Who is Julie Sweet and what makes her so powerful?

accenture.com

Julie Sweet is the CEO of North America at Accenture, the global technology and management consulting company. In this position, she oversees 1,200 staff and has been part of Accenture’s progress in terms of revenue growth, in addition to the number of clients and markets served. In 2014, she was listed as one of Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business, ranking at 35th overall.

She worked at Procter & Gamble for more than 20 years

Sweet’s first job out of college was at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, where she worked on marketing deodorants. Within a few years, she landed a job heading up corporate affairs and advertising for their food group. What I saw was that by launching products like Fruitopia, we were bringing new fruits to market in drinks, she says. We’d convince [consumers] to try them and it could really increase their fruit consumption for months on end. In 1995, just three years after joining General Mills as senior vice president of government relations, she joined ConAgra Foods as executive vice president. She was named president of ConAgra Grocery Products Co., reporting directly to CEO Gary Rodkin in 2000.

She spent many years as the head of General Mills

Given her leadership experience at one of America’s top consumer goods companies, it’s easy to see why Julie Sweet became such a powerhouse in corporate America. She worked at General Mills for 16 years, where she was president of North American Consumer Sales and ultimately joined their board of directors. There are few women who have made it to such high levels in a major company—so how did she do it? And more importantly, how can other women follow in her footsteps? Here are four simple tips on how to become one of today’s most powerful women.

forbes.com

At P&G, she was named one of the top global marketers in the world

a woman to watch in 2011. In 2013, Julie was promoted to CEO of Hershey’s North America. In 2016, she became chief of global marketing and chief commercial officer for Mars Petcare. She has been named one of Fortune magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Women five times – as a rookie in 2010, a rising star in 2011, one of The 25 Women to Watch in 2012, Most Powerful Global Businesswomen in 2014 and again as most powerful woman outside of China & India.

Her vision shaped brands like Crest, Tide, Cascade, Folgers and others

If you’ve ever brushed your teeth with Crest, brewed a pot of Folgers or shaved with a Gillette razor, you can thank Julie Sweet. She was president of North American consumer products at Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) from 2009 until 2013. During that time, she was responsible for more than $5 billion in revenue and 10,000 employees managing 40 brands including Tide detergent, Crest toothpaste and Downy fabric softener. But before joining P&G's board as an independent director in 2016, she spent 25 years at GE Capital as it transitioned from lending to media investments. In 2008 The Financial Times named her one of its 50 Faces That Shaped Finance. Ms.

forbes.com

As CEO of Accenture Interactive, she leads some of the best digital teams in business today

Accenture Interactive has a clear mission to become the leading digital agency network in business, says CEO Julie Sweet. She knows that Accenture Interactive can’t reach its goal without best-in-class leadership. It is for that reason she created two new positions: chief talent officer and chief inclusion officer. The former will develop an internal process for making talent decisions, while a chief inclusion officer will focus on how Accenture Interactive culture promotes diversity and inclusion. For her efforts, Julie was named Adweek's Most Powerful Women in Advertising and by Advertising Age as one of its Leading Women Executives in Marketing & Sales.

She is an advocate for getting more women into leadership roles within business and technology companies

It’s hard to be in tech or business if you don’t see anyone like yourself doing it, says Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. If there are no people of color at all, then girls will think that it just isn’t for them. Says Sweet: No matter who you are, your company benefits from having a diverse leadership team. That's because diverse teams make better decisions on complex challenges where a variety of viewpoints helps to identify more creative solutions. The issues surrounding lack of gender equality have come to prominence over recent years, with more women choosing careers in traditionally male-dominated sectors such as IT and engineering.