Salesforce Says Goodbye to CMO Stephanie Buscemi, Elevates Platform Manager to the Role

Salesforce today announced that Stephanie Buscemi, its chief marketing officer for the past three years, is stepping down from the role and leaving the company. Taking her place is Sarah Franklin, most recently general manager of platform for the cloud-based software company.

Buscemi joined Salesforce in 2014 as svp of marketing for its cloud analytics platform, then serving as chief operations officer for cloud analytics and evp of product and solutions marketing before taking on the CMO role in 2018.

As top marketer, Buscemi reimagined Salesforce marketing strategies and launched its “Leading Through Change” video series, which has garnered more than 10 million views per episode.

Buscemi has also been a champion of diversity and inclusion at the company, serving as executive sponsor of Salesforce’s Inclusive Marketing training program and devoting time to mentoring women in the industry. In May 2020, Buscemi joined Adweek’s diversity and inclusion summit to discuss those efforts at Salesforce.

Franklin, who is taking over for Buscemi, effective immediately, has been at Salesforce for more than 13 years. She’s also an advocate for diversifying STEM and led the Salesforce team that launched Trailhead in 2014, an online, gamified learning platform that aims to democratize tech by making the expertise it requires more accessible to those interested in a career change.

The changes come on the tail of another big announcement that Salesforce released at the end of 2020: On Dec. 1, it came to an agreement with Slack to buy the office chat app for $27.7 million.