Good morning, Broadsheet readers! A female-founded food-tech company is valued at $170 million, Unilever is running a test salon for Black hair care products, and Accenture CEO Julie Sweet says diverse leaders are best prepared for the era of A.I. Happy Thursday!
– Era of A.I. Businesses, right now, are on the brink of transformation. The “era of A.I.” is just beginning, says Accenture chair and CEO Julie Sweet, and companies are reimagining themselves for that future. They need “the courage to change and the ability to bring people along on the journey,” Sweet says.
The CEOs best prepared to guide firms into this new era are women, people of color, and LGBTQ execs—diverse leaders.
That’s because diverse leaders already know what that kind of transformation takes. “Diverse leaders have had to continuously reinvent and adapt at a personal level in their career,” Sweet says. In addition to their skills and capabilities, they’re “resilient, adaptable pioneers,” she adds.
They’re also more likely to hire diverse teams, which supports innovation. “Those two facts lend themselves to these being the leaders that can lead reinvention at an enterprise,” Sweet says.
As the CEO of Accenture, the $61-billion-in-revenue information technology and consulting giant, Sweet speaks to other CEOs frequently about how to prepare for the change A.I. will bring. That “total enterprise reinvention” includes everything from how businesses interact with customers, to how they run manufacturing plants, to how corporate workforces operate day-to-day. She advises current CEOs to prioritize hiring, nurturing, and promoting diverse talent to succeed in this new business environment.
Business leaders are relatively receptive to that guidance. After three years of earth-shaking change, from the pandemic to the Ukraine war to inflation to the rise of generative A.I., companies realize that they need leaders who “think differently.”
Accenture is part of this transformation. Earlier this month, the company announced a $3 billion commitment to A.I. It plans to double its staff focused on A.I. to 80,000. The firm is seeing “unprecedented interest” from its clients, Sweet said.
As a female CEO, Sweet falls into the category of leaders poised to succeed through that kind of reinvention. She’s Accenture’s first female CEO, and earlier in her career, she was the ninth woman to ever reach partner at a 200-year-old law firm. “The insight that comes from that—how do you think outside the box?” she reflects. “How do you be a disruptor, because you’re already a disruptor by being different than the rest?”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Kinsey Crowley. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Prime target. The Federal Trade Commission has sued Amazon for allegedly enrolling customers into Prime memberships without their consent and making it difficult for them to cancel. (Amazon has denied the charges and said the investigation has been "unusual and perplexing.") FTC Chair Lina Khan is known for her aggressive enforcement actions and has taken on Big Tech over wage theft allegations, antitrust issues, deceptive advertising, and noncompete clauses. Fortune
- Curly research. Unilever is putting in the R&D leg work to take up a bigger share of the $1.8 billion that Black consumers spend on hair care products each year. Its test salon, the Polycultural Center of Excellence, invites 50 participants each week to interact with new products. The global conglomerate is hoping to unlock some of the underlying science of products that customers with natural or curly hair will love. New York Times
- Bagel success. BetterBrand, founded by Aimee Yang, has raised a $6 million Series A and was valued at $170 million. The food-tech company has taken off with reengineered products that are made to be healthier, such as the Better Bagel, which the company claims is the carb equivalent of two banana slices. Yang said BetterBrand brought in more than $1 million in revenue at Whole Foods in its first five months on the shelves. TechCrunch
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Julie Rikelman, an attorney who argued the Dobbs case, has been confirmed to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Caty Rea has been promoted to VP at Bessemer Venture Partners. Marti Noxon has joined the board at Americares. Stylitics has hired Juliana Prather as CMO. Deputy has appointed Katrina Holt as chief customer officer. Margaret Haskell is headed back to the Bloc as SVP, director of strategic planning.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Daycare disruptions. The pandemic-era federal subsidy for childcare is set to expire in September. It was a lifeline to providers, who are considering raising prices, decreasing wages, or closing altogether when the payments stop. Nationwide, nearly one-third of kids and parents could see care disrupted. New York Times
- Clear message. A federal judge has deemed Arkansas' ban on gender-affirming care for youth to be unconstitutional for violating due process, equal protection rights, and First Amendment rights. The ACLU brought the suit on behalf of four transgender kids and two doctors and said the ruling sent a "clear message" that "fear-mongering and misinformation about this health care do not hold up to scrutiny." Associated Press
- Scoring deals. Kylian Mbappe is considered one of the best soccer players in the post-Lionel Messi generation. His mom is the one who negotiates hard for his contracts. Fayza Lamari once pitted Mbappe's home club Paris Saint-Germain against his dream club Real Madrid to get him a $43.7 million annual renewal, a move that led some to deem her difficult instead of a mastermind. The Athletic
ON MY RADAR
Will Ozempic change ‘body positivity’ for good? Wall Street Journal
Skims founder Kim Kardashian loves your body Time
What happens when you get so influential that you’re bored by your own aesthetic? New York Times
Fans built her an internet empire. Now they’re tearing it down Rolling Stone
PARTING WORDS
"I look forward to the day when we’re not the only table of Native creatives in these spaces. It’s incredible to be in those rooms with people I’ve idolized forever. And it still feels a little isolating at the same time."
—Reservation Dogs actress Devery Jacobs on attending awards ceremonies alongside Oscar winners
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