UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

SCHEDULE 14A

Proxy Statement Pursuant to Section 14(a) of the

Securities Exchange Act of 1934

(Amendment No.    )

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Accenture plc

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2018 PROXY STATEMENT & Notice of Annual Meeting February 1, 2019-Dublin, Ireland NEW APPLIED NOW accenture

Accenture

December [7], 2018 10, 2019

DEAR FELLOWSHAREHOLDER:

You are cordially invited to join Accenture plc'splc’s Board of Directors and senior leadership at the 20192020 annual general meeting of shareholders, which will be held at 12:00 pm local time on Friday, February 1, 2019.Thursday, January 30, 2020. The meeting will be held at The Dock, located at 7 Hanover Quay, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2, Ireland.

The attached notice of the 20192020 annual general meeting of shareholders and proxy statement provide important information about the meeting and will serve as your guide to the business to be conducted at the meeting. Your vote is very important to us. We urge you to read the accompanying materials regarding the matters to be voted on at the meeting and to submit your voting instructions by proxy. The Board of Directors recommends that you vote FOR"“FOR” each of the proposals as listed on the attached notice.

You may submit your proxy either over the telephone or the Internet. In addition, if you have requested or received a paper copy of the proxy materials, you can vote by marking, signing, dating and returning the proxy card or voter instruction form sent to you in the envelope accompanying the proxy materials.

Thank you for your continued support. Sincerely, PIERRE NANTERME

A MESSAGE FROM ACCENTURE’S

INDEPENDENT LEAD DIRECTOR

Dear Accenture Shareholders:

I am pleased to write you in my role as Accenture’s independent Lead Director. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to thank you for your commitment to Accenture and for the trust you place in us as members of the Board of this great Company.

Before I step down as a director following the upcoming Annual Meeting, I wanted to share a few final words regarding the work we undertook during fiscal 2019.

Leadership Transitions—CEO and Chair Succession

The past year was a notable one, marked by a number of transitions, including the appointments of our new Chief Executive Officer, Julie Sweet, and Executive Chairman, &David Rowland. Fiscal 2019 was also a year of continued strong company performance and outstanding financial results, meeting or exceeding all the objectives in our initial business outlook for fiscal 2019.

The Company announced that Pierre Nanterme would step down from his position as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for health reasons effective January 10, 2019 and he passed away on January 31, 2019. When Pierre stepped down, we appointed David Rowland, our Chief Financial Officer at the time and a36-year Accenture veteran, to serve as interim Chief Executive Officer. KC McClure, our Managing Director—Finance Operations at the time, was appointed to fill David’s role as Chief Financial Officer, and I assumed the role ofNon-Executive Chair of the Board during this period.

Our Board engaged in a very rigorous succession process, culminating with our announcement in July of Julie Sweet’s appointment as Chief Executive Officer, effective as of September 1, 2019. On the same date, I resumed my role as independent Lead Director and David Rowland transitioned to become our Executive Chairman. Together, Julie and David, as well as our deep bench of extremely talented leaders, position Accenture very well for our next phase of growth and prosperity.

The planning and execution of a rigorous and seamless CEO transition is one of the Board’s most important functions. We as a Board are extremely proud of the process that was undertaken, including the Board’s unwavering commitment and full engagement throughout.

Lead Director Succession

I am also pleased to share that Gilles Pélisson was nominated by our independent directors to succeed me as our next independent Lead Director, following my retirement from the Board after the upcoming Annual Meeting. I know I speak for the entire Board when I say that Gilles is the right director to fill this very important role, as more fully described in our proxy statement.

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as a director of this Company and I am confident that Accenture is well positioned for the future.

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OFSHAREHOLDERS

TABLE OF

CONTENTS

Snapshot of Director Nominees

Our director nominees exhibit a mix of skills, experience, diversity and perspectives:

BOARD DIVERSITY

KEY DIRECTOR SKILLS

GLOBAL   EXPERTISE

SENIOR LEADERSHIP   EXPERIENCE

INNOVATION AND   TECHNOLOGY

FINANCIAL   EXPERTISE

INVESTMENT   EXPERTISE

PUBLIC COMPANY BOARD   EXPERIENCE

LEADERSHIP TRANSITIONS

This past year, Accenture has accomplished several seamless leadership transitions. In January 2019, Pierre Nanterme stepped down from his positions as chairman and chief executive officer for health reasons, after a remarkable36-year career and passed away shortly thereafter at the end of January. In connection with Mr. Nanterme stepping down, the following leadership transitions were effected, among others.

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Fiscal 20182019 Company PerformancePerformance*

Historical Financial PerformancePerformance*

Driving Shareholder Value Through Sustained Financial Performance

For the3-year period from the end of fiscal 20152016 through fiscal 2018,2019, our performance demonstrates our focus on delivering shareholder value.

See “Reconciliation ofNon-GAAP Measures to GAAP Measures” on page 73.

20182019 INVESTMENT HIGHLIGHTS

We continue to invest significantly in our business, including in the following key areas:

OUR STRATEGY

Our growth strategy starts with our clients and their imperative to transform their businesses in today’s digital world. We partner with our clients to build their digital core, to drive their growth agenda and to optimize operations, improving agility and competitiveness. We create value for our clients by leveraging our deep technology and industry expertise, which are underpinned by the power of our innovation, ecosystem partnerships and global scale. Key components of our growth strategy include:

OUR STRATEGY

We are focused on differentiating Accenture in the new digital world—to help clients disrupt rather than be disrupted, and to capture new growth opportunities in a very competitive environment. We leverage the following 6 building blocks to deploy our services at scale to support large, global clients across key markets and industries around the world:

DIFFERENTIATORS BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE Combining end-to-end capabilities at scale across our businessesstrategy, consulting, digital, technology and operationswith deep industry expertise to drive large-scale transformation for our clients INNOVATION ARCHITECTURE Leveraging our structured approach to continuous innovationfrom research, ventures and labs to studios, innovation centers and delivery centersto collaborate with our clients and partners to develop disruptive innovations ROTATION TO THE NEW Investing in new, high-growth areasparticularly in digital, cloud and security related services to extend our market position, drive our differentiation and competitiveness, and capture the next waves of growth ENABLERS LEADERSHIP Attracting and inspiring the best people, investing to further develop their highly specialized skills, and building the best leadership team in our industry ECOSYSTEM Leveraging our unique position as the leading partner of key ecosystem players, to bring the latest technologies and deliver innovative and industry-specific solutions to our clients INVESTMENTS Investing early and at scale in strategic acquisitions, in building assets and solutions, and in hiring, training, and developing the most relevant talent to accelerate our strategy and further enhance our differentiation 50/50 GENDER-BALANCE BY 2025 180,000+ WOMEN EMPLOYEES IN 2018 UP FROM 130,000 IN 2015

Advancing Inclusion & Diversity

Our commitment to inclusion and diversity is unwavering and we embrace diversity as a source of innovation, creativity and competitive advantage. We strive to create a truly human environment where people experience a real sense of belonging, and where they can be who they are, and be their best, professionally and personally.

We are making progress on our path to achieving a gender-balanced workforce by 2025. At the end of fiscal 2018, approximately 42 percent of our people were women, up from 36 percent in 2014. Additionally, we strive to ensure that all our people—women and men—are compensated fairly and equitably from the moment we hire them through the milestones of their careers here. When we see a disparity for any of our people—women or men—we fix it.

20182019 INTERIM CEO (CURRENT EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN) TOTAL COMPENSATION MIX(page 40)39)

Our compensation program is designed to reward executives for their overall contribution to Company performance, including the Company’s execution against its business plan and the creation of shareholder value, and to provide executives with an incentive to continue to expand their contributions to Accenture. The following reflects the mix of pay for our chairman andthen interim chief executive officer Pierre Nanterme,(and current executive chairman), David Rowland, for fiscal 20182019 performance:

PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE(page 37)

The Compensation Committee believes that total realizable compensation for the Company’s named executive officers should be closely aligned with the Company’s performance and each individual’s performance. As the graph below shows, the Company’s performance with respect to total shareholder return over a3-year period was at the76th83rd percentileamong the companies in our peer group. The realizable total direct compensation for our former chairman and chief executive officer with respect to fiscal years 2017 and 2018 and our interim chief executive officer (and current executive chairman) with respect to fiscal year 2019 (which includes compensation for his services as chief financial officer from September 1, 2018 through January 9, 2019), was inat the62nd64th percentile, which indicates that pay and performance are aligned. See page 37 for a definition of realizable total direct compensation.

TABLE OF

CONTENTS

We use the terms “Accenture,” the “Company,” “we,” “our” and “us” in this proxy statement to refer to Accenture plc and its subsidiaries. All references to “years,” unless otherwise noted, refer to our fiscal year, which ends on August 31.

of Association, form the governance framework for the Board and its Committees.committees. The Board regularly (and at least annually) reviews its Corporate Governance Guidelines and other corporate governance documents and from time to time revises them when it believes it serves the interests of the Company and its shareholders to do so and in response to changing regulatory and governance requirements.requirements and best practices. The following sections provide an overview of our corporate governance structure, including director independence and other criteria we use in selecting director nominees, our Board leadership structure and the responsibilities of the Board and each of its committees.

Printed copies of all of these documents are also available free of charge upon written request to our Investor Relations Group at Accenture, Investor Relations, 1345 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, New York 10105, USA. Accenture’s Code of Business Ethics is applicable to all of our directors, officers and employees. If the Board grants any waivers from our Code of Business Ethics to any of our directors or executive officers, or if we amend our Code of Business Ethics, we will, if required, disclose these matters through our website on a timely basis.

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE PRACTICES

Accenture has a history of strong corporate governance. We are committed to governance policies and practices that serve the interests of the Company and its shareholders. Over the years, our Board has evolved our practices in the interests of Accenture’s shareholders. Our governance practices and policies include the following, among other things:

LEADERSHIP STRUCTURE

Pierre Nanterme, our chief executive officer, also serves as the chairman of our Board. Our Corporate Governance Guidelines provide the Board with the flexibility to choose the appropriate Board leadership structure for the Company based on what it believes is best for Accenture and its shareholders at a given point in time. Our Corporate Governance Guidelines also provide that if the same person holds the chairman and chief executive officer and chairman roles or if the chairman is not independent, the independent directors of the Board will designate one of the independent directors to serve as the lead director.independent Lead Director.

The Board regularly reviews its leadership structure, and as part of the Company’s recent chief executive officer succession process, the Board thoroughly evaluated whether to split or combine the chair and chief executive officer roles and whether an executive or an independent director should serve as chairman. The Board has in the past combined the roles of chief executive officer and chair, most recently during Pierre Nanterme’s tenure as chief executive officer and chair.

After careful consideration, the Board determined that, at this time, having separate chief executive officer and chair roles is best for Accenture and its shareholders. As chief executive officer, Ms. Sweet is responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of our business strategy as well as leading and managing theday-to-day operations of the Company. With Mr. Rowland serving as executive chair, the Company continues to leverage Mr. Rowland’s experience. In this role, Mr. Rowland focuses on Board oversight and governance matters, and serves as the liaison between the Board and management, working closely with the independent Lead Director and our chief executive officer.

We believe it is important that the Board retain flexibility to determine whether these roles should be separate or combined based upon the Board’s assessment of the Company’s needs. The Board recognizes that no single leadership model is right for all companies and at all times, and will continue to evaluate whether to split or combine the roles to ensure our leadership structure continues to be in the best interests of the Company and our shareholders.

In addition, in accordance with our Corporate Governance Guidelines, the independent directors designated Marjorie Magner has served as our independent lead director since January 31, 2014. Lead Director, with Gilles Pélisson to succeed her as independent Lead Director, effective at the completion of the Annual Meeting (subject to hisre-election at the Annual Meeting).

The Board has determinedbelieves that the presence of our independent lead directorLead Director who, as described below, has meaningful oversight responsibilities, togethercoupled with a strong leader in the combined role ofan executive chairman and a separate chief executive officer, servesprovides the best interests of Accenture and its shareholdersCompany with the optimal leadership to drive the Company forward at this time. The Board believes that in light of Mr. Nanterme’s knowledge of Accenture and our industry, which has been built up over 35 years of experience with the Company, he is well positioned to serve as both chairman and chief executive officer of the Company.

INDEPENDENT LEAD DIRECTOR; EXECUTIVE SESSIONS

The lead directorindependent Lead Director helps ensure there is an appropriate balance between management and the independent directors and that the independent directors are fully informed and able to discuss and debate the issues that they deem important. The

In assessing who was best positioned to succeed Marjorie Magner as the independent Lead Director, the Nominating & Governance Committee considered the responsibilities of the independent Lead Director (as summarized below) as well as the core skills needed to fulfill this role, including, among others, each independent director’s ability to lead director, which are described intheir fellow independent directors, communication skills, personal effectiveness and sufficient experience and tenure at Accenture.

Marjorie Magner met with each of the Company’s Corporate Governance Guidelines, include, among others:independent directors to discuss the criteria, process and potential candidates, and, following these discussions, the independent directors determined to designate Mr. Pélisson as the independent Lead Director to succeed Marjorie Magner upon the completion of the Annual Meeting.

Independent Lead Director Responsibilities

The Board believes that one of the key elements of effective, independent oversight is that the independent directors meet in executive session on a regular basis without the presence of management.management, including the executive chairman. Accordingly, our independent directors meet separately in executive session at each regularly scheduledin-person Board meeting. Our independent directors held 4 executive sessions during fiscal 2018,2019, all of which were led by the lead director.

STRATEGIC OVERSIGHT

The Board is responsible for providing governance and oversight regarding the strategy, operations and management of Accenture. Acting as a full Board and through the Board’s 4 standing committees, the Board is involved in the Company’s strategic planning process. Each year,Periodically, the Board holds a strategy retreat during which members of Accenture Leadership present the Company’s overall corporate strategy and seek input from the Board. At subsequent meetings, the Board continues to review the Company’s progress against its strategic plan. In addition, throughout the year, the Board will review specific strategic initiatives where the Board will provide additional oversight. The Board is continuously engaged in providing oversight and independent business judgment on the strategic issues that are most important to the Company.

RISK OVERSIGHT

The Board is responsible for overseeing the Company’s enterprise risk management (“ERM”) program. As described more fully below, the Board fulfills this responsibility both directly and through its standing committees, each of which assists the Board in overseeing a part of the Company’s overall risk management.

The Company’s chief operating officer, who is a member of our global management committee and reports to our chief executive officer, coordinates the Company’s ERM program. The responsibility for managing each of the highest-priority risks is assigned to one or more members of our global management committee. The Company’s ERM program is designed to identify, assess and manage the Company’s risk exposures. As part of its ERM program, the Company:

As described above, the Board actively oversees a number of risks, which include cybersecurity risks. The Audit Committee, which is responsible for risk oversight, is continually updated by the chief operating officer regarding ERM, including cybersecurity concerns and the Company’s approach to managing cybersecurity risks. The chief information security officer also regularly presents to the Audit Committee regarding cybersecurity.

BOARD MEETINGS

During fiscal 2018,2019, the Board held 59 meetings, 45 of which were held in person. The Board expects that its members will rigorously prepare for, attend and participate in all Board and applicable committee meetings and each annual general meeting of shareholders. Directors are also expected to become familiar with Accenture’s organization, management team and operations in connection with discharging their oversight responsibilities.

DIRECTOR ATTENDANCE AT ANNUAL MEETINGS

All of our 11 Board members who served on the Board at the time of our 20182019 annual general meeting of shareholders and were subject to re-appointment at that meeting attended thatthe 2019 meeting.

COMMITTEES OF THE BOARD

The Board has an Audit Committee, a Compensation Committee, a Finance Committee and a Nominating & Governance Committee. From time to time, the Board may also create ad hoc or special committees for certain purposes in addition to these 4 standing committees. Each committee consists entirely of independent,non-employee directors. The charter of each committee provides thatnon-management directors who are not members of such committee may nonetheless attend the meeting of that committee, but may not vote. The table below lists the current membership of each committee and the number of meetings held in fiscal 2018.2019.

In support of our belief that diversity with respect to committee tenure is important in order to provide for both fresh perspectives and deep experience and knowledge of the Company, in fiscal 2018,2019, Nancy McKinstry rotated from the Audit Committee tobecame chair of the Compensation Committee, and in fiscal 2019, Marjorie Magner was addedCommittee. Effective January 31, 2020, subject to his re-election at the Annual Meeting, Arun Sarin will become the Nominating & Governance Committee.Committee chair.

AUDIT

COMMITTEE

FINANCE

COMMITTEE

NOMINATING & GOVERNANCE

COMMITTEE

		Board and Committee Assessments—A Multi-Step Process
				CONFIDENTIAL EVALUATIONS		◥
				At least annually, each committee undertakes an evaluation of its performance and the performance of its members, in accordance with its respective committee charter. Each director also undertakes an evaluation of the Board more generally as well as the lead director.independent Lead Director.
				INTERVIEWS		◥
				The lead directorindependent Lead Director and chair of the Nominating & Governance Committee also conduct a candid, in-person self-assessment interview with each Board member, designed to enhance his or her participation and role as a member of the Board, as well as to assess the competencies and skills each individual director is expected to bring to the Board.
				BOARD SUMMARY		◥
				Summaries of the committee, Board and lead directorindependent Lead Director evaluations are provided to the Board.
				FEEDBACK INCORPORATED		◥
				Policies and practices are updated as appropriate as a result of director feedback.

COMPENSATION

COMMITTEE

OVERSIGHT OF COMPENSATION

A number of individuals and entities contribute to the process of reviewing and determining the compensation of our executive chairman, andif any, our chief executive officer, members of our global management committee and directors:

ROLE OF COMPENSATION CONSULTANTS

The Compensation Committee has engaged Pay Governance LLC (“Pay Governance”) to serve as the Compensation Committee’s independent compensation consultant. Pay Governance and its affiliates do not provide any services to the Company or any of the Company’s affiliates other than advising the Compensation Committee on director and executive compensation. With respect to executive compensation, as requested by the Compensation Committee, Pay Governance advises the Compensation Committee on general marketplace trends in executive compensation, makes proposals for executive compensation programs, recommends peer companies for inclusion in competitive market analyses of compensation and otherwise advises the Compensation Committee with regard to the compensation of our chairman and chief executive officer and the members of our global management committee. Pay Governance also provides input for the Compensation Committee to consider regarding the final compensation packages of our chairman and chief executive officer, as discussed under “Executive Compensation—Compensation Discussion and Analysis—Process for Determining Executive Compensation.” In addition, Pay Governance provides input to the Compensation Committee for its annual review of director compensation, as discussed under “Director Compensation.”

Management separately receives benchmarking information with respect to the members of our global management committee from its compensation consultant, Willis Towers Watson plc (“Willis Towers Watson”). This information is based on a benchmarking approach developed by Willis Towers Watson and Pay Governance and is used by the chairman and chief executive officer in making his recommendations to the Compensation Committee with respect to the compensation of the members of our global management committee. The Compensation Committee also reviews this report. While Willis Towers Watson also acts as management’s compensation consultant in various capacities with respect to our global workforce of approximately 459,000 employees and assists management in formulating its compensation recommendations for members of our global management committee, the Compensation Committee has separately engaged Pay Governance as its independent compensation consultant to provide it with independent advice and to avoid any conflicts of interest. The Compensation Committee has assessed the independence of Pay Governance pursuant to the applicable rules and determined that its engagement does not raise any conflict of interest.

CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED PERSON TRANSACTIONS

Review and Approval of Related Person Transactions

The Board has adopted a written Related Person Transactions Policy, which provides that all related person transactions covered by the policy must be reviewed and approved or ratified by the Board or by the Nominating & Governance Committee. The Related Person Transactions Policy applies to any transaction that would be required by the SEC to be disclosed in our proxy statement.

The Nominating & Governance Committee or the Board, as applicable, will not approve or ratify any related person transaction unless, after considering all relevant information, it has determined that the transaction is in, or is not inconsistent with, the best interests of the Company and our shareholders and complies with applicable law. In reviewing related person transactions, the Nominating & Governance Committee or the Board will consider all relevant facts and circumstances, including, among others: