• Salesforce CRM
• The AppExchange
• Successforce.com
• developer.force.com

Executive Team

The salesforce.com executive management team is made up of seasoned individuals who now seek to define salesforce.com as a world-class company delivering enterprise software as an online service.

The executive management team at salesforce.com is comprised of:

• Marc Benioff, Chairman & CEO
• Steve Cakebread, President and Chief Strategy Officer
• Parker Harris, Executive Vice President, Technology
• George Hu, Executive Vice President, Marketing, Applications, and Education
• Kenneth I. Juster, Executive Vice President, Law, Policy, and Corporate Strategy
• Graham Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
• Jim Steele, Chief Customer Officer and President of International Operations
• Polly Sumner, President, Platform, Alliances, and Services
• Frank van Veenendaal, President, Global Corporate Sales and North American Operations

 

Marc Benioff

Chairman & CEO

Marc Benioff is chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. He founded the company in 1999 with a vision to create an on-demand information management service that would replace traditional enterprise software technology. Benioff is regarded as the leader of what he has termed "The End of Software," the now-proven belief that multi-tenant, on-demand applications democratize information by delivering immediate benefits at reduced risks and costs.

Under Benioff's direction, salesforce.com has grown from a groundbreaking idea into a publicly traded company that is the market and technology leader in on-demand business services. For its revolutionary approach, salesforce.com has been lauded as one of BusinessWeek’s Top 100 Most Innovative Companies, named No. 7 on The Wired 40, and selected for the past two years as a Top Ten Disrupter by Forbes. The product has won the Software & Information Industry Association Codie Award for Best CRM for the past six years, and the Codie Award for Best On-Demand Platform in 2007, as well as multiple “Editor’s Choice” designations from PC Magazine. Benioff has been widely recognized for pioneering innovation with honors such as the 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, the SDForum Visionary Award, Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year by the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business, and being ranked No. 7 on the Top 100 Most Influential People in IT survey by eWEEK. He was appointed by President George W. Bush as the co-chairman of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee and served from 2003-2005, overseeing the publishing of critical reports on health care information technology, cybersecurity, and computational sciences.

Throughout his career, Benioff has also been committed to using information technology to produce positive social change. In 2000, he launched the Salesforce.com Foundation—now a multimillion-dollar global organization—establishing the “1/1/1 model,” whereby the company contributes one percent of profits, one percent of equity, and one percent of employee hours back to the communities it serves. In 2006, Benioff authored The Business of Changing the World, in which 20 great leaders reveal how businesses can go beyond writing a check and leverage the full scope of their resources to make a difference. Compassionate Capitalism, also authored by Benioff, is the first-ever best-practices guide for corporate philanthropy that illustrates the success of the integrated model. Acknowledging his commitment to building partnerships between business and society to improve the state of the world, the members of the World Economic Forum named Benioff as one of its Young Global Leaders, and in 2007 the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy presented Benioff with the coveted Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Award.

Prior to launching salesforce.com, Benioff, a quarter century veteran of the software industry, spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation from 1986-1999. In 1984, he worked as an assembly language programmer in Apple Computer’s Macintosh Division. He founded entertainment software company Liberty Software in 1979 when he was 15 years old. Benioff received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in 1986.

Some of the top awards Marc Benioff has received include:

• Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, 2007
• eWEEK Top 100 Most Influential People in IT, 2007 (No. 7)
• Business 2.0 50 People Who Matter Now, 2006 (No. 11)
• Network World Top 50 Most Powerful People, 2006
• NEA Outstanding Entrepreneur, 2006 
• DEMO World-Class Innovator Award, 2005
  
• World Economic Forum's Global Leaders for Tomorrow, 2005
• SDForum Visionary Award, 2004
  
• USC Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year, 2004 
• Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Northern California, 2003
  
• BusinessWeek ebiz 25, 2003
  
• Fortune Top 10 Entrepreneurs to Watch, 2003
  
• "True Friend of the User Community"—International Oracle Users Group, 1995
  

Some of the top awards that salesforce.com has received, include:

• CODIE Software & Information Industry Association Codie Award for Best CRM, six years in a row, 2002-2007; Codie Award for Best On-demand Platform, 2007
  
• The Wired 40, three years in a row: 2005-2007 (No. 7 in 2007)
  
• Forbes Top Ten Disrupters, 2006-2007
  
• Forbes 25 Fastest-growing Tech Companies, 2007 (No. 3)    
  
• CRN Top 25 Tech Breakthroughs Of All Times, 2007 (SaaS )
• BusinessWeek Top 100 Most Innovative Companies, 2006 (No. 79)
• CRM Magazine Market Leader, enterprise CRM, midsize CRM, and sales force automation categories, 2006
• Forbes Top Ten Disrupters of 2006 
• Harvard Business School Association of Northern California, Entrepreneurial Company of the Year, 2005
• InfoWorld Technology of the Year, 2003-2005
  
• PC Magazine Editors’ Choice, 2002-2004, 2007
  
• Gartner CRM Excellence Awards, 2003 
• Fortune Cool Company, 2001
  

Some of the acknowledgements the Saleforce.com Foundation has received on behalf of its work in the community include:

• Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Award, awarded to Marc Benioff, 2007
• Ethisphere Magazine Top Ethical Companies, 2007
• Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Award, awarded to Marc Benioff, 2007
  
• Business Ethics magazine: 100 Best Corporate Citizens, 2006 (No. 7)
• KLD Social Index; salesforce.com added to the Domini Social Index 400, 2005
• U.S. Department of Commerce Corporate Stewardship Award, 2003
  
• Points of Light Foundation Award for Excellence in Corporate Community Service, 2003
  

 

Steve Cakebread

President and Chief Strategy Officer

Steve Cakebread took the helm as President and Chief Strategy Officer of salesforce.com in 2008 after serving as the Company’s Chief Financial Officer for six years.  In this new role, he is focused on coordinating salesforce.com’s global strategy with a particular focus on expanding the Company’s international business. In addition, he will continue in his capacity as Executive Vice Chairman of the Company's majority-owned subsidiary, salesforce.com Japan. He is a member of the Company’s executive committee and reports directly to salesforce.com Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff.

During Cakebread’s tenure as CFO, salesforce.com grew from approximately $22 million in annual revenue during fiscal year 2002 to approximately $749 million in fiscal year 2008. He also led the Company through its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange at $11 per share in June 2004 with net proceeds to the Company of approximately $113 million.

Cakebread came to salesforce.com from Autodesk, where he served as senior vice president and chief financial officer and was responsible for all of the company's accounting and corporate finance functions. He also ran the company's strategic Information Technology Systems and Business Development.  Prior to joining Autodesk, Cakebread was vice president of finance for Silicon Graphics World Trade, for which he managed accounting and finance, information systems, sales and service administration.  He also held many key positions at Hewlett Packard, where he gained experience in global finance for high technology.

Cakebread holds a BS from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from Indiana University.

Parker Harris

EVP, Technology

Parker Harris founded salesforce.com along with Marc Benioff, Dave Moellenhoff and Frank Dominguez in the spring of 1999. As Executive Vice President, Harris oversees the development of all software for salesforce.com.

Prior to founding salesforce.com, Harris developed web application and salesforce automation expertise at Left Coast Software, a private consulting company he co-founded, as well as at Metropolis software, an early pioneer in field sales force automation subsequently acquired by Clarify.

Harris has over twelve years of software engineering and management experience. He graduated from Middlebury College with a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature.

George Hu

Executive Vice President, Marketing, Applications, and Education 

As executive vice president, marketing, applications, and education at salesforce.com, George Hu leads the global marketing organization, which includes corporate marketing, product marketing, and product management. He is responsible for the company's messaging and applications product strategy, and is a member of the company's executive committee reporting directly to salesforce.com Chairman & CEO Marc Benioff.

Hu joined salesforce.com in 2002 and has served in a variety of management roles including vice president of product marketing, senior vice president of applications, and chief marketing officer. In these capacities he has led the broadening of the company's product portfolio into customer service and support and partner relationship management, launched breakthrough new products including salesforce.com's Unlimited Edition, and driven the creation of innovative new concepts such as Successforce.com and the IdeaExchange.

Prior to joining salesforce.com, Hu held product management and strategic consulting roles at North Point Communications and Boston Consulting Group. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard College and a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Kenneth I. Juster

EVP, Law, Policy, and Corporate Strategy

Ken Juster joined salesforce.com in January 2005 as executive vice president of law, policy, and corporate strategy. His duties include overseeing legal matters, corporate development, global public policy and strategy, human resources, risk management, internal audit, worldwide real estate and facilities, and procurement. He is a member of the Company's executive committee and reports directly to salesforce.com Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff.

Juster has over 27 years of experience in government, law, business, and international affairs. He currently serves on the President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. He previously served as U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce from 2001-2005, in charge of the Bureau of Industry and Security. In that capacity, Juster oversaw issues at the intersection of business and national security, including strategic trade controls, imports and foreign investments that affect U.S. security, enforcement of antiboycott laws, and industry compliance with international arms control agreements. He also founded and served as the U.S. Chair of the U.S.-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and was one of the key architects of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership initiative between the United States and India. In addition, he was responsible for negotiating and signing the End-Use Visit Understanding between the United States and China that facilitated increased exports of U.S. high technology to China. Upon completion of his term at the Commerce Department, Juster received the Secretary of Commerce's William C. Redfield Award and Medal, the Commerce Department's highest honor.

Juster also served as the Counselor (Acting) of the U.S. Department of State from 1992-1993, and as the Deputy and Senior Adviser to Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger from 1989-1992. He was one of the key U.S. government officials involved in establishing and managing U.S. assistance programs to Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He also was actively involved in policy matters relating to China, Japan, Latin America, Israel, and the Persian Gulf. Upon completion of his tenure at the State Department, Juster received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award and Medal, the State Department's highest honor.

From 1981-1989 and 1993-2001, Juster practiced law at the firm of Arnold & Porter, where he became a senior partner and his work involved international arbitration and litigation, corporate counseling, regulatory matters, and international trade and transactions. Juster also served as a law clerk in 1980-1981 to Judge James L. Oakes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and worked at the National Security Council in 1978.

Among the awards that Juster has received are the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit in 2006 from the President of the Federal Republic of Germany (for contributions to U.S.-German relations); the Vasco Núñez de Balboa en el Grado de Gran Cruz Decoration and Medal in 2004 from the President of Panama (for contributions to U.S.-Panama relations); the 2004 Blackwill Award from the U.S.-India Business Council (for contributions to U.S.-India relations); and the 2002 and 2004 Friendship Awards from the U.S.-Panama Business Council (for contributions to U.S.-Panama relations). Juster also has published extensively on international economic and legal issues, including Making Economic Policy: An Assessment of the National Economic Council (Brookings Institution, 1997) and "The Myth of Iraqgate" in Foreign Policy magazine (Spring 1994).

Juster holds a law degree from the Harvard Law School, a Master's degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in government (Phi Beta Kappa) from Harvard College. He is a graduate of Scarsdale High School, where he was named in 2007 as one of its Distinguished Alumni. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he was a Visiting Fellow in 1993. He is a former AFS Exchange Student to Thailand (1971).

Graham Smith

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Graham Smith brings over 20 years of finance experience in the software industry to salesforce.com. As CFO, Smith is a member of the Company’s executive committee reporting directly to Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff.

Before joining salesforce.com in December 2007, Smith served as CFO of Advent Software, one of the leading providers of software and services to the investment management industry. Prior to Advent, Smith was CFO of Vitria Technology, an enterprise application integration software company. Prior to Vitria, Smith served as CFO for Nuance Communications, a voice-recognition software company, where he led the company through both private and public financings. Earlier in his career, Smith spent 11 years at Oracle Corporation in a variety of senior finance roles, most recently as vice president of finance for worldwide operations.

Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and politics from Bristol University in England and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

 

Jim Steele

Chief Customer Officer and President of International Operations

As chief customer officer and president of international operations, Jim Steele oversees global sales. He is charged with advancing the company's winning on-demand strategy, customer success, and growing the customer base.

Steele joined salesforce.com in October 2002 from Ariba Corporation, where he served as executive vice president of worldwide sales.

Steele brings over 25 years of technology sales and executive management experience to his new role at salesforce.com. Previously, he served in a variety of executive roles at International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation. Most recently, Steele was vice president of the North America western area, where he was responsible for over $9 billion in hardware, software, and services sales of a 10,000 employee organization. His prior positions at IBM include nearly four years in Tokyo as vice president of systems sales as well as general manager of telecommunications in Asia Pacific where he led IBM to record revenue and market share growth.

Steele holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Bucknell University.

Polly Sumner

President, Platform, Alliances, and Services

As president, platform, alliances, and services at salesforce.com, Polly Sumner oversees the technology and marketing for the company’s Force.com platform, alliances with global independent software vendors and service partners, and salesforce.com’s professional services organization.
Sumner’s move to salesforce.com in 2008 followed a 20-year career in executive management in the technology industry. Most recently, Sumner was president of global services at Telecordia. Sumner was president and CEO of Alphablox, where she grew the company from $5 million to $25 million in two years.
Sumner also held several different positions at Oracle from 1987 to 1999, including vice president and senior vice president roles in sales and alliances. Earlier in her 30-year technology career, Sumner worked at McDonnell Douglas and IBM.

Sumner holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science from the Northern Arizona University and a Master of Science from the American Graduate School of International Management.