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Leaving Las Salesforce: Paul Smith fashions a new role at ServiceNow

No, not the Nottingham-born designer of natty suits, the former Proctor & Gamble chap who also spent time in the channel

Salesforce exec veep and UK GM Paul Smith has quit to join cloud platform rival ServiceNow in the same role but for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

Starting from today, Smith takes over from Philip van der Wilt, in situ since January 2016, and who, according to a company spokesperson, "has decided to move on from ServiceNow. Philip is taking some time out for himself and his family and to explore new opportunities."

Smith's senior management roles in tech include time with now defunct Morse Group and Microsoft. He was co-founder and CEO of app company Umee before spending nearly eight-and-a-half years at Salesforce, with roles including SVP and GM, marketing cloud EMEA and exec veep of EMEA. He began his career at Procter & Gamble where he was a territory manager.

In a pre-canned quote toasting his arrival, Smith somehow made ServiceNow - a cloud-based provider of workflow tools - sound like freshly fallen snow.

"The pristine nature of the single Now Platform gives ServiceNow that rare combination of scale with agility. It's this exact blend that customers are demanding of their critical partners as they wrestle with digitally transforming their businesses to navigate the change that is yet to come.

"There are moments in your life when career-defining opportunities present themselves; ServiceNow is one of those for me. The talented workforce and commitment to customer and partner success set it apart from other global brands," he continued, unabashed.

ServiceNow gave no other reason for the switch in personnel. CEO Bill McDermott told an investor call in April that the company had seen "strong deals completed in EMEA, despite the challenging environment."

In terms of the proportion of GAAP revenue [PDF], ServiceNow's numbers in EMEA have failed to make progress against its strong home market in the US. It fell back from 26 per cent of total revenue in Q4 of 2019 to 24 per cent of Q1 2020. ®

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