Salesforce
- Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block has stepped down from his role as co-CEO, about a year and a half after taking the role in 2018.
- Marc Benioff will again take on the role of the company's sole CEO, while Block will remain an advisor to him through this date in 2021.
- His departure comes as a surprise, as many industry watchers saw him as a potential successor to Benioff one day.
- The announcement comes as Salesforce released quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street estimates. The stock fell some 2 percent in after-hours trading in the wake of the announcement.
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Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block has stepped down from the role, about a year and half after he first took it on in the summer of 2018. Cofounder Marc Benioff is once again the sole CEO and chairman of the cloud software giant.
Salesforce shares fell over 2 percent on the news at the time of writing.
Before becoming the co-CEO of Salesforce, Block had served as chief operating officer since he joined from a 25-year career at Oracle in 2013. He was seen by industry-watchers as a leading candidate to succeed Benioff, in the event that he ever stepped back from his daily duties at the company.
Wall Street analysts saw Block's experience leading enterprise tech companies as key to the company's future growth, as it looks to relatively new business lines like Marketing Cloud and Platform. He will stay on as an advisor to Benioff until February 25th, 2021.
"It's been my greatest honor to lead the team with Marc that has more than quadrupled Salesforce from $4 billion of revenue when I joined in 2013 to over $17 billion last year," Block said in a statement. "We are now a global enterprise company, focused on industries, and have an ecosystem that is the envy of the industry."
Block's statement did not give a reason for the move, but he said he was excited for the next chapter.
The announcement comes as Salesforce released quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street estimates.
Here is what Salesforce reported for Q4 2020:
- Revenue: $4.85 billion. Wall Street expected $4.75 billion
- EPS (adjusted): $$0.66. Analysts forecasted $0.55.
- EPS (GAAP): Loss of cents $0.28 per share. Analysts forecasted 2 cents per share
- EPS (adjusted, next quarter): $$0.70 - $0.71 estimated. Analysts predicted $0.68.
- Revenue (next quarter): $4.875 Billion to $4.885 Billion billion estimated. Wall Street expected $4.83 billion.
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See Also:
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