Today, Salesforce announced that David Schmaier has been named President and Chief Product Officer. In this role, Schmaier will lead Salesforce’s global product team, strategy and vision. Schmaier joined Salesforce through the company’s acquisition of Vlocity, where he was the co-founder and CEO. He has a deep understanding of industries and enterprise technology, with over three decades of experience building cloud, CRM and industry-specific vertical software companies as an executive, entrepreneur, board member and investor.
The Newsroom team caught up with David to learn more about his new role and hear his vision for Salesforce’s product strategy.
Q. Would you tell us a little bit about your career and what led you to the Chief Product Officer role at Salesforce?
Salesforce is an incredible company. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience this first-hand as a customer, a partner, and now a member of the team. I’ve been an admirer of Salesforce since the early days, and the things I admired then are still true now: we have the best products, we define the cloud and other technology shifts like mobile and AI, and we have a trailblazing leadership team, led by Marc, whom I’ve known since early in my career.
It’s clear every organization must digitally transform, and no other technology company speaks the language of the customer like Salesforce.”
David Schmaier, President and Chief Product Officer, Salesforce
I founded Vlocity because I saw the opportunity to bring the power of the #1 CRM together with industry-specific applications – on the world’s #1 SaaS marketplace, the AppExchange. And now, I’m honored to have an even bigger impact on both the product, the ecosystem, and most importantly, our customers’ success.
Q. What are you most looking forward to in this new role?
It’s clear every organization must digitally transform, and no other technology company speaks the language of the customer like Salesforce. I can’t think of anyone better positioned to help companies navigate this new world. We have more than 150,000 happy customers who rely on us every day. We have a thriving ecosystem of amazing partners. We’re a company of entrepreneurs and we take that entrepreneurial spirit and innovation at scale for our customers around the world. This is all based on the strong foundation of a world-class product team.
While Salesforce is the clear leader in every market we’re in, what impresses me most about the company is the strong values that underpin our actions, teamwork and culture. What we’ve built is impressive, but I’m even more excited about what’s to come.
Q. In 2020, the digital imperative accelerated faster than perhaps more than any other year. Three year digital transformation roadmaps were condensed into three months. What comes next?
There’s no question 2020 was a challenging year. We are operating in this all-digital, work from anywhere world and things won’t go back to where they were, nor should they. One of the silver linings has been seeing what companies can do when there is no alternative and the imperative is to connect with their customers in entirely new ways. Sales teams are fully distributed, companies are running contact centers from kitchen tables, digital marketing and commerce are the primary way to reach customers.
Through this acceleration, our core strategy remains the same: we help companies transform by unlocking the value of their customer data, across their business, to help them understand and act on insights. We provide a single source of truth to help companies sell, service, market and conduct commerce, from anywhere. What changes is how our technology is being used and the acceleration of innovation. For example, the agility and flexibility of our platform allowed us to rapidly launch solutions for COVID-19 emergency response, specifically Work.com and Vaccine Cloud which deliver capabilities like contact tracing and vaccine management. Obviously those weren’t on the product roadmap a year ago, but they’re what our customers need and we’re able to get them up and running in days, not months.
Through this acceleration, our core strategy remains the same: we help companies transform by unlocking the value of their customer data, across their business, to help them understand and act on insights.
David Schmaier, President and Chief Product Officer, Salesforce
Looking ahead to the rest of this year and beyond, we have an all star team, fantastic products and super exciting plans, but it’s impossible to predict the future. What we do know is that trusted customer relationships have never been more important. I’m ready to jump in, lead our product teams and be a trusted advisor to our customers.
