Accenture launched Reinvention Services, a business unit that will bring together its AI assets in one integrated unit. Manish Sharma, Accenture's CEO of the Americas, will become chief services officer.
The launch of a new services unit comes after the company reported better-than-expected fiscal third quarter earnings but showed a decline in bookings.
In addition to Sharma's role change, Accenture said John Walsh, chief operating officer, will become CEOs of the Americas. Kate Hogan, current chief operating officer of the Americas, will take on that same role for all of Accenture. Karthik Narain, Group Chief Executive and Chief Technology Officer, is leaving to "pursue other opportunities."
Accenture CEO Julie Sweet said Reinvention Services will be able to move faster, deliver AI-enabled assets and platforms and embed data and AI in services delivery. The new organizational structure launches Sept. 1.
Other executives in the Accenture reshuffle include:
- Jason Dess, current lead of CFO and enterprise value, will become group chief executive of consulting. Dess succeeds Jack Azagury, who is leaving Accenture.
- Song will be led by Ndidi Oteh, who is the lead exec for Song in the Americas.
- Rajendra Prasad, currently Accenture’s chief information and asset engineering officer, will succeed Narain. Accenture's Karthik Narain on human, AI collaboration, trust
- Kate Clifford, currently chief HR officer of the Americas, will become global chief leadership and HR officer and succeed Angela Beatty, who is also leaving the company.
Accenture reported third quarter earnings of $3.49 a share on revenue of $17.7 billion, up 8% from a year ago. Generative AI new bookings were $1.5 billion. However, new bookings of $19.7 billion were down 6% from a year ago. In the second quarter, Accenture noted customers were becoming more cautious about projects.
As for the outlook, Accenture said it now expects fiscal 2025 revenue growth of 6% to 7% with earnings of $12.77 a share to $12.89 a share. Fourth quarter revenue will be between $17 billion and $17.6 billion.
Sweet said Accenture had 30 clients in the quarter with bookings topping $100 million. Accenture saw solid growth across its core industries with financial services revenue up 13%.
On a conference call with analysts, Sweet said:
- "We continue to see a significantly elevated level of uncertainty in the global economic and geopolitical environment as compared to calendar year 2024. In every boardroom and every industry, our clients are not facing a single challenge. They are facing everything at once, economic volatility, geopolitical complexity, major shifts in customer behavior."
- "We have leaders who leave Accenture and pursue other opportunities. Our leaders are in demand, as you might imagine. And we have a deep bench of leaders."
- "The GenAI demand continues to be very, very strong. And now it's getting big enough that it's going to fluctuate a little bit. But you'll see GenAI is just being more and more embedded into everything we do."
