alumni

Lien Ceulemans comes from, in her own words, “a small, modest, normal and lovely Belgian family.” Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that she would one day be a leader at one of the top technology companies in the world. However, today, that’s exactly what she’s doing as the country leader for Belgium and Luxembourg here at Salesforce. But her story doesn’t start there, so let’s rewind a bit.

In 2009, after finishing her law degree, Lien had the chance to study in the United States at Stanford University. While at Stanford, she was exposed to many exciting technology companies in Silicon Valley. One companies that peeked Lien’s interest was Salesforce. Lien told us, “While studying at Stanford, I gained amazing experience. I knew that if I ever wanted to get something like that again, I needed to break away from the law firms and go work for a top tech company — like Salesforce.” And just a few short years later, that’s what Lien did. “One day, I hopped on a train to London, arrived at the Salesforce office for my interview and never looked back,” said Lien.

In January of 2012, Lien started at Salesforce as a Corporate Counsel covering the EMEA region. “I knew I wanted to come work at Salesforce because of the challenge. I am always curious about learning new things and I felt Salesforce provided me that opportunity. Another reason is because of the people. One of the things I always value highly is people and I knew Salesforce did as well,” she said.

Lien was at Salesforce for the next 9 years and worked in a variety of roles. Lien told us, “I started on the legal team and then transitioned over to the privacy legal team as a Privacy Counsel. In 2016, I got the opportunity to lead the European Privacy team. This was a time where privacy was becoming an extremely important topic for many organizations and it was great to see how Salesforce took a leading exemplary role in this debate, given trust has always been Salesforce's number one value.” In 2018, Lien took on a global role as the Vice President of Global Privacy and Associate General Counsel. “We no longer say privacy legal team. We say privacy team because we cover a lot more than just legal. We had a fantastic time and I am still incredibly proud of the amazing work this team delivered for the entire organization and our customers. Most importantly, I made life-long friendships,” said Lien.

In 2020, Lien made the difficult decision to leave Salesforce. She told us, “while at Salesforce, I was always surrounded by well-rounded business leaders, which always made me wonder what it would be like to become one of those leaders one day. I was very intrigued by that thought of leading the core function of an organization.” Then, one of Lien’s biggest mentors and sponsors, Chris Ciauri, left Salesforce for Google. Shortly after leaving, he called Lien and asked her to become his Chief of Staff. “Chris is someone I look up to. He is a fantastic leader that I wanted to work with and learn from. I still loved Salesforce immensely when I left but I knew that I needed to explore this opportunity for myself and for the future of my career,” said Lien.

We asked Lien what she missed most about Salesforce while at Google. She told us, “I don’t know what it is about Salesforce but it is just special. The culture really is second to none.” She continued, “when I left Salesforce I always knew in the back of my mind that there was a strong possibility I would be back at the company one day.”

Then, in early 2021, Salesforce opened up a Country Leader position for Belgium and Luxembourg. This was the exact role that Lien had wanted and something she knew she couldn’t pass up. “It was really a no-brainer for me when this position opened up. It would surround me again with fantastic, smart, and supportive leaders that I know I can learn from each day. It would give me the opportunity to continue the business side of the role and at the same time it’s for a country with people that I know and love,” said Lien.