Meet the Salesforce power players who are helping Marc Benioff take his $87 billion empire to the next level (CRM)

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When Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff started his company in 1999, it was little more than four guys and an idea in a one-bedroom San Francisco apartment. The server was stored in a bedroom closet, and one of his co-founders slept on a futon he stored under his desk. 

Now, 19-years-later, the company has transformed into a 29,000 person behemoth with more than $10 billion in annual revenue and a market cap of $87 billion.

And while Benioff remains the effusive and boisterous face of Salesforce, he didn't build the company alone. 

These are the 11 people who helped build Salesforce into what it is today —and the people charged with moving it toward an ambitious $22 billion revenue goal in the next four years and beyond.   

Parker Harris co-founded Salesforce with Marc Benioff in 1999, and has since masterminded the product and engineering side of the company. 

Harris — described by his peers as kind and demure — is considered the voice of reason at Salesforce, and an important counterbalance to Benioff's impassioned business strategy.

 Like Steve Wozniak was to Steve Jobs at Apple, Harris is credited with executing on the untethered ambitions of a visionary CEO. 

"Marc is showing us a vision, the direction," Harris told Business Insider in 2015.  "And I'm right there with him figuring out how are we going to get there. We bounce ideas off of each other to try to make it the right path together."

As chief operating officer, Keith Block manages the day-to-day at Salesforce, from growing its global sales and marketing units to keeping the company's 29,000 employees moving in the same direction.  

Analysts attribute Block's 2013 hiring from Oracle with Salesforce's move from serving primarily small customers to winning business with large enterprises.

Under Block's watch, Salesforce has signed more large enterprise deals than ever and continues to expand into new industries, turning itself into one of the largest business software makers in the world.

Salesforce has been signing big deals at a record pace, and now has roughly 150,000 customers that are under contracts worth at least $13.3 billion.

If Marc Benioff has a favorite in the organization, it's Bret Taylor, the former CEO of Quip.

Salesforce added Taylor to its team in 2016 with the $750 million acquisition of Quip, a cloud collaboration tool akin to Google Docs. Salesforce has since added Quip as a product offering, but what Benioff really wanted was Taylor himself.

"He's one of the absolute rising stars of our industry," Benioff told Business Insider in 2016. "It's been my dream to work more closely with Bret Taylor."

Taylor reports directly to Benioff, and has even attended monthly private dinners at Benioff's home. 

Two years later, Taylor is now president and chief product officer for Salesforce, where he runs the company's global product design, development and go-to-market strategy. 

One more thing to know: Before starting Quip, Taylor was chief technology officer at Facebook. He's credited with inventing the company's acclaimed "Like" button. And before that, he co-created Google Maps.

Benioff plans to grow the company from $10.5 billion in revenue in fiscal 2018 to $60 billion annually by 2034. And it's up to chief financial officer Mark Hawkins to make sure that it happens.

When Hawkins joined Salesforce in 2014, he brought along with him decades of experience running the financial side of enterprise tech companies like Autodesk, Logitech, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. 

Autodesk, where Hawkins was CFO for five years, has a similar cloud subscription model to Salesforce, so he came in with a leg up on the competition. 

But his job is much more than just making sure that Salesforce reaches its subscription revenue goals. To reach $60 billion, analysts believe Salesforce is going to have to go on an acquisition spree and expand beyond its existing understanding of customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Hawkins has gotten down to business, most recently securing the $6.86 billion acquisition of MuleSoft. Analysts are skeptical of the price tag, but they also feel optimistic that the acquisition will supercharge Salesforce's efforts to grow its revenue. 

Suzanne DiBianca runs Salesforce's philanthropy efforts — which is to say that she is one busy woman.

Alhough corporate giving and community relations are outside of the traditional business structure, it's a huge part of Salesforce's overall strategy. Benioff frequently pitches the company as a benevolent force in a sea of corporate greed, and it's up to DiBianca to make sure the company follows through on that promise. 

DiBianca is credited with creating Salesforce's famous 1-1-1 corporate philanthropy model, through which the company donates 1% of its equity, 1% of its product and 1% of its employees' time to non-profits or volunteer services. 

Corporate philanthropy is an impactful marketing initiative for the company as well, both with customers who want to work a company that shares their social values, and for employees who want a workplace that give them more than just a salary. 

See Also:

• Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff only had one failed startup: at age 13, but it put him on the path to being a billionaire
• MuleSoft shareholders are suing to stop Salesforce's $6.86 billion acquisition
• MORGAN STANLEY: Only 3 software companies will sustain 'hyper growth' — and their valuations could soar

SEE ALSO: MuleSoft shareholders are suing to stop Salesforce's $6.86 billion acquisition