Salesforce has made three executive hires in response to efforts by activist investors to exert more pressure and control over the global CRM giant.
The new boardroom hires are:
- Arnold Donald, former President and Chief Executive Officer of Carnival Corporation and plc
- Sachin Mehra, Chief Financial Officer of Mastercard
- Mason Morfit, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of ValueAct Capital
Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce. “As highly respected business leaders, they each bring valuable experience to further enhance and balance the diverse skills on the Board and advance our value creation initiatives.
He added: “We look forward to benefiting from their expertise and insights as Salesforce continues to drive durable top and bottom-line growth and build on our position as the world’s number one CRM.”
One of the group of activist investors is Elliott Management which has built a multi-billion dollar shareholding in the CRM giant.
On Twitter, Ray Wang, Constellation Research Founder and Principal Analyst tweeted: “MyPOV: never a good sign when Elliott shows up.”
MyPOV: never a good sign when Elliott shows up. @salesforce #wef23
Activist Elliott Management takes big stake in Salesforce https://t.co/poJBggRYWj via @WSJ
— R “Ray” Wang 王瑞光 R.NFT #1A #Metaverse RuleTheWorld (@rwang0) January 23, 2023
Salesforce Job Cuts Part of Original 10% Announcement
The arrival of the big investors has fueled speculation and industry analyst conjecture about further job cuts or sell or spin-offs of acquisitions. Stories across the internet of 200 job cuts from a workforce of approximately 2,100 in Ireland have been answered by Salesforce as being part of the original 10 per cent announced back in January.
Nonetheless, Rishi Jaluria, Software Analyst, RBC Capital Markets, has suggested Salesforce needs to move away from building an empire and focus on its core markets. He points out that a sale of Slack, which Salesforce bought for $27 .7 billion, would now bring in about $12 billion, or $9 billion in cash if Salesforce retains a 20% stake.
- Salesforce to Cut 10% of Workers in New Year Slowdown
- Case Study Shows Slack to Teams Migration Gold Standard
- Slack CEO to Leave the Company
Slack Acquisition and Key Departures
Salesforce completed its acquisition of Slack in July 2021 and paid $27.7 billion, including shares. Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce, stated: “Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world.”
Analysis around the purchase suggested UCaaS vendors would not be so impacted, but for Microsoft, it was a warning that Salesforce could take them on directly with Slack.
At the time of the acquisition, the CEOs of both companies were optimistic.
“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink and reshape how and where we work,’ enthused Stewart Butterfield, Slack CEO and Co-Founder. ‘Salesforce and Slack are uniquely positioned to lead this historic shift to a digital-first world. I could not be more excited for what’s to come.”
Bret Taylor, President and Chief Operating Officer of Salesforce, enthused: “We’ve learned over the past year that the workplace isn’t snapping back to the way it was. Together, Slack and Salesforce Customer 360 will give every company in the world a single source of truth for their business and a single platform for connecting employees, customers and partners with each other and the apps they use daily.”
Since then, Butterfield has left Slack and been replaced by Lidiane Jones, an Executive Vice President at Salesforce. Bret Taylor also announced he was stepping down from Salesforce last November, leaving Marc Benioff, the company’s sole leader. Salesforce is currently estimated to be worth around $167 billion.
