Salesforce recently announced this week to promote veteran tech executive Bret Taylor as the co-CEO of Salesforce, a role previously held by one man, Marc Benioff.
Now from the outside this may look a great idea, combining two Tech Leaders and visionaries into one, providing double the amount of leadership output. However, this is not the first time Salesforce have played this move.
In August 2018, Salesforce promoted then Vice Chairman and COO, Keith Block into the role of co-CEO, again collaborating with founder, Marc Benioff.
Keith Block stayed in the post for less than 18 months, before stepping down into an advisory role to the CEO, thus reverting to a singular CEO leader again, Marc Benioff.
When Block stepped down, this was during the time when Salesforce were continuing to experience record Qtr. on Qtr. growth, and the leadership change came as a surprise to many.
Fast forward 3 years, and Salesforce are shuffling the leadership pack and hierarchy again, and attempting take-2 of a co-CEO leadership model, with Bret Taylor taking up the new post.
Now co-CEOs are somewhat of a rarity in modern day business. Netflix operates a co-CEO model, and SAP once did too, however the latter abandoned the idea inside 6 months, stating that a "lone CEO model, would provide a clearer leadership structure".
Timing could be the reason that Salesforce have chosen dual leaders. With Salesforce publicly trying to move away from being seen just as a CRM solution, and into a broader platform. The acquisitions of both Slack and MuleSoft certainly pay homage to idea that Salesforce are attempting to move away from just being a CRM solution and given Taylor's key role in creating and shaping Salesforce's 'Customer 360' vision, there is logic to having him in the leadership hot seat, albeit a sharing seat.
Time will tell if Salesforce's leadership shuffle works, but given the growth the Salesforce is experiencing, and the ever-growing product stack, it is easy to see why a dual leadership model, tackling alternative issues and hurdles, makes business sense.
