Last summer, I had been at Salesforce about a year and a half, and there were a few things on my mind about my organization and team. Our executive leadership always appeared accessible, so I thought why not send a Slack message to Marc Benioff ? After I sent it, I was petrified! Was I being presumptuous? Why would the CEO of this tech giant even take me seriously? To my sweet surprise two days later, Marc responded. He said Trust is our #1 value and he wanted to make sure I was being heard. He encouraged me to reach out to his co-founder Parker Harris who was leading the Security organization for the summer while our Chief Trust Officer took a well-deserved two-month break. Cue the horror and imposter syndrome! Things were getting real. I bit the bullet and contacted Parker, who was already doing double-duty as CTO and acting CTrO, fully confident that he would deem me a pesky annoyance in his busy schedule. But not even 3 hours later, Parker got back to me. He listened with kindness and zero judgment. Gave me his perspective. Encouraged me to understand how he saw things. And I was bowled over. You know when they say down-to-earth and salt-of-the-earth? Parker Harris is the very personification of those idioms. Salesforce wouldn't be Salesforce without Marc and Parker. And I am glad for it!! Here's to amazing things for the next 25 years at Salesforce and to the next bright chapter for Slack with Parker as its technology chief! ✨️ 💖
Max Rodriguez
4mo
Trust is what every company should have in its people. Trust delivers confidence is all being able to do their jobs. I have worked at a company where Trust is not in their vocabulary, rather is mistrust was and still is the word of the day. I have been fortunate to have experienced companies where Trust is one of the fundamentals in the company's culture. Thank you for sharing this story.
Ignacio Sbampato
4mo
Leaders need to be accessible, and you are clearly in a company where they take that seriously. No wonder the success Salesforce has achieved.
Marianna Delsing
4mo
Couldn’t agree more Firdaus Modak so glad you are here and we have amazing people like you paving the way.
Dennis Rietberg
4mo
Truly inspiring leadership story! 🙌
Sudha I.
4mo
Could not agree with you more, Firdaus Modak! Here’s to slack’s next growth chapters with Parker’s leadership!
Jamison B
4mo
Amazing Story - I love this! You are amazing, thanks for sharing this story!
Arvind Ranganath
4mo
So beautifully written, thanks for sharing 🙏
Devesh Nautiyal
4mo
Appreciate your sharing of these valuable traits and virtues which ever leader should follow!!!
Principal Security Engineer at Salesforce
4moYears ago we had an entry level incident responder follow a playbook and reach out of a member of executive leadership to confirm something as part of an investigation, without realizing who he had messaged. When he mentioned to me and others what he did, we all of course responded with “you did WHAT?” He ending up getting a prompt response, a thank you, and an apology for creating the incident by not following a procedure properly. It’s a great crew at the top 😀