Paul Daugherty is Accenture’s Group Chief Executive – Technology & Chief Technology Officer. He oversees all aspects of developing and delivering Technology’s capabilities, bringing innovation, intelligence, and deep industry experience together with leading technologies from ecosystem partners to help clients reinvent their businesses as intelligent enterprises and innovate at scale. As chief technology officer, Paul is responsible for driving innovation through research and development (R&D) activities in Accenture Labs and leveraging emerging technologies to bring the newest innovations to clients globally. He founded and oversees Accenture Ventures, which is focused on strategic equity investments and open innovation to accelerate growth. Paul is responsible for managing Accenture’s alliances, partnerships and senior-level relationships with leading and emerging technology companies, and he leads Accenture’s Global CIO Council and annual CIO and Innovation Forum. He is also a member of Accenture’s Global Management Committee.
Paul continues to play a key role in evolving Accenture’s Technology business to lead and shape the industry. He is responsible for developing and scaling new businesses including Blockchain, Extended Reality and Quantum Computing. He also developed Accenture’s Digital business vision and helped shape Accenture’s early moves to establish its digital business leadership. He founded Accenture’s Cloud business, was instrumental in launching Accenture’s SaaS, big data and open source businesses, and played a key role in the company’s technology business during the major transitions to client/server computing and internet-based computing.
Paul is a passionate advocate for gender equality in the workplace and sponsoring STEM-related inclusion and diversity initiatives. He is a frequent speaker at conferences on industry and technology issues and has published articles in a variety of mediums. He sponsors Accenture’s technology initiatives with the World Economic Forum to help improve the state of the world. Paul also served as chairman of the board of Avanade, the leading provider of Microsoft technology services, for five years and remains on the board of directors. He is on the board of directors for Girls Who Code, Accenture Global Services Limited, the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, and the advisory board for Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Paul helped found the advisory board of the Academy of Information Technology, a non-profit that works to boost IT careers for youth. He also sponsors Accenture’s partnership with Code.org, which is focused on bringing Computer Science education to students around the world. In addition, he serves on the advisory board of Answer ALS as its Infrastructure and Technology Committee Lead.
In 2019, Paul was named to Retail Week’s Tech 100, a list of the most influential leaders shaping the future of commerce through technology and digital innovation. He accepted the FASPE Award for Ethical Leadership in 2019 for Accenture’s work in applying ethical principles to the development and use of artificial intelligence and other innovative 21st century technologies. Paul was named to Adweek 50 2017, the prestigious recognition of top marketing, media and technology executives who, in Adweek’s words, are “using cutting-edge tech guided by hard-won insights to blaze new trails.” He is on Business Transformation 150, which identifies the world’s most influential executives across a spectrum of industries, and he was also honored with the Irish America Magazine Business 100 Award. Paul was recognized in Computerworld's Premier 100 Technology Leaders for 2017 for his extraordinary technology leadership, and he was also selected as a LinkedIn Top Voice for 2017. The Institute for Women’s Leadership recognized Paul with the “Guys Who Get It Award” for supporting diversity in the workplace and advancement of women, especially in technology and other STEM fields.
Paul is co-author of Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI, a seminal book providing a much-needed management playbook for the business of AI, recently published by Harvard Press. Learn more about the book and what major media and influencers are saying here.
Paul joined Accenture in 1986 and became a partner in 1999. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in computer engineering from the University of Michigan.
