“We are pleased that Jacqui has joined our board of directors. She is a proven leader in global talent strategy and large-scale transformation, with deep experience helping organisations grow while strengthening culture and the employee experience. Jacqui’s expertise around future-proofing the workforce by putting people first and empowering them with technology and generative AI will be invaluable as we evolve how work gets done and continue building the capabilities we need for the future,” announced Tim Sweeney, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Liberty Mutual Insurance.

Liberty Mutual Insurance, a Fortune 100 company as of April 2026, has over 40,000 employees in 27 countries and is the ninth-largest global property and casualty insurer, generating more than USD 50 billion in annual consolidated revenue.

“I’m proud to join the Liberty Mutual board of directors. Their purpose and long-standing commitment to helping people feel secure reflect values I believe in deeply. I look forward to working with the executive leadership team to support the company’s growth and build an environment where people can do their best work, whatever the future brings,” Canney remarked.

In her current role at ServiceNow (a cloud-based platform-as-a-service company), Canney has been leading the venture’s global talent strategy and workforce planning initiatives by focusing on a people-centric approach to transformation, apart from helping employees, customers, and partners build confidence and capability in artificial intelligence (AI). She previously served as the company’s Chief People Officer.

“Prior to joining ServiceNow, Canney was Chief People Officer at WPP and Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer at Walmart. She also spent more than two decades at Accenture, where she held senior global human resources leadership roles across Digital, Technology, Operations, Communications and M&A, among other responsibilities,” Liberty Mutual Insurance said.

Canney brings extensive board and non-profit leadership experience to Liberty Mutual Insurance. Apart from serving in critical roles at ServiceNow, Walmart and Accenture, she previously worked on the boards of Suffolk Construction (a national company with annual revenue of over USD 10 billion) and Project Healthy Minds, a non-profit focused on addressing the mental health crisis and expanding access to care.

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“If you want to get promoted, you’ve got to do the things that we do to operate Accenture. These are the new tools to operate a company. We didn’t go from zero to ‘you won’t get promoted’ in a month. It’s over three years of getting used to the technology, making sure it’s user-friendly, making sure we have the right workbench for people to use, and then saying, Hey, this is Accenture and how we operate,” Julie Sweet said during the Rapid Response podcast, hosted in March 2026.

Asserting that AI is now the main tool for work, the Accenture CEO compared the technology’s push to the use of computers in offices.

“No one would have said that requiring someone to use a computer is coercion. It’s how the companies were going to get work done. Today, AI at Accenture is how we do work,” she said.

In September 2025, Accenture invested more than USD 865 million in a six-month business optimisation programme. The roadmap advocated for reskilling thousands of employees with AI, while removing those who declined to adapt to the tech. In fact, as Generative AI emerged in 2023, with the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the IT giant unveiled an ambitious three-year plan worth USD 3 billion to bring the technology into the core of its organisational fold. As part of this initiative, the venture set out a goal of expanding its AI talent pool to 80,000 professionals, through new hiring, strategic acquisitions and large-scale training programmes. Today, the consulting giant has a workforce of more than 770,000 employees worldwide.

During her interaction with the podcast host Bob Safian, Julie Sweet also acknowledged the challenges of adapting to a new technology. Further stating that organisations prefer practicing caution about bringing AI into their operations, the Accenture boss stated that companies cannot simply add the technology to their outdated systems and expect quick results. Instead, they need to redesign their workflows around the technology.

Julie Sweet’s Vision

Born in 1967 in Tustin, California, Julie Sweet started her academic career at Claremont McKenna College, where she majored in international relations and earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. She later enrolled at Columbia Law School to learn more about law and international affairs. In 1992, she graduated with a Juris Doctor from that institution, a significant achievement that influenced the beginning of her professional career.

In 2023, Julie Sweet became the highest-paid woman CEO, earning approximately USD 34 million, after starting her career as an attorney at the prestigious law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore and eventually becoming the CEO of Accenture. Her career success has also translated into personal wealth, with a net worth estimated to be between USD 75 million and USD 126 million, reportedly based on public filings and her stock holdings.

Under her leadership, Accenture has doubled down on AI as the core of its business principles. In March 2026, it made an investment in DaVinci Commerce, a leader in agentic AI-powered commerce, where AI systems increasingly shape the discovery, evaluation and purchase of products.

With AI becoming a primary interface for shopping, commerce is transforming from a human-led search to browsing to AI agents, which take over the tasks like researching, recommending and transacting on behalf of consumers.

“Accenture will now work with DaVinci Commerce to help clients operationalise agentic commerce across the full value chain—from discovery and merchandising through checkout, fulfilment and loyalty. The collaboration reflects growing demand from brands looking to modernise owned commerce platforms and commerce media strategies for AI-driven engagement,” the IT giant announced.

Accenture has also agreed to acquire Ookla, a global leader in network intelligence, competitive benchmarking and customer experience analytics. By integrating Ookla’s data products like Speedtest, Downdetector, Ekahau, and RootMetrics, Accenture will help Communications Service Providers (CSPs), hyperscalers, and enterprises optimise the mission-critical Wi-Fi and 5G networks that power their digital core.

While the AI era is witnessing rapid layoffs in tech sectors, as companies pursue lean, productive and performance-driven organisational structures, Accenture is increasing its recruitment of entry-level professionals across global markets, with Julie Sweet holding the view that recent graduates may actually be better prepared to thrive in an AI-powered workplace.

Given that these graduates are tech-savvy in their academic and professional routines, the Accenture CEO believes that familiarity with technology will give Accenture’s fresh hires an advantage over the legacy workforce. Instead of following the trend of eliminating junior roles in exchange for AI, the IT venture is restructuring job responsibilities to align with the technology’s growing use.

Along with automating repetitive tasks, Accenture is placing greater push on human-driven capabilities such as problem-solving, strategic thinking and communication, with Julie Sweet telling the Rapid Response podcast that entry-level roles will remain essential, as they serve as the foundation for developing future experienced professionals.

“Training programmes for new hires have also been redesigned. The company is placing a stronger focus on communication skills, strategic thinking and the practical use of AI technologies,” she added.

AI has also emerged as Accenture’s growth engine, as it reported advanced AI bookings of about USD 2.2 billion in the first quarter of FY26, reflecting strong year-on-year growth, while revenues related to the technology reached roughly USD 1.1 billion. Since FY25, the firm has secured around USD 11.5 billion worth of advanced AI projects, earning about USD 4.8 billion.

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Suparna Goswami Bhattacharya

December 23,2014:It is a well-known fact that traditional organisations are now following the example of firms and industries which have been highly influenced by digitisation. Hence, it comes as no surprise when organisations across 19 countries see digital disruption as the real trend. In an Accenture study titled ‘Disrupt or be disrupted: The impact of digital technologies on business services’, it was found that digital adoption is mainly fueled by a need to gain better insight and improve competitiveness as well as lower cost for organisations. Excerpts from an interview with Paul Jeruchimowitz, managing director, Accenture Strategy, CFO & Enterprise Value, on the study which covered 115 major enterprise buyers.

The report states that 61% of organisations agree that the new wave of digital technologies is fundamentally changing the way entire industries will operate. How would the industry change? Can you explain by citing an example?

Digital technologies are changing the way companies interact with customers, suppliers, employees and business partners resulting in dramatic business models changes.

With regards to shared services, digital transformation impacts the model in three ways regardless of industry: (1) Increasing customer experience expectations based on bringing the consumer experience into work; (2) Reduction in total cost to serve due to the advent of cloud-based technologies, which accelerate the introduction of enablers and reduce the cost of storage; and (3) an opportunity for advanced shared services to play a role in enabling a broader enterprise-wide digital transformation. Our research shows that savvy organisations are realising that new digital technologies can propel their use of more advanced integrated services to support unconventional areas, better focus on the external customer and supplier relationships and enhance their competitiveness.

What has been the response from companies?

Of the companies we surveyed, nearly half (49%) of respondents expect digital transformation to “extensively impact” advanced shared services models in supply chain over the next three years. Engineering is also an unconventional area that is seeing growth due to the “extensive impact” digital will have. Here, about 27% respondents say that digital will have a high impact on the industry over the next three years. However, it is important to remember that the digital transformation requires much more than the implementation of new technology. It requires changes to strategy, people and processes as well. In fact, one of the most encouraging results from the survey is the evidence that enterprises are starting to make the changes necessary to realise the benefits of going digital, including taking on new leadership, implementing new process models and deploying new technologies.

Apart from improved productivity and competitiveness, what are the other areas where organisations can improve their skills if they were to adopt digitisation?

Apart from productivity and cost, there are many other areas wherein companies can improve themselves if they adopt digital technology. For instance, digitisation can help gather useful market insights, improve integration of processes and operations, and enhance interactive and collaborative capability of employees, customers and partners.

Approximately what percentage of their budget do enterprises allocate to technology?

Our study did not examine budget allocations for technology. These allocations will vary for different organisations.

What we can tell you in terms of spending is that roughly one in four large enterprise respondents indicated they were seeing heavy investments today, with the greatest activity in mobility (31 percent making heavy investments to get ahead of the curve) and analytics (30 percent).  At the same time, more than two out of five respondents (41 percent) indicated they wanted to see more investment around mobility, which implies that this is an area that most businesses will continue to focus on in the coming years.

The report says that digital is capturing the attention of high-level executives across many firms. Approximately how much time do people in C-Suites take to adopt a technology?

The adoption of technology is indeed a pressing issue with many C-Suite executives. However, we cannot quantify the amount of time various executives spend on decision-making around technology, its implementation or management.

With that said, we know that this task tends to fall to the CIO and CFO. Specifically, the study shows that CFOs are currently playing a strong role in determining which processes are most ready and viable for digital transformation. Specifically, 37 percent of respondents report that CFOs are making the final decision about implementation and another 52 percent are providing major input – second only to the CIO (40 percent and 47 percent, respectively). This confirms the overall trend we’re seeing that CFOs are taking on an increasing role throughout the organisation. With that in mind, we can generally assume that CFOs and CIOs are two individuals in the C-Suite who are likely spending the most time on technology-related tasks.

Also read: 

CFOs looking after more than just finance 

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Suparna Goswami Bhattacharya

October 17, 2014: When someone mentions “CFO”, the first thing to hit the mind is – a guy managing finance in a company.

However, with time, the role of the CFO has evolved. Today if you mention about the ‘managing finance’ bit to any CFO worth his salt, he will probably laugh out loud.

Once focused on cost containment, accounting and compliance, the position has evolved into that of a true business partner – someone who delivers insights and provides decision-making support.

Today, companies expect CFOs to have the ability to manage volatility, navigate complexity among other things. In fact, a recent Accenture report* — The CFO as Architect of Business Value: Delivering Growth and Managing Complexity — states that the expanded role has resulted in their growing influence, especially as a result of their involvement in growth-related and business transformation activities.

“The role has evolved over time internally because of the increasing importance of financial data and insights and externally as a voice of the company to various stakeholders,” said Christian Campagna, lead managing director, Accenture Finance & Enterprise Strategy Group.

And the biggest drivers of this change in the scope of the role of the CFO are the global financial crisis of 2008, wherein the CFO emerged as a trusted partner to the CEO and other member of the C-Suite.

The role of the CFO at present has clearly expanded. The Accenture study calls it ‘Value Architect’. Here the CFO acts as the guardian of the economic value agenda for the company and provides guidance for key decisions made across the enterprise. “Now the CFO has the responsibility to drive profitability and growth while managing constant volatility, complexity, globalisation and emerging technology. The CFO is arguably one of the most powerful executives after the CEO,” says Campagna.

“This view that the CFO is the owner of cost control, and someone else in the business is the owner of revenue growth, is not the case,” says Margherita Della Valle of Vodafone. “The CFO has a role to play across the whole of the P&L and the balance sheet. It is essential that the CFO convinces the CEO that finance has a role to play on more than just costs.”

Thanks to the expanded role, the CFO now often finds himself in middle of a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, including other members of the C-suite, the rest of the management team, the board of directors, investors, regulators and analysts. Each has their own demands, and the number of stakeholders continues to expand.

Mike McClellan, CFO, North America at Sanofi, believes that bureaucracy should not mushroom in a company in order for things to run smoothly. “The CFO’s role is to really make sure that we’re not allowing processes to become too complex. We’re really trying to keep things effective and efficient, not only from a cost perspective but also from a way of doing business,” remarks McClellan.

Industries embracing change in role of CFOs

Research by various firms shows that the role of CFO is expanding. “The role is expanding but the focus may vary from industry to industry in order to address industry-specific challenges,” says Campagna. For instance, a CFO in financial services must focus more on regulations and cost control while a CFO at a consumer goods company may be more concerned with managing complexity.

In fact, in most industries CFOs are putting a special emphasis on digital. Hugh Morris, finance expert and vice-president of business development banking at GENPACT LLC in his statement earlier, had said that technology continues to change the way business gets done.

“CFOs need an understanding of emerging technology, but also where things are headed. They must remain agile enough to change course as technology changes and be committed to governance as a way of ensuring that the organisation uses the technology as efficiently as possible,” he said

David Rowland, CFO, Accenture believes that technology is central to finance strategy and agenda. “Organisations can’t have optimal efficiency and effectiveness without focusing on enabling technologies. In today’s world, where there’s an abundance of data, it’s particularly important that organisations raise their game in managing, analysing and presenting data in a way that yields the greatest value for the business.”

*The Accenture 2014 High Performance Finance Study was based primarily on an online quantitative survey conducted between January and April 2014 among 617 finance executives.

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