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Hong Kong Clara Shih is a technology executive and entrepreneur, known for her pioneering work in social enterprise applications and artificial intelligence, transitioning from CEO of Hearsay to leadership roles at Salesforce and Meta.
Founder and CEO of Hearsay, a fintech SaaS company based in San Francisco, and a digital marketing pioneer. Shih developed the first social business application, called Faceforce, and subsequently authored the New York Times-featured bestseller, The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell and Innovate, which is now used as a marketing textbook at the Harvard Business School.
CEO of Salesforce AI. In this role, she oversaw artificial intelligence efforts across the company, including product, go-to-market, growth, and was previously CEO of Service Cloud CRM software business.
Head of Business AI at Meta, where she leads the development and monetization of the Business AI portfolio. She joined Meta in November 2024 after stepping down as Salesforce AI CEO.
Salesforce, under Clara Shih's leadership, collaborated with McKinsey to accelerate the introduction of trusted generative AI for sales, marketing, commerce.
Served as a board member for Starbucks.
Clara Shih was born on January 11, 1982, in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States at age four, first living in Akron, Ohio, and later Chicago. She demonstrated early academic talent, scoring a 1420 on the SAT in eighth grade and attending the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. During her time in high school, she participated in various extracurricular activities and volunteered extensively, including developing materials for K-12 physics education at Fermilab at age 15. Shih pursued higher education at Stanford University, where she co-founded the Stanford engineering public service center and was active in several engineering societies and a Google Anita Borg Scholar. She earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford in 2005. Following this, she was awarded the Marshall Scholarship, which enabled her to attain a master’s degree in Internet studies from the University of Oxford Internet Institute.
Shih’s professional career began at Google in corporate strategy after graduating from Oxford. In 2006, she joined Salesforce.com as a founding product marketer for AppExchange. While at Salesforce, she developed what is recognized as the first social business application, Faceforce, in 2007. This innovation led her to co-found Hearsay Social in 2009, a fintech SaaS company specializing in digital marketing, where she served as CEO and later as executive chairperson starting in 2020. Her expertise in social media and business strategy culminated in her authorship of “The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell and Innovate,” a New York Times-featured bestseller used as a Harvard Business School textbook. Her leadership and contributions to the tech industry have earned her numerous accolades, including “Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs,” “Fast Company’s Most Influential People in Technology,” and recognition as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
In 2011, Shih was elected to the Starbucks board of directors. She returned to Salesforce in February 2021 as CEO of Service Cloud CRM software and was subsequently appointed CEO of Salesforce AI in May 2023. In a significant career move, Shih departed Salesforce in November 2024 to lead the newly formed Business AI group at Meta Platforms. Throughout her career, Shih has focused on the intersection of technology, business, and social impact, continuously driving innovation in areas like AI and digital customer engagement. She advocates for responsible AI use and leverages her platform to educate others on its safe and secure application.
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