Marc Benioff calls India a ‘model market’ for Salesforce

San Francisco: chief executive described India as a “model market” for how multinational technology firms can build at scale while integrating philanthropy and local leadership.

At a media interaction during Dreamforce 2025, Benioff said India and the surrounding region, including Nepal, Bhutan and Southeast Asia, “have a huge place in my heart” and remain critical to how the company thinks about global growth and innovation.

“Even other companies, I won’t go through the names, come to us and ask how we built a great company in India. I think we’re a model for that," Benioff said.

He credited Arundhati Bhattacharya, Salesforce India’s chairperson and CEO, for leading the company’s regional expansion. “We probably have the best CEO in India, not just in tech,” he said.

While avoiding financial targets tied to India, Benioff indicated that the country’s operations were becoming more tightly interwoven with Salesforce’s global innovation programmes, particularly in artificial intelligence and agentic automation. “We’re working all together in real-time now,” he said.

The Salesforce founder underscored the region’s philanthropic significance as well, noting projects across India, Bhutan, and Nepal. "These are very important to us,” he said.

The $36-billion software major views India also as a centre of strategic innovation under its expanding AI-led transformation.

Dreamforce, the company’s annual flagship conference, drew tens of thousands of participants to San Francisco this week, with its AgentForce at the core of the event’s product announcements.

(The correspondent was in San Francisco at the invitation of Salesforce)