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Summary:
The original 'Activist CEO' or an avatar for his employees concerns? Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff reflects on the rise of Stakeholder Capitalism.
I believe business is the greatest platform for change. I believe that CEOs really have an opportunity, using their businesses, to improve society. That could be directly, making a commentary to politicians, building great products or making sure that their companies are net zero - I think in all of those cases, businesses are improving the state of the world.
So said Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff in conversation at this week’s World Economic Forum Global Technology Governance Summit, but it’s a sentiment that we’ve heard him express many, many times over the years - he even wrote a book about it! - and it’s a mindset that has won him the label of ‘Activist CEO’. That’s actually a term that he once told me he didn’t much care for, although it’s a mantle about which he appears to have become more accepting over the years, defining it in his own terms, as above.