Join me in demanding change

Colin Powell once said, “Have a vision. Be demanding.” I believe that society – and the business community – can’t sit back and wait for someone else to realize our vision of inclusivity. As global citizens, we all need to be demanding about the fight against racism, intolerance and inequality.

I’m excited to share the launch of Project Elevate, our plan for how Accenture Technology will take steps year-round to support the internal and external communities we impact. Our mission is to be an advocate and leader in improving opportunities for Black and African American people by ensuring that inclusion is embedded into how we recruit and retain our people, the way we deliver technology, and our footprint in the community.

Project Elevate, led by my colleagues Britney Crooks and Tami McNairy, has three core pillars: People, Culture, and Community.

People

This first pillar focuses on all aspects of the Accenture career journey. We’re reviewing all job descriptions to ensure they are fully inclusive, and we’re creating new recruiting pathways. We are extending our diversity partnerships to find new sources for Black and African American talent. We are focusing more on leadership advocacy and establishing connectedness within the community. And, we are creating a speaker's network to elevate and increase exposure of the great work our Black and African American people are driving in Tech.

Culture

At Accenture we value diversity and unique contributions, fostering a trusting, open and inclusive environment and we will continue to expand our education and training programs around combatting racism.

We’ve also created Inclusive Language guidelines to be used across all our sites. We have identified insensitive terms and have made significant progress in remediating them. All of our content across our external presence such as GitHub and Accenture.com as well as our internal content is undergoing review and being updated where needed.

Community

With Project Elevate, we are now putting more focus on engaging in our communities by partnering with local organizations that increase economic empowerment and opportunity.

To help level the playing field for Black technology startup founders and entrepreneurs through investment, mentorship, community, and support, we’ve created the Accenture Black Founders Development Program. This will use Accenture’s large ecosystem to build a network of Black and African American founders, VCs, influencers, clients and partners.

What the future holds

?My hope is that Project Elevate will be used as a playbook for work in other geographies and for other ethnicity groups. I hope everyone will join me in committing to ensuring we emerge as a more equitable organization for all, and to making Accenture Technology the best place for Black and African American technologists to work.