Grand Central Adds salesforce.com CEO to Board
Web-based business process integration (BPI) service provider Grand Central Communications Inc. added to its board of directors Wednesday, naming salesforce.com Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff as the newest director.
Grand Central’s Business Services Network enables ‘business process on demand’ through an open, scalable, fully managed network service. Businesses of all sizes can connect with their business units, partners and customers and create, share and manage reusable business processes without technology constraints.
Built on the software as service model, the Network transparently mediates the technology differences between applications, services, protocols, devices, partners and customers, without requiring hardware, software, staffing, consultants, maintenance, upgrade fees, use of proprietary protocols, or adoption of additional standards.
“Integration is one of the biggest headaches in IT. Just as salesforce.com has transformed CRM with its software-as-a-service model, Grand Central is transforming integration by dramatically lowering the cost, complexity and risk of integration, by providing integration-as-a-service,” said Benioff. “I’m excited to be on board.”
Benioff joins current directors Halsey Minor, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Richard Bergmann, CEO of SymphonyRPM and Randy Castleman, Managing Partner of Court Square Ventures.
“We are honored to have Marc on our board,” said Minor. “He has done a fantastic job demonstrating the value of the software-as-a-service model to customers, capturing significant market share and demonstrating profitability in a short amount of time. His expertise will be invaluable to us as we grow Grand Central by focusing on helping our customers create and share business processes on demand.”
Benioff founded salesforce.com in March 1999. In May 2003, President George W. Bush appointed Benioff co-chairman of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), a bi-partisan organization of business leaders and academics that guides the Administration on developing and adopting vital information technology.
Fortune Magazine called Benioff one of its Top 10 Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2003; BusinessWeek named him one of the 25 people responsible for turning e-business around; CRM Magazine recognized him as one of the 20 most influential people in the industry; and Silicon.com named Benioff to its list of Agenda Setters for 2003.
Prior to founding salesforce.com, Benioff spent 13 years with Oracle Corp., holding a number of executive positions in sales, marketing, and product development. Most recently, he was a senior vice president reporting to company chairman Lawrence J. Ellison, a founding investor in salesforce.com. Before joining Oracle, Benioff worked at Apple Computer and founded Liberty Software.