Co-CEO of Salesforce, Keith Block Steps Down

On Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020, CRM company, Salesforce (CRM) announced that its co-Chief Executive Officer, Keith Block was stepping down leaving the founder of the company, Marc Benioff to solely act as the CEO and chairman of the company. The leadership profile of Salesforce has since been edited and Keith Block’s biography already wiped off.

Mr. Keith Block stepped into the capacity of co-CEO two years ago after successfully attaining the positions of vice-chairman, president, and director of the company before taking his co-CEO position. Mr. Block started his career at Oracle before leaving in 2012, following the release of some documents where he made criticisms against the now late and former oracle CEO, Mark Hurd.

 Analysts’ believed that in the event where the founder and CEO, Mark Benioff was going to step down as CEO, Block would be next in line. This doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Though Block stepped down as a co-CEO, he would still remain at Salesforce, acting as an adviser to the CEO, Mark Benioff.

According to a statement reportedly written by Keith Block, he stated, “It’s been my greatest honor to lead the team with Marc [Benioff] that has more than quadrupled Salesforce from $4 billion of revenue when I joined in 2013 to over $17 billion last year. We are now a global enterprise company, focused on industries, and have an ecosystem that is the envy of the industry, and I’m so grateful to our employees, customers, and partners. After a fantastic run, I am ready for my next chapter and will stay close to the company as an advisor. Being side-by-side with Marc has been amazing and I’m forever grateful for our friendship and proud of the trajectory the company is on.”

The company went further to announce that former BT Group CEO, Gavin Patterson will assume the position of president and CEO of Salesforce International.

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE: CRM), an American cloud-based company offers customer-relationship management (CRM) services, as well as sells applications focused on customer service, marketing, analytics, and application development. Salesforce.com is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

In 2018 and 2019, Salesforce was ranked first and second respectively in Fortunes 100 Best Companies to Work For.

Salesforce, founded in 1999 by former Mark Benioff (a former oracle executive), Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff and Frank Dominguez, began operations after the automation software was written and launched in September and November 1999. The company raised $110 million after its initial public offering and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CRM.

Salesforce reported an earning of $127 million for the fiscal year 2018, and annual revenue of $10.480 billion, which represented a 24.9% increase over that of 2017. The company ranked 285 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United State companies by revenue for the year 2018.

Shares of Salesforce.com are currently trading at $181.27 per share.