Julie Sweet received an unexpected suggestion from her then-CEO that she could run Accenture, despite a nontraditional background. She served as general counsel, had a legal rather than business background, had not spent her entire career at Accenture, and was a woman in a historically male-led company. She faced self-doubt but recalled advice from Dina Dublon to accept stretch roles without questioning them. Sweet responded affirmatively when offered new opportunities, and that acceptance propelled her career forward, occurring shortly before a breast cancer diagnosis in late 2014.
Accenture CEO Julie Sweet never thought she would one day be in the running for the top job at her company; she did not fit the traditional mold. However, when her former boss asked if she was interested, Sweet did not let her instincts of self-doubt kick in. Instead, she leaned on the advice of a former JPMorgan Chase exec who says never to question a promotion you don't feel ready for.
For Julie Sweet, it came just a month before she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of 2014, during a regular one-to-one with her boss-then-CEO of Accenture, Pierre Nanterme. "At the end of the meeting, he closes his notebook and he pushes it aside, and he says to me, completely out of the blue... 'I think you could run this place someday,'" Sweet recalled the pivotal moment in her career to Fortune's Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast with Alyson Shontell.
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