From kitchen to Cloud: How Ajay Vij is steering Accenture's India engine

Lunch with BS: Ajay Vij, Senior Country Managing Director, Accenture India

Getting a gourmet Italian restaurant to open exclusively for lunch is rare in Mumbai. But for Ajay Vij, senior country managing director, Accenture India, all it takes is a phone call. And why not? Before he entered the tech industry in 2000, Vij was a chef with Oberoi Group — and hospitality, clearly, still follows him.

 

We meet at Romano’s, the Italian specialty restaurant at JW Marriott Sahar, which is usually shut for lunch. Today, it has opened just for Vij. That’s not all. The chef has rolled out a special three-course menu: Beetroot roulade to start, followed by truffle burrata salad, ravioli with pistachio, sun-dried tomato ricotta, and finally, a delicate Chilean sea bass. 

I’m curious: How does a hotelier pivot to technology services?

 

“I started as a chef, then moved into general management at the hotel,” Vij says. “That’s when I realised that I needed something more dynamic.” It wasn’t a mid-life pivot, but a considered one. “I was at a hotel with 80 rooms. I knew the trajectory. Even if it grew to 800 rooms, the nature of the work would remain the same. I needed something new.” 

Bangalore (now Bengaluru), which was then gearing up for the Y2K rush, offered just that. “The Jack Welch Centre had just opened. Lots of expats were staying at the Oberoi. IT was booming. I realised: This was the moment.” Back then CRM — customer relationship management — was the buzzword. “And who knows customers better than hoteliers?” 

That curiosity led him to Talisma, a CRM firm, where Rekha Menon, who went on to become chairperson and senior MD of Accenture India, and then chairperson of Nasscom, before retiring, took a chance on him. “She told me later she already had enough techies and finance folks. What she needed was someone who could stitch it all together. She thought hoteliers were best at that.” 

As the beetroot roulade is placed on the table, Vij, 60, reflects on what hospitality taught him. “Dignity of labour. Every cog in the wheel matters — whether it’s the steward mopping floors or the darban at the gate. You learn to respect each role and to step in yourself if needed.” 

The industry switch, however, came with shocks. “I went from knowing everything in a hotel to sitting in rooms where I couldn’t even understand the acronyms — SAP, CRM, BI,” he says. What helped him navigate that unfamiliar world? “Upbringing.  Confidence — that came from the Oberoi School of Hotel Management — and a people-first mindset. Tech, like hospitality, is ultimately a people business.”

 

By 2002, he had joined Accenture — again, nudged by Menon. “She said, come see scale. She wasn’t joking. Accenture went from 8,000 to over 350,000 people in India now.” 

Vij’s career and the Indian IT services industry have mirrored each other. As we are served our truffle burrata salad, he recalls those early years. He divides the three decades into three clear phases. 

The first phase, he says, was about industrialisation. “Cost arbitrage was proven quickly. But the challenge was: Could you scale it and industrialise it? Between 2002 and 2012, it was all about scale and skill.” 

The second phase — the decade that followed — was about digital and cloud transformation. “Our then CEO, Pierre Nanterme, said we need to go digital. And so we transformed ourselves.” 

Covid, he says, was a curveball, but also a catalyst. “It pushed the industry forward by a decade. We learned a lot navigating the disruptions of the pandemic.” 

Perhaps that’s why Vij doesn’t seem fazed by the artificial intelligence (AI) wave, a disruption many believe will rewrite the tech services playbook. 

“We’re in the AI cycle. We call this phase total enterprise reinvention through AI. If the life of a technology has three stages, we’re at one-and-a-half. Now is the critical phase,” he says. 

His role is pivotal to this reinvention. As country MD, his mandate is to integrate Accenture’s various business and corporate functions within India. He chairs the India Executive Committee, which includes all business leaders and several corporate function heads. “While we all report globally, we come together to bring it alive for India.” 

Is AI the next big shift? “It’s more seismic than Y2K. It’s closer to the internet going public,” he says. “But this time, India is at the front — not just following. As a country, we are leading that quadrant. We are hoping this changes our industry profile, from being a commodity mass to an R&D driven hub.” 

He sees the growth of global capability centres (GCCs) as a key validation. “GCCs are a huge plus,” he says. They’re bringing the rest of the world to India. “They’re here for high-end tech talent.” 

In 2023, Accenture announced a $3-billion investment over three years in its data and AI capability. “The underlying vision,” Vij says, “is AI-led reinvention. You could call it transformation, but at its core, every business will need to rewire how it works — across tech, talent, and operations.” 

India, not surprisingly, is central to this reinvention. 

“More than 40 per cent of our people are here. Most of our tech is delivered from here. Today, we’re not just doing scale; we’re doing complexity. Deep, high-end work.” His tone shifts from reflective to firm. “There’s no reason why India shouldn’t lead this reinvention — not just for Accenture, but for the entire industry.” 

The company’s early skilling push, he adds, was deliberate. “If AI is the driver, we can’t afford to play catch-up,” he says. “The idea was: Skill ahead of time. Stay ahead of the curve. Of course, the tech keeps evolving — so you train, retrain, adapt — but that’s the game.” 

This also helps with talent retention. “The kind of complex problems we solve out of India, that’s what keeps people motivated. That’s why they stay.” 

Vij acknowledges that jobs will inevitably evolve. “Will coding be done by AI? Yes. Will customer service jobs go away? Yes — they already are. The idea of a help desk is changing.” But he’s optimistic: This shift in productivity will free people up to take on different, often more interesting roles. 

According to a 2024 Deloitte–Nasscom report, India’s AI talent demand is expected to double — from 600,000–650,000 in 2022 to over 1.25 million by 2027. With the AI market projected to grow at 25–35 per cent annually, the real challenge may lie in bridging the demand–supply gap through aggressive upskilling. 

For Vij, that’s yet another reinvention worth embracing. 

“This is an old challenge,” he says. “Twenty years ago, the worry was that engineers weren’t industry-ready. They couldn’t talk to clients or lacked behavioural skills. We had to scale up soft-skills training almost overnight.” 

That experience, he says, laid the foundation for what he now calls the “X-model” of talent: Broad, adaptive, and capable of working across domains in an AI-driven world. “The human touch is becoming even more important in the age of AI,” he adds.

  Does he feel the pressure of driving this AI agenda from India? 

“I wouldn’t call it stress,” he says thoughtfully. “It’s more a constant need to spot opportunity in whatever’s unfolding.” Whether it’s AI disruption, a pandemic, or a global trade war, he sees them not as crises but as inflection points. “There’s always a way through. That’s how my team and I approach it.” 

India, he points out, is no longer just participating — it’s central to Accenture’s transformation, including its aggressive mergers and acquisitions (M&A) strategy. 

Accenture is the only IT consulting and services company with a strong and sustained M&A practice. In 2024, the firm made 39 acquisitions. In 2023, it invested $6.6 billion across 46 acquisitions. Three of those were Indian firms: TalentSprint, Excelmax Technologies, and Cientra. 

“Ten to 15 years ago, India was the tail of the acquisition story. Today, a significant chunk of the value is being delivered from India. And now, we’re also acquiring Indian companies,” he says. Acquiring Indian firms has been a game changer. The TalentSprint acquisition, for instance, is set to strengthen Accenture’s LearnVantage platform for tailored technology learning. 

Still, Vij acknowledges that the macro environment is among the most complex he has experienced in his career. “All five major disruptors — geopolitics, economic uncertainty, climate, shifting talent dynamics, and political churn in democracies — are converging. That’s rare. And it tells me the world is looking for change.” 

In such moments, he says, the role of companies like Accenture becomes even more critical. “We help others manage change. But Julie (Accenture’s global CEO Julie Sweet) has been clear: We must build our own credentials first. Whatever we offer clients, we should have tested on ourselves.” 

So what about Accenture’s recent decision to roll back its public diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) targets — a move that has sparked a debate across the industry? 

Vij’s response is measured. “Look, you can say we’re not declaring that number anymore, but that’s the only thing we’re not doing,” he says. “Internally, it was a great moment of reflection. Now the focus shifts. The question is, how do you run a more balanced organisation, not just chase one?” 

That shift demanded a broader mindset. “Earlier, if we had a skilling programme for women, we asked: Why not open it up to men as well? Because that’s how you build a truly balanced and sustainable organisation.” According to Accenture’s 2024 annual report, globally, women make up 48 per cent of its workforce and 30 per cent of managing director roles — numbers that exceed industry averages in India. For its larger Indian competitors, the women's ratio is in the range of 35-38 per cent. 

As the Chilean sea bass al cartoccio arrives at the table, I ask what his top three challenges are right now. He doesn’t hesitate. 

“The biggest one? The unknown. Earlier, you’d have visibility of at least two to three years. Today, there are just too many variables — economic, geopolitical, technological.” 

The second, he says, is skilling — and whether India as a country is ready for the pace of change. “It’s not just companies. Employees, academia, policymakers, we all need to embrace the idea that continuous learning is the only way forward.” 

The third is more intangible — and, perhaps, more human. “The ability to spot the right opportunity at the right time. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit of luck.” 

I ask if he still enjoys cooking, and whether any lessons from his hospitality days continue to guide him.

 

“Absolutely,” he replies without missing a beat. He draws a clear line from his past to his present. “Back then, it was all about guest delight. Today, it’s about solving client problems. That’s our core business — not marketing, not hiring, not real estate. We do all those things only so we can serve the client better.”