A former senior manager at Accenture has filed a lawsuit claiming he was repeatedly passed over for promotion and eventually terminated due to his gender, as the company allegedly pursued gender parity targets set by its CEO.
Syed Raza filed the complaint against Accenture LLP in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Illinois Human Rights Act, and the Family Medical Leave Act.
The case highlights tensions that can arise when companies implement diversity initiatives, particularly when employees believe such programs adversely impact their career progression based on protected characteristics.
Career trajectory cut short
According to the complaint, Raza began working for Accenture in May 2013 as a Senior Manager in the Applied Intelligence practice, bringing 20 years of consulting and corporate experience. In 2019, he moved from the Analytics Group to the Organizational Analytics practice.
Raza claims he consistently received positive performance reviews and generated significant business value for the company. The lawsuit states his “personal sales for 2018/2019 totaled approximately $20M, and he built Defendant’s Enterprise Analytics practice which tracked approximately $150M in annual sales.”
The complaint includes a quote from a Managing Director’s FY 21-22 performance feedback describing Raza as “one of the best business-focused data and analytics people we have…and a great leader within our business, operating at a Managing Director (‘MD’) level.”
CEO’s parity initiative
At the center of Raza’s allegations is a corporate initiative launched after Julie Sweet became Accenture’s CEO in 2019. According to the lawsuit, Sweet “announced her goal to achieve gender parity at Defendant by 2025.”
While Raza acknowledges this was “an admirable goal,” he alleges the implementation resulted in discrimination against male employees, including himself.
Promotion denials and credit diversion
The complaint details how Raza submitted his case for promotion to Managing Director annually from 2019 to 2023 but was denied each time. In one instance described in the lawsuit, Raza claims his female subordinate with documented performance issues and significantly less experience was promoted to Managing Director instead of him.
Raza also alleges that in 2020, he authored an influential paper on organizational strategies for post-pandemic work that became “the standard reference document internally at Defendant on the topic.” However, when leadership opportunities related to this work emerged, he claims they were given to female employees who “had not contributed to the solution development at all,” resulting in no sales attribution or credit for him.
Internal complaints
The lawsuit states that Raza began raising concerns about the gender parity initiative’s impact on his career in December 2021. According to the complaint, a senior managing director told him “he should not expect to be promoted anytime soon because Defendant’s gender parity targets required a certain number of female candidates to be promoted to MD first.”
Raza claims he expressed that this approach was discriminatory, and that the senior managing director agreed but indicated “there was nothing he could do.” A similar conversation allegedly occurred with Raza’s career advisor in December 2022, who also allegedly agreed the approach was discriminatory.
The complaint states Raza also raised concerns about the gender parity initiative through employee surveys between 2020 and 2023.
FMLA leave and termination
The lawsuit explains that Raza took FMLA leave in October 2023 following his sister’s death and to care for his ill mother. He returned to work on November 1, 2023, and was terminated less than two weeks later on November 13, purportedly as part of a “cost restructuring plan.”
When Raza inquired about the reason for his selection, the complaint alleges his career advisor told him it was “most likely” because “he had not developed the team within the practice he was aligned with and because his time spent in India had ‘impacted his productivity.'” This referenced time when Raza was working remotely from India while his sister was hospitalized.
Legal claims
The lawsuit includes five counts against Accenture:
- Gender discrimination in violation of Title VII
- Gender discrimination in violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act
- Retaliation in violation of Title VII
- Retaliation in violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act
- Retaliation in violation of the FMLA
Raza is seeking lost wages and benefits, compensatory damages, punitive damages (where applicable), liquidated damages for the FMLA claim, and attorneys’ fees and costs.
The case was filed on April 14, 2025, after Raza received his Notice of Right to Sue from the EEOC on March 24, 2025.
For more information, see https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25898079/raza-v-accenture.pdf
