Leadership · Advisory · Digital Transformation · AI
30+ years of
transformation.
AI is next.
Pritesh Gadhia has been at the forefront of every major technology wave from the pre-internet era through to AI — growing billion-dollar practices, rescuing stalled programmes, building high-performing teams and the leadership cultures that make change stick.
About
Passionate about helping brands deliver on their promises — not just to shareholders, but to customers, employees, and society.
Pritesh's career in technology and transformation spans more than 30 years — beginning at Oracle in the early 1990s, through PricewaterhouseCoopers and Procter & Gamble, and then Accenture. He has been at the forefront of every major technology wave: pre-internet enterprise systems, the dot com era, the rise of digital, mobile, cloud, and now AI. Few leaders in any room can point to that breadth of lived experience across the full arc of the technology industry.
A collaborative modern leader with a proven growth mindset, putting clients and people first. A member of the Accenture UKI Board for nine years and Accenture's General Leadership Committee, he has led or grown every practice he has held over the last decade by more than 20% — including growing Accenture Song UKI by 95%. His client-first mindset recently took a $150M programme on the brink of financial failure and turned it into a renewed, financially positive engagement with a $50M+ pipeline.
Outside the boardroom, Pritesh is a vocal advocate for men's mental health, raising over £20,000 for mental health charities through charity boxing. A speaker at MWC, The Drum, and The Marketing Society, he has been featured on CNBC, Campaign, and Management Today.
"On what it takes to build a team that performs under pressure, year after year" — in conversation with Sir Alex Ferguson on leadership and high-performance teams
Pritesh Gadhia
On Stage · Accenture
Leadership & Advisory
Digital transformation built the foundation. AI is where it goes next — and most organisations aren't ready.
01
Digital foundations determine AI outcomes
Organisations that rushed their digital transformation, leaving behind fractured governance, misaligned data, and change-resistant cultures will find those same problems amplified by AI. The prerequisite for AI that works is digital that worked. Pritesh has spent more than 30 years building those foundations and fixing them when they were broken.
02
The C-suite challenge is the same — and harder
Digital transformation taught us that technology is rarely the barrier — leadership alignment is. AI raises the stakes further. Pritesh has spent more than 30 years translating transformation agendas into the commercial narrative that secures C-suite conviction and sustains it through the difficult middle where most programmes fail.
03
Customer experience is where transformation value lands
This was true in digital transformation, and it is true in AI. Having led Accenture Song, Pritesh connects technology capability to the moment customers actually feel the difference. Strategy without customer impact is just cost.
04
Recovery will be the defining skill of the AI era
We have seen this pattern before: ambitious programmes, poorly governed, that stall expensively. AI will repeat it at greater speed. Pritesh is among a small number of senior leaders who has demonstrated the ability to enter a failing programme and turn it around.
05
People and culture are the constant
Every major technology shift has ultimately been a people challenge. The hardest work is building teams that can absorb, experiment with, and embed new ways of working. Pritesh's reputation as a people-first leader is the ingredient most transformation programmes miss entirely.
Career
Senior Managing Director Accenture · EMEA
Accenture · EMEA
Elite Client Delivery Lead (ECDL) certified. Deployed to rescue a $150M digital transformation for Saudia Airlines — running at a $48M EAC loss. Delivered a full reset across strategy, governance, finance, and execution. Recovered $26M in receivables to zero. Secured a $45M renewal and generated a $50M+ pipeline. Led 300+ FTE through a Ways of Working transformation.
Managing Director — Ecosystems Lead, EMEA Accenture Song · EMEA
Accenture Song · EMEA
Led the Ecosystems practice across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Built and scaled the Google partnership from $15M toward $40M. Established the Google Hub as an accelerator for client transformation programmes.
Managing Director — Song Lead, UK & Ireland Accenture Song · UKI
Accenture Song · UKI
Led 1,000+ FTEs across 13 acquired creative brands. Grew the practice 95% to No.1 Song Strategic Group globally. Delivered $1bn+ sales in FY22. Established the Song Advisory Board and a leadership programme for next-gen MDs.
Managing Director — Digital Lead, UK & Ireland Accenture Digital · UKI
Accenture Digital · UKI
Led Accenture Digital UKI — $1bn+ sales, 800+ FTEs. Founder of the Digital Factory-as-a-Service offering ($1.5bn+ total sales). Rescued the UK COVID contact tracing app — the most-used in the world.
Consulting to Associate Director Accenture · London & Global
Accenture · London & Global
15-year foundation spanning consulting, delivery leadership and practice development. Helped form Accenture Digital in 2014. Built lasting C-suite relationships across NHS, AXA, Boots, ESB, and NatWest.
Pre-Sales, Applications & Management Consulting Oracle · Procter & Gamble · PricewaterhouseCoopers · Lotus
Oracle · Procter & Gamble · PricewaterhouseCoopers · Lotus
A decade spanning the full early arc of the technology industry — Oracle (1992), Procter & Gamble (1995), PricewaterhouseCoopers (1998). Front-row experience of every foundational shift before the internet changed everything.
Selected programmes
01
NHSx
Government · Healthcare · Digital
Re-set a failing multi-organisation team and rescued delivery of the most-used COVID app in the world. CEO NHS-X: 'Best Digital Executive I have ever met.'
Value Delivered
Most used COVID app globally
02
UK Pharma Digital & Commerce Transformation
Retail · Healthcare · CX
Led a major end-to-end digital transformation, trebling online pharmacy prescriptions. CEO: 'A truly transformational experience that helped to change us from the inside out.'
Value Delivered
3x pharmacy prescription volume
03
Digital Factory-as-a-Service
Product · Platform · Scale
Founder of the Digital Factory-as-a-Service offering — building a repeatable, scalable delivery model that became Accenture's go-to enterprise digital capability platform.
Value Delivered
$1.5bn+ in sales generated
04
Major UK Retailer — Digital Transformation
Retail · Digital · CX
Digital Lead for the most ambitious digital programme running across Europe — delivering a full digital transformation (online and in-store) for one of the UK's largest retailers, with 121M customer transactions and 900M+ website and app visits per year. Record Black Friday: 45% sales growth and 13.5M digital visitors in a single day.
Value Delivered
£165M sales growth · 28% operating profit increase · $130M+ account sales
05
Global Airline — Programme Turnaround
Aviation · Transformation · Recovery
Recovered a programme where structural failure ran deep: top-down decision-making had disempowered the entire team, no unified vision, and delivery quality had significantly declined. Complete reset across strategy, governance, finance, and execution — not a patch, a rebuild. Rebuilt trust with the Group CEO and re-structured delivery governance.
Value Delivered
4 major releases delivered · Two-year transformation renewal secured
06
Accenture Song UKI
Practice Build · Leadership
Unified 13 acquired brands into the No.1 Song Strategic Group globally with 50% diversity — 1,000+ FTEs, 95% growth, $1bn+ in sales.
Value Delivered
95% growth since FY20 · No.1 Song Strategic Group globally
What people say
"Best Digital Executive I have ever met."
Client CEO
"Partnering with Accenture has been a truly transformational experience that helped to change us from the inside out."
Client CEO
"He fosters a culture of transparency, mutual respect and trust — confidence to address the elephants in the room, make mistakes and learn fast."
Senior MD · Accenture
"Pritesh played a pivotal role in turning the account around. His leadership was defined by empowering the right individuals, ensuring each person was positioned for success."
Client Programme Lead
"He provides a framework for decision making, creates communities to share ideas and supports team decisions. A truly caring and inspirational leader."
Senior MD · Accenture Song
"It's like a new dawn working with Pritesh as the head of Song UKI. A completely different organisation from the one I joined."
MD · Accenture Song UKI
Client portfolio
Over 30 years, Pritesh has worked with more than 100 client organisations across every major industry sector.
Leadership philosophy
"Transformation is not a delivery problem. It is a trust problem."
01
Radical clarity over false certainty
The most dangerous moment in any programme is when teams stop saying what they see. Creating environments where uncomfortable truths travel upward faster than good news — because late honesty always costs more than early discomfort.
02
Senior presence as a stabilising force
When a programme enters crisis, the instinct is to send more process. The right response is to send judgement. 30 years of pattern recognition enables a clear distinction between signal and noise before others see the shape of the problem.
03
Empathy is a delivery methodology
Consistently identified by teams as a leader who makes people feel heard, valued and empowered — not as a cultural nicety, but as the mechanism that unlocks accountability and sustains delivery quality across long, difficult programmes.
04
Commercial integrity as relationship infrastructure
Long-term client relationships are built on moments where you put the right answer above the convenient one. Recovering a client relationship means being the person who can say what no one else will — and then proving it with outcomes.
In the media
CNBC International
"Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness" — on leadership and mental health
Campaign Live
IPA iList 2022 — recognised among the industry's most influential leaders
The Drum
"We need to be more wrapping paper" — on creativity and digital transformation
The Marketing Society
Member profile — digital transformation, leadership, and industry impact
Advertising Week Europe
The future of customer experience — keynote session, 2021
Podcast · Spotify
Leadership, digital transformation, and the importance of asking for help
Get in touch
Leading, Mentoring
and Coaching.
Open to conversations about advisory, non-executive roles, leadership coaching, keynote speaking, and transformation partnerships.