Interview with Émilie Sidiqian (EDHEC Master 2002), Executive Vice-President and CEO of Salesforce in France, and 2024 EDHEC person of the year

Emilie Sidiqian has always forged her own path off the beaten track. She is an EDHEC graduate, holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, has experienced months of immersion at the French consulate in Kyrgyzstan and France’s overseas territories, and has a 20-year international career at Accenture where she accompanied clients from all around the world through their digital transition. Eager to learn and explore new worlds, the Franco-Afghan former junior chess champion, saxophonist and jazz fanatic is now head of Salesforce in France. This passionate leader knows how to inspire her teams and channel her legendary energy into the success of her clients. Driven by the values of equal opportunity and convinced that economic performance must go hand in hand with a positive impact on society, she is making every effort to make artificial intelligence a lever for the benefit of all businesses and the common good. We recently caught up with her. 

How did you fall in love with the tech industry?

Technology fascinates me because of its ability to profoundly transform the economy and society. For more than 20 years, I have been helping businesses use digital technology as a driver for reinvention and growth. This experience has given me the opportunity to understand what is called a purpose-driven technology: the Internet, and now artificial intelligence, offer the same transformative power as the steam engine or electricity in the 19^th century. However, one can never deploy this type of technology without considering its impact on the entire value chain and assessing its social acceptability. Take the example of electric vehicles: their massive rollout involves rethinking the balance of power grids and electricity storage, as well as planning the installation of charging stations in harmony with the urban landscape, and reaching agreements with local authorities, etc. Working in tech has always stimulated my curiosity, pushed me to explore new trends and even encouraged me to travel. I love combining disciplines and asking myself how history, philosophy or geopolitics can shed light on the technological and economic transformations we are experiencing.

How do you see the acceleration in technological change? 

As a challenge, and I love being challenged! I had a great mentor in Pierre Nanterme, the global president of Accenture at the time I worked there. He told me that you have to be both a fast thinker and a fast mover. He also taught me that while daily performance is non-negotiable, it is essential to think long-term. This demanding mindset applies to all leaders, but it is particularly true in the tech industry.   

Do businesses have a role to play for society? 

Absolutely. Today, companies are no longer judged solely on their financial performance. They have responsibilities towards society and must act to address on issues that shape our collective future. It is that very commitment to doing well and doing good at Salesforce that convinced me to join the company. Since it was founded in 1999, Salesforce has dedicated 1% of its equity, 1% of its products and 1% of its employees’ time to projects with a positive impact. Each of us has 7 working days, paid in full, to give back to society what we have received from it. In France, we provide free products to non-profits, offer training to school dropouts in rural areas and manage donations platforms and meal distribution for the homeless. For us, inclusion and diversity are not just empty words. We welcome our employees as they are, fighting for equal opportunities. We help finance gender transitions for some of our employees, and what is commonly referred to as “maternity leave” is actually a 6-month paid parental leave, regardless of the family structure. We stand by these choices, even if they are not necessarily valued in all companies. In fact, we consider ourselves more of an ecosystem than as a company, and are committed to contributing to positive societal change. This is crucial in a context of increasing antagonism and isolationism. We therefore strive to take concrete action, such as reintegrating people who have been distant from the job market, or engaging as a partner of Paris 2024 to create social bonds through sport. 

What impact does Salesforce’s collaborative technology have on organizations?

Salesforce’s culture is that our customers’ success is our success. There is no distance between those who develop our products and those who use them. For us, the key is to listen to our customers and consistently seek their feedback. All our meetings start with a “Voice of the Customer” segment. We embrace this culture of feedback and continuous improvement at the highest level, as we are invited every three months to “hack” the strategy of our founder and CEO, Marc Benioff. It is through this process of constant questioning and learning that we continually innovate - for example by extending our suite of solutions beyond the strict domain of customer relationship management (CRM). 

What creativity does AI unleash?

AI is becoming the new nervous system of the economy and businesses. Until recently, it was primarily based on predictive statistical models and automation. Today, we are shifting towards generative AI, which profoundly transforms the way companies operate by leveraging the full richness of real-time data to automate time-consuming tasks, increase operational efficiency, and focus more on customer relationships and high-value tasks. Here are some concrete examples of what marketing, customer relations, customer service, or sales professionals can ask AI to do: for a financial advisor, analyze a client’s history to propose tailored plans and goals; for a car dealership, collect information from vehicle data and proactively schedule a maintenance appointment; for a marketing specialist, generate over a thousand product sheets almost instantly; for a sales rep, automatically generate conversational responses with a tone and style that reflect the brand to increase conversion rates. We must not miss this wave! AI is an extraordinary tool that is set to become a new colleague to every employee, enhancing their impact and expand their scope of work. Companies must seize the opportunity to train all employees in new AI applications, upgrade the skillsets and employability of all professions, and create new jobs. This is the condition for making artificial intelligence a source of progress for companies, employees and society as a whole.

Are there ethical limits to AI? 

Certainly. For a company like ours that serves BtoB enterprises, our strategy revolves around trustworthy AI to ensure 100% security and confidentiality of our clients’ data. This involves solutions such as automated toxicity detection, data masking or secure data recovery. These technical solutions embody an ethical stance. I'm pleased to highlight that France currently leads globally in terms of ethics and business data security. The CNIL has become our benchmark for Salesforce worldwide: being compliant in France means being compliant globally! 

Ethical considerations surrounding AI extend beyond corporate realms  and concern each of us as citizens. The mass production and automated dissemination of misinformation pose a significant threat to democracy, especially amidst political and geopolitical polarisation. With AI and social media, the scale of manipulating public opinion has changed. At all levels of society, we must train ourselves to identify hallucinations or detect problematic sources. Our best defense is cultivating critical thinking skills. 

Do Salesforce tools help reduce your clients’ carbon footprint? 

At Salesforce, we have championed a sustainable growth model from the beginning, placing it at the core of our development.. In 2013, we launched a global 10-year plan to make all of our operations with net zero emissions. We achieved this goal two years ahead of schedule thanks to the use of 100% renewable energy. Together with our major clients, we co-create models that anticipate key indicators, such as those aimed at reducing water usage for cooling data centers. However, the significant current challenge lies in managing the environmental footprint of generative AI. We are the first major tech player to advocate, ahead of  regulation, for making the carbon impact of AI models transparent. The entire industry must rally to ensure this revolutionary technology contributes to environmental restoration rather than degradation.

Has the representation of women in Tech evolved in recent years?

Only 9% of the female founders of start-ups receive funding, and there are just three women leading CAC 40 companies. However I remain optimistic. First, the Rixain law is contributing to changing the composition of executive committees, which will need to include 40% women by 2030. Additionally, in tech, we can no longer hide behind the low number of female engineers, since 65% of digital jobs do not require coding. This will become even more true in the future with generative AI. To take concrete action, in June 2022, I launched the "1000 Women in Tech" program with 40 partners and training organizations. It offers training or career transitions (towards roles like administrator, developer, technical consultant, technical/operational consultant or product owner) leading to internships or jobs within the Salesforce ecosystem. The good news is that it’s working! For me, inclusion and diversity are matters of conviction and values, but they are also a business imperative and the best compass to ensure technology progresses for everyone.