Salesforce appoints its first South African leaders, announces local expansion
Robin Fisher, senior area vice president, emerging markets, Salesforce, said:
“I am delighted to welcome Zuko Mdwaba and Linda Saunders to Salesforce to lead our growth in South Africa by working with our customers, partners and the broader ecosystem.
“Africa has a great talent pool, and we intend to collaborate closely with our partners and local institutions on programmes that provide skills and job opportunities to meet the continent's high demand for Salesforce skills, while also recognising Africa's potential as a global talent hub.”
Zuko Mdwaba
Mdwaba has over two decades of experience leading and developing technology companies in South Africa.
Prior to joining Salesforce, he held leadership roles at Atos, Oracle, SAS, and Workday South Africa.
Mdwaba will be one of the first Salesforce executives to be based in South Africa and will lead the company’s growth and expansion across the market.
“I have seen the success of Salesforce in South Africa, where adoption of cloud services has significantly accelerated over the last two years, supporting businesses to adapt to the digital world and deliver outstanding services and experiences to their customers,” said Mdwaba.
“I am delighted to join the Salesforce team to ensure we capture the tremendous opportunity in South Africa and contribute to the country’s development and growth story in a meaningful way.”
Linda Saunders
Saunders has broad experience helping companies in their digital transformation journey.
In her role as head of solution engineering, she will support Salesforce customers to develop their businesses’ digital capabilities and will also play a leading role in supporting organisations and individuals to gain new digital skills through initiatives such as Salesforce’s online learning platform Trailhead.
Salesforce's presence in SA
The company said the following in a statement:
“South Africa is a rapidly developing and youthful market with enormous potential. Salesforce has established its presence in the country over the last decade through its growing ecosystem of partners and customers which IDC estimates will generate 31,800 new jobs and $5.1bn in new revenue in South Africa in the period of 2020-2026.
“The company’s growing customer base has been fuelled by businesses accelerating their digital transformation and partnering with Salesforce.”
