Marc Benioff

Marc Benioff is Chair, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Salesforce and a pioneer of cloud computing. Under Benioff’s leadership, Salesforce has become the third-largest enterprise software company and the largest enterprise applications company in the world.
Benioff was named “Innovator of the Decade” by Forbes and is recognized as one of the World’s 25 Greatest Leaders by Fortune, one of the 10 Best-Performing CEOs by Harvard Business Review, as the CNN Business CEO of 2020 and Chief Executive Magazine’s 2022 CEO of the Year. He was named a “Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur,” one of France’s most prestigious awards for an individual, in recognition of Salesforce’s longstanding relationship with France and support to French Polynesia during the pandemic. Benioff received both the Yale Legend in Leadership Award and the Colin Powell Distinguished Leadership Award in 2024. He has been awarded a Society for Progress Medal for courageous leadership in integrating business performance and societal progress. In 2019, Benioff was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering. For his leadership on equality, Benioff has been honored by GLAAD, the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative and Variety Magazine with its EmPOWerment Award. In 2020, he and his wife, Lynne, received a George H.W. Bush Points of Light Award for their civic engagement.
Benioff founded Salesforce in 1999, and it is now a Fortune 150 company with 70,000+ employees, guided by five core values — trust, customer success, innovation, equality and sustainability. The company has been recognized as the Most Innovative Company by Forbes, a Best Place to Work by Fortune, and the 10th Most Admired Company in the World by Fortune.
Building a different kind of company, Benioff created Salesforce to not only develop great products, but also to have a positive impact on the world. On day 1, Benioff created the 1-1-1 model of philanthropy, committing 1% of Salesforce’s equity, product and employee time to the community since the company’s founding 25 years ago. He also co-founded the Pledge 1% movement. Today, more than 20,000 companies have adopted the 1-1-1 model. He is the owner and co-chair of TIME.