Accenture opens flagship innovation hub in San Francisco
Accenture opened a flagship innovation hub in San Francisco’s iconic Salesforce Tower. The hub is a state-of-the-art destination where clients work side-by-side with Accenture teams to rapidly ideate, prototype and scale innovative products and services for the digital economy.
As part of its investment in the Bay Area, Accenture is also adding 500 highly skilled technology jobs by the end of 2020 and expanding its national apprenticeship program. Named one of FORTUNE’s Best Companies to Work For in the Bay Area, Accenture is recruiting people with the critical skills needed to serve clients, including in high-growth areas such as digital, cloud and security.
“Building on our history of technology leadership in the Bay Area, this flagship hub helps clients develop and bring new solutions to market faster, making continuous innovation real, with tangible results,” said Julie Sweet, Accenture’s chief executive officer – North America.
Spanning five levels of connected, collaborative spaces to facilitate ideation and co-creation, Accenture’s flagship innovation hub is home to multidisciplinary teams of designers, developers and other technology experts who work with clients to investigate, imagine and bring to life new ideas in areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Bringing together the company’s full suite of innovation capabilities, the hub also taps the world-class talent of the Bay Area technology ecosystem, including startups, universities and industry leaders.
The new innovation hub is also home to the team that develops the Accenture Technology Vision, an annual forecast of the emerging technology trends that will shape business and society over the next three years and beyond. The 2019 report will be released tonight at 9 p.m. PST.
Home to the company’s 2,000 Bay Area employees, the new innovation hub is part of a network of 11 Accenture innovation hubs in North America, with other locations in Atlanta; Boston; Chicago; Columbus, Ohio; metro Detroit; Houston; New York; Seattle; Toronto; and metro Washington, D.C. These hubs are connected to more than 100 Accenture locations around the globe to seamlessly bring the best of the company’s global investments and insights to its clients on the ground in North America.
“We have been in the Bay Area for nearly 70 years, and our investment today expands our longstanding commitment to this important market,” said John Del Santo, a senior managing director at Accenture who leads its business in the U.S. West region. “The focus here is on our clients, our people and our communities and ensures that we have the critical talent and capabilities that our clients need to compete, grow and transform their organizations.”
Joaquín Torres, director of the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, said, “Accenture’s investment in our city is why San Francisco is the innovation capital of the world. I look forward to Accenture’s partnership in advancing Mayor Breed’s Opportunities for All initiative to provide training and job opportunities for our youth and San Francisco’s vision for equity and inclusion. Their investment is creating a footprint where local residents in our workforce have the opportunity to attain employment and advance Accenture’s global innovation agenda.”
San Francisco City Administrator Naomi Kelly said, “It is a great honor to be a part of the opening of the flagship innovation hub at Salesforce Tower. I commend Accenture’s commitment to STEM and its diversity and inclusion initiatives.”