Salesforce CMO Stephanie Buscemi exits

Salesforce chief marketing officer Stephanie Buscemi is exiting after nearly seven years with the cloud-based software company.

Buscemi, who has been CMO for two-and-a-half years, announced her departure on Twitter on Tuesday (January 5) to start "the next phase of my journey".

Change is constant, and our biggest leaps of growth are with change. After 6.5+ years, I've decided to leave @Salesforce for the next phase of my journey. Thank you @benioff @btaylor and Salesforce marketers for the privilege!

— Stephanie Buscemi (@sbuscemi) January 5, 2021

She will be replaced by Sarah Franklin, who is currently general manager of platform.

Sarah Franklin

Buscemi first joined Salesforce in 2014 as SVP of marketing for the company’s Analytics Cloud. She was promoted rapidly to COO of Analytics Cloud, and then EVP of product and solutions marketing. She took up the CMO role in 2018, leading a global team of 1,700 marketers, and was last year named as one of the world's '50 Most Influential CMOs' by Forbes. Prior to joining Salesforce, Buscemi was CMO of IHS Markit and SVP of marketing at SAP.

Where Buscemi has a purely marketing background, her replacement Franklin will bring a "combination of technical expertise and creativity to the CMO role", according to Salesforce. Franklin has led the company’s developer initiatives since joining 13 years ago. She also oversees learning platform Trailhead, a free resource for aspiring workers to learn Salesforce. She has a background in chemical engineering and software development.