Vala Afshar

CEO

Burlington, Massachusetts, United States20 yrs 7 mos experience

Most Likely To SwitchHighly Stable

Key Highlights

Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce with extensive industry influence.
Author of bestselling books on AI and business strategy.
Host of popular podcast 'DisrupTV' with millions of viewers.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS marketing and customer experience leader with a strong focus on AI-driven strategies.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

MarketingPublic RelationsCustomer Service

Other Skills

BrandingMarketing AutomationCRMContent MarketingProfessional ServicesCloud ComputingLeadershipStrategic PartnershipsSaaSSolution SellingEnterprise SoftwareStrategyGo-to-market StrategyBusiness AlliancesBlogging

About

Vala Afshar is the Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce, where he advises businesses on the rise of Agentic AI and the future of advanced technologies. He is the author of several books, including the bestseller *Boundless: A New Mindset for Unlimited Business Success* (Wiley 2023) and *Autonomous: Why the Fittest Businesses Embrace AI-First Strategy and Digital Labor* (Wiley 2025). Before his current role, Vala served as Vice President of Engineering, Chief Customer Officer, and Chief Marketing Officer within the technology industry. He is recognized as a leading industry thought leader, with a million followers across X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn, and he holds multiple US patents. Vala has contributed to over 1,000 major media publications, is a weekly columnist for ZDNET, and has hosted the popular enterprise podcast "DisrupTV" for over a decade, attracting millions of viewers annually. AUTONOMOUS BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Autonomous-Fittest-Businesses-AI-First-Strategies/dp/1394357923 BOUNDLESS BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Boundless-Vala-Afshar/dp/139417179X ZDNET ARTICLES: https://www.zdnet.com/meet-the-team/vala-afshar/

Experience

20 yrs 7 mos

Total Experience

6 yrs 10 mos

Average Tenure

10 yrs 9 mos

Current Experience

Salesforce

Chief Digital Evangelist

Aug 2015 – Present · 10 yrs 9 mos · Greater Boston Area

Extreme networks

Chief Marketing Officer, Extreme Networks

Sep 2013 – Jul 2015 · 1 yr 10 mos

CMO, Worldwide Marketing, Extreme Networks
Led company re-branding project including new company brand identity, company logo and messaging - nominated a finalist in the 2014 MITX award for use of social marketing innovation
Responsible for implementation of a robust analyst relations (AR) program - Gartner, IDC, Forrester, ESG - with measurable positive outcomes
Responsible for all public relations (PR) activities including media relations
Delivered company's first mobile and adaptive website, fully integrated with community, marketing automation and CRM integration
Delivered company's first mobile application, targeted and field and channel sales enablement
Delivered company's first community platform (GetSatisfaction)
Delivered first marketing automation (Marketo) and CRM (Salesforce.com) integration framework resulting in marketing campaign KPI and ROI dashboards
Developed a converged content marketing framework - whitepapers, customer case studies, webinars, blogs, media publications, thought leadership CIO events, etc.
Responsible for all new products and services launch programs
Responsible for all corporate led marketing events and conferences including Interop, HIMSS, Educause, ISTE, Gartner Data Center, Supercomputing)

MarketingPublic RelationsBrandingMarketing AutomationCRM

Enterasys networks

3 roles

CMO and Chief Customer Officer

Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 · 1 yr

Responsible for global marketing and customer services organization, serving both as chief marketing office and chief customer officer.
Boston Globe named our company as the #4 Best Places to Work in Boston - 2012
Gold Stevie Award Winner for Contact Center of the Year 2013
Gold Customer Service Innovation Winner 2013 - Social collaboration technologies
Silver Customer Service Leadership Stevie Award Winner - 2013
Best-in-class CRM (Salesforce.com) implementation - Stevie Award Winner - 2012
Best-in-class customer satisfaction and net promoter score (81)

Customer ServiceMarketingCRM

Chief Customer Officer / Vice President of Global Services

Promoted

Jan 2007 – Jan 2013 · 6 yrs

Responsible for global services including worldwide call centers and maintenance services and professional services portfolio. Developed an award winning customer services and support organization (6 Stevie Awards) with industry's best customer satisfaction and net promoter score.

Customer ServiceProfessional Services