#13 – Esther Nai – Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability at Salesforce

Doing Good Podcast by Amra Naidoo

I promise I've got a great episode for you today. I'm sure a lot of the listeners out there have heard about Salesforce and probably even use it. But I'm pretty sure your imagination would be quite limited in terms of the type of social impact initiatives that they work on that are in line with their business. Well today you're in for a treat. I interviewed Esther Nai, who heads up corporate responsibility and sustainability programmes across Asia for Salesforce about exactly that. I'm quite familiar with their work in creating social impact so I'm excited to share this with you too. We chat about their 1-1-1 model, some case studies on impact that they've created, how they measure impact and most interesting to me, how Salesforce aligns the social impact with their business model. Enjoy!

Favorite quote from episode:

“I always open with a line that [Marc Benioff] says, ‘the business of business is improving the world” – Esther [25:40]

People/ items mentioned in this episode:

• Marc Benioff
• Salesforce
• org
• 1-1-1 Model
• Force for Change (Salesforce)
• Sustainable Development Goals

Get in contact with Esther on LinkedIn

Show notes

• Esther takes us through the history of Salesforce and their culture of creating social impact [03:15]
• How does Salesforce support nonprofits using their platform? [07:35]
• Measuring impact [11:30]
• Case studies on how nonprofits use Salesforce for social impact [16:15]
• Trends in CSR [18:30]
• How can you do good and business at the same time [25:00]
• What kind of things frustrate you about the work that you do? [29:00]
• “Most people don’t understand what exactly CSR people do in their roles besides getting people to volunteer” [30:50]
• A day in the life of Esther [32:00]
• Esther tells us how she got started in CSR [34:30]
• “It’s about being very honest about you can do and what you want to do” [37:00]
• Three Things [39:15]

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Let me know in the comments!