Salesforce Australia has appointed seasoned corporate IT veteran Gayan Benedict as its new chief technology officer and vice president of customer advisory.
Benedict was hired from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), where he was chief information officer from 2018 to October 2021.
Benedict revealed his new role on LinkedIn today, one week after revealing his departure from the RBA.
“I’m excited today to be joining the team at Salesforce as vice president of customer advisory and CTO for Australia and New Zealand,” Benedict’s LinkedIn post read.
“Two decades ago at Oracle I watched with interest as Marc Benioff left to establish an internet CRM company. Soon after then I joined CRM leader Siebel before spending 15 years in industry.
“In the intervening 20 years, Salesforce has transformed the enterprise technology sector – going from upstart to leader. I’m looking forward to joining [ANZ CEO] Pip Marlow, [senior vice president for strategic advisory services] Colin Timm and a world class team with a singular focus on customer success achieved through leading digital platforms, a strong community mindset and a values-driven culture.”
Benedict joined the RBA in 2013 as a senior manager before moving up to deputy head of IT the following year. He was named CIO in 2018.
As reported by iTnews, the RBA is also on the hunt for Benedict’s replacement, but has named deputy head of IT Stephen Smith as interim CIO.
Prior to that, he also worked in leadership and technical roles at Westpac, Travelex, Oracle and Deloitte.
Benedict joins a leadership team that includes a number of IT channel figures, including former Microsoft Australia managing director Pip Marlow as CEO, ex-Google Cloud ANZ boss Colin Timm as senior vice president for strategic advisory services and former Cisco ANZ channel chief Tara Ridley as vice president of alliances and channels.Got a news tip for our journalists? Share it with us anonymously here.
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