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Diversity

Accenture's DEI Rollback: The Consulting Firm Reverses Course

In February 2025 Accenture began sunsetting the diversity goals it set in 2017, citing executive orders it must comply with. What the memo ended, and why it stands out.

By The WokeCorp Team Updated October 15, 2026
Accenture's office building in Buenos Aires, with the company name on its glass facade
Accenture's office in Buenos Aires. Accenture told staff in February 2025 that it would sunset its 2017 diversity goals, a notable step for a firm that also sells talent and inclusion consulting. · Photo: Roberto Fiadone via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Accenture sells talent and organization consulting to other companies, and for most of a decade it ran diversity goals of its own. In February 2025 it began taking those goals apart.

On February 7, 2025, Reuters reported an internal memo from CEO Julie Sweet. Accenture would start “sunsetting” the diversity goals it set in 2017, along with career programs for people of specific demographic groups. The memo said the change followed a review of the firm’s policies and the evolving US landscape, including recent executive orders it must comply with.

Key findings

  • Accenture is sunsetting the global diversity goals it set in 2017.
  • Career development programs for people of specific demographic groups are ending.
  • Diversity targets no longer count toward how staff performance is measured.
  • Accenture paused submitting data to external diversity benchmarking surveys and said it would review its external partnerships.
  • Sweet’s memo named the January 2025 executive orders as part of the reason, alongside an internal review.
  • The same month, McKinsey’s managing partner told staff the firm would keep pursuing diversity, so consulting firms facing the same pressure did not all land in the same place.

Does Accenture still sell this kind of consulting?

The tension is the consulting business. Accenture advises client HR leaders on talent strategy, which has included the design of diversity and inclusion programs. When the firm retires its own goals, clients can read that as a signal about the programs it helped them build.

The memo, as Reuters reported it, did not address the consulting practice. It framed the change as compliance plus an internal review of the firm’s own policies.

A group of young colleagues standing together with their arms around each other

Consulting firms including Accenture have sold DEI advisory services to corporate clients for more than a decade. Accenture’s own DEI rollback creates an obvious tension with its client advisory business. Photo: fauxels via Pexels. Pexels License.

The federal contractor exposure

Accenture is a significant US federal contractor. Until January 2025, federal contractors fell under Executive Order 11246, which had required affirmative action programs as a condition of federal contracts since 1965.

Executive Order 14173, signed January 20, 2025, revoked Executive Order 11246, told the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to stop enforcing affirmative action requirements, and directed agencies to have contractors certify that they run no DEI programs the administration considers unlawful. For a firm with Accenture’s federal business, that certification was the pressure point.

The memo came less than three weeks after the order. Its own wording, executive orders “with which we must comply,” puts the timing on the record rather than leaving it to inference.

The US Capitol lit up at night

Federal contractors like Accenture are subject to executive orders governing their DEI obligations. The Trump administration’s January 2025 executive orders revoking EO 11246 created direct legal compliance questions for companies like Accenture with large federal business. Photo: Diliff via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

The courts, after the memo

Accenture moved before any court had ruled. On February 21, 2025, a federal court in Maryland issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against provisions of the anti-DEI executive orders in a suit led by the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. On March 14, 2025, the Fourth Circuit stayed that injunction, which let the orders take effect again while the appeal went on.

So the firm made its call during the narrow window when the orders were in force and unchallenged in court, and the legal ground shifted twice within six weeks of the memo.

How other consulting firms responded

The peer comparison is the most telling part of the story.

  • Deloitte went the same way within days. On February 10, 2025, its chief people officer told US staff by email that the firm would sunset its aspirational diversity goals, its DEI Transparency Report and its DEI programming, after a review of government directives.
  • McKinsey went the other way. In a February 2025 memo, global managing partner Bob Sternfels told staff the firm would keep pursuing both diversity and meritocracy, which he called its “diverse meritocracy.”

Firms with the same federal exposure made different choices, which makes Accenture’s response a decision rather than the only option the law allowed.

The WokeCorp assessment

Commitment. The 2017 goals were real, measured, and tied to performance reviews, which put them further into the business than a statement on a careers page.

Outcomes. The memo ended the goals, the demographic programs and the benchmarking submissions, and named federal compliance as part of the reason. It did not say the programs had failed.

Core question. If Accenture’s advice to clients was sound, then retiring its own goals is either a narrow compliance step or a sign that the advice depended on the political environment. The memo argues the first. McKinsey’s opposite answer, from a firm under the same pressure, is the strongest evidence that it was a choice.

Business professionals gathered around a table in a modern office lounge

Consulting firms like Accenture depend on collaborative meeting culture to drive client engagements and internal strategy. The shift away from formal DEI commitments has reshaped how those conversations are framed. Photo: Vitaly Gariev via Pexels. Pexels License.

Sources

  • Reuters via The Irish Times, “Accenture scraps global diversity and inclusion goals,” February 7, 2025. Read October 2026.
  • San Francisco Standard, Deloitte DEI email, February 10, 2025. Read October 2026.
  • Consulting.us on the McKinsey memo, February 19, 2025. Read October 2026.
  • NADOHE legal updates, NADOHE v. Trump. Read October 2026.