Accenture - Achievement in Management

Company: Accenture, New York, NY
Entry Submitted By:BCW
Company Description: Accenture, a global professional services company with 482,000 people in more than 120 countries, provides a range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology, and operations.
Nomination Category: Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Achievement in Management - Business & Professional Services

Nomination Title: Annette Rippert 2021 Stevie Award Nomination

As the head of Accenture’s global Strategy & Consulting (S&C) business, Annette Rippert leads a global team of 40,000 highly-skilled technologists, strategists, industry experts, data scientists and human performance professionals, leveraging talent and networks to apply data, analytics, AI, assets and innovations to create sustainable value and successful business outcomes for clients. With more than 27 years of business, leadership and technology experience, Annette embraces the challenge of conquering complexity, helping clients reimagine how they operate, and tackling large-scale, tough problems. Her organization partners with CEOs and C-suite leaders to create new products and services, reimagine new ways of working, and deliver net new value. Annette is a member of Accenture’s Global Management Committee.

This new business unit was launched in March 2020, at the onset of the global pandemic and includes the integration of 11 organizations and more than 20 functions across five operating groups, all with a collective mission to help clients envision, shape and realize their future. Her S&C team was designed to lead the industry in digital business transformation and primarily serves companies in Forbes’ Global 2000, including 91 of the Fortune Global 100. The team immediately made an impact with clients, successfully helped clients outmaneuver the uncertainty caused by the pandemic. For example, her organization worked with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the State of California and six other US states for contact tracing applications. When the pandemic hit, a US-based retailer had only piloted curbside pickup with 100 stores. Yet in just 48 hours, Annette’s team equipped all the company’s 1,400 stores to offer the new service.

To date, the S&C organization has marked many milestones of accomplishments including 20+ strategic acquisitions in market-leading companies. Her team’s industry and functional expertise was recognized with 20+ No. 1 rankings in industry analyst research reports and with an inclusion on list of Forbes 2021 America’s Best Management Consulting Firms. Additionally, Source Global Research named two thought leadership reports from Annette’s team to its list of the top three highest-rated publications for 2020.

In addition to helping lead transformational change and thrive in the midst of the pandemic, Annette is helping to achieve holistic outcomes for her clients across their top priorities – creating new growth, finding new sources of financial value, pursing their sustainability goals and more – an approach that Accenture calls 360-degree value. For example, Annette is leading innovation in action, working with clients to create solutions for ongoing issues such as cancer and human trafficking. In North America, collaboration is underway at one of the world’s largest pediatric cancer centers to use advanced analytics to find innovative ways to end childhood cancer. Furthermore, her teams, in partnership with Splunk and the Global Emancipation Network, created a way to use data and artificial intelligence to identify and shut down human trafficking establishments.

Prior to her current role as S&C Group CEO, Annette led Accenture’s technology business across North America, achieving double digit growth in the company’s largest market and expanding the business in new areas including data analytics, cloud, platform services and software engineering. She accelerated Accenture’s business, completing several strategic acquisitions, and launched the North America Innovation Hub expansion. She also guided efforts to reskill nearly 20,000 North American technology professionals in the fields of automation, agile development, intelligent platforms, intelligent engineering, intelligent cloud and infrastructure.

Annette is dedicated to bringing about transformational change internally as well as externally. She promotes equality through her leadership, recognizing inclusion and diversity is not just a trend, but a workforce imperative. She believes that innovation is inspired by the ideals and experiences of a diverse workforce. Additionally, she celebrates women entrepreneurs transforming industries through her work with Springboard Enterprises. She is passionate about growing the next generation of leaders and serves on the Northwestern McCormick School of Engineering Advisory Board.

-Under her stewardship, Accenture was named the No. 1 leader in digital business transformation services byForrester.
-Through the launch of the Strategy & Consulting organization, Annette integrated 11 organizations into one powerful business; created end-to-end value for the C-suite through six enterprise functions networks; established 19 industry networks with compelling points of view; and accelerated Accenture’s data-driven and asset-led strategy.
-She was named byBusiness Insideras one of the most influential people transforming consulting.
-Annette served as part of Accenture’s delegation to the 2021 World Economic Forum’s Davos Program.
-Annette’s team, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, convened business leaders from more than 200 companies and 10 countries to discuss the business impacts of COVID-19 and chart a path to recovery and sustainable growth, resulting in more than 60 publications across 10 industries.
-Annette promoted Accenture’s overall diversity goals, including 50/50 gender balance by 2025, increasing African American and Black, and Hispanic American and Latinx representation, as well as the Black Founders Development Program, which aims to help Black business owners and leaders grow their technology business.
-Under her leadership, Strategy & Consulting has acquired more than 20 organizations, strengthening her team’s deep expertise in areas such as AI, transformational change management and supply chain.
-Annette co-sponsored the launch of Accenture's Cloud First, a $3 billion initiative to address how businesses operate, connect with customers, and embed continuous innovation.
-Annette’s organization is working together with ecosystem partners such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, co-investing to create new and innovative functional and industry solutions. Additionally, Annette’s team launched the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology to explore how that convergence will transform global business, what it means for the future of society, and how organizations can uncover and better capture its opportunities.
-Annette is a frequent speaker on topics of innovation, leadership, AI and technology in forums such as a keynote session at Oracle OpenWorld in September 2019, Fast Company Best Workplaces for Innovators Keynote in August 2020, Fortune CEO Summit participation in the fall of 2020 and LEADERS Magazine profile in January 2021 as well as many other key industry and partner conferences. https://news.mit.edu/2020/accenture-bolsters-support-technology-innovation-through-new-mit-wide-initiative-1026