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Look who just joined Salesforce... it's former European commish Neelie Kroes

It's an honour, says Steelie

Former European Commissioner "Steelie" Neelie Kroes is to take a seat at the board of perpetually loss-making SaaS pioneer Salesforce, the company confirmed today.

Clearly the one-time Eurocrat has not yet had her fill of working in a sprawling, ego-driven, bureaucratic organisation. Perhaps Salesforce’s CEO Marc Benioff will manage to change her mind.

“Salesforce is one of the world’s most admired companies and a leader in digital transformation,” trilled Kroes. “It’s an honour for me serve on the Salesforce board”.

The newbie will rub shoulders with 11 fellow board members including retired US army veteran General Colin Powell, Yahoo! chairman Maynard Webb, and Susan Wojicki, CEO at YouTube.

As anti-competition commissioner, Kroes was well known as going easy on US companies and some of their practices in Europe, but she will be able to open doors to Salesforce that execs couldn’t reach.

Benioff said of Kroes in a PR blurb, “She is an amazing and respected leader who has done extraordinary work at the highest levels of government, technology policy and business in Europe.

Kroes is currently a special envoy for Startup/Delta, a public private venture set up to help startup companies in the Netherlands. She has also worked on the board of McDonalds, AB Volvo and Lucent. ®

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