About Us

• About the Tech Industry
• Board of Directors
• Contact Us
• Make a Donation
• Staff
• Submit Idea/Feedback

Order 2011 Vision Conference CD

Offering a long-term forecast of the federal IT (5-year) and U.S. Defense (10-year) markets...read more.

Marc Benioff

Marc Benioff
Chairman and CEO
salesforce.com

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 multitenant, cloud computing 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 leader in enterprise cloud computing. For its revolutionary approach, salesforce.com has received a Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, 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.

Benioff has been widely recognized for pioneering innovation. In 2010 he was awarded the David Packard Medal of Achievement and was named by Fortune one of the Top 50 People in Business as well as one of the Smartest People in Tech. He has been honored as the San Francisco Business Times Executive of the Year, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and the Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year by the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

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. Benioff is also the author of three books, most recently the national best seller Behind the Cloud.

Throughout his career, Benioff has 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—which established 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. 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. In 2007 the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy presented Benioff with the coveted Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Award and a year later welcomed Benioff to its distinguished board of directors. In 2008, for his thought and action leadership in corporate responsibility, CRO Magazine named Benioff CEO of the Year. In 2010 Benioff and his wife were honored by Barron’s as one of the top 25 Most Effective Philanthropists.

Prior to launching salesforce.com, Benioff, a 30-year 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:

• David Packard Medal of Achievement, 52nd Award Recipient, 2010
• Fortune Top 50 People in Business, 2010 (No. 18)
• Fortune The Smartest People in Tech, 2010
• Barron’s Top 25 Most Effective Philanthropists, 2010 (No. 19)
• San Francisco Business Times Executive of the Year, 2009
• v3.co.uk Top Ten Technology Visionaries, 2009
• InternetNews.com CEO Vision Awards, 2009
• VNU Top Ten Greatest IT Chief Executives, 2008
• CRO Magazine CEO of the Year, 2008
• 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
• Fortune Top 10 Entrepreneurs to Watch, 2003
• International Oracle Users Group True Friend of the User Community, 1995