Marc Benioff Wins The 2014 Crunchie For CEO Of The Year

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff had a whirlwind 2014 both professionally and personally and he’s capping it off with the Crunchie award for CEO of the Year.

Benioff made a $100 million donation to the UCSF Medical Center last year to help it build a new hospital that will bear Benioff’s name. The check was dubbed the “largest gift ever made” to the hospital by its operating organization.

The $100 million personal donation, however, paled next to the operating results of Salesforce, which helped to pioneer the software-as-a-service business model. The firm’s revenues have continuously expanded. In its most recent quarter, for example, Salesforce’s revenues totaled $1.383 billion, up 29 percent from the year prior. The company is worth north of $36 billion.

Moving from the digital to the concrete, in 2014 Salesforce picked up a significant lease in an upcoming tower in San Francisco in 2014 to occupy dozens of floors in the building. The total square footage? 714,000. The new name of the tower? The Salesforce Tower.

As San Francisco struggles to handle a burgeoning technology industry, and a tight real estate market, Salesforce, which is based in the city, is doubling down.

All told, Salesforce is growing, and its CEO is using his personal wealth, derived from his massive profits from the company he runs, to invest in San Francisco’s community. For all that, not to mention Salesforce’s consistent donation of profits and equity to charity, Benioff was a perfect candidate, and makes a perfect recipient of this year’s Crunchie for Best CEO of the Year.