow in other markets or stagnate or contract, in each case, for an extended period of time. Because we operate globally and have significant businesses in many markets, an economic slowdown in any of those markets could adversely affect our results of operations.
Ongoing economic and geopolitical volatility and uncertainty and changing demand patterns affect our business in a number of other ways, including making it more difficult to accurately forecast client demand and effectively build our revenue and resource plans, particularly in consulting. Because the effects of these conditions on client demand may take time to emerge, they can be difficult to anticipate and respond to. Geopolitical tensions, inflation, economic downturns, changes in global trade policies, including the threat or imposition of tariffs or other trade restrictions and related retaliatory actions, protectionism, nationalism, global health emergencies and active or escalating conflicts or tensions in certain regions, including the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, have in the past adversely affected, and could continue to adversely affect us, our clients and the industries we serve, which could negatively impact our results of operations.
Our business depends on generating and maintaining client demand for our solutions and services, including through the adaptation and expansion of our solutions and services in response to ongoing changes in technology and offerings, and a significant reduction in such demand or an inability to respond to the evolving technological environment could materially affect our results of operations.
Our financial results depend in part on the demand for our solutions and services, which could be negatively affected by numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control and unrelated to our work product. As described above, volatile, negative or uncertain global economic and political conditions and lower growth or contraction in the markets we serve have adversely affected and could in the future adversely affect client demand for our solutions and services. Our success depends, in part, on our ability to continue to develop and implement solutions and services that anticipate and respond to rapid and continuing changes in technology and offerings to serve the evolving needs of our clients, including in areas involving advanced AI, which includes generative, agentic and physical AI and digital-, cloud- and security-related offerings, which are continually evolving, as well as developments in areas such as quantum and edge computing, infrastructure and network engineering, intelligent connected products, digital engineering and manufacturing, and robotics solutions. As we continue to expand our solutions and services into new areas, we are exposed to operational, legal, regulatory, ethical, technological and other risks specific to such new areas, which may negatively affect our reputation and demand for our solutions and services.
Technological developments may materially affect the cost and use of technology by our clients and, in the case of cloud, AI
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