Clara Shih Speaker Biography

CEO of Salesforce AI, Board Director & Entrepreneur; Author of ” The Facebook Era

Clara Shih is a distinguished tech entrepreneur, accomplished investor, and bestselling author. Currently, she spearheads artificial intelligence products and research at Salesforce, demonstrating her expertise as a leading AI speaker. Previously, she held a significant role leading Salesforce’s expansive Service Cloud. Moreover, Shih initiated the social CRM movement in 2007 with her groundbreaking Faceconnector application. This innovative tool seamlessly integrated Facebook and Salesforce CRM, marking it as the first business application on the Facebook platform. Consequently, Clara Shih is widely recognized for her pivotal role in transforming the perception of Facebook from a purely social platform to a powerful tool with substantial business potential. As a sought-after AI speaker, her insights into the transformative power of artificial intelligence are highly valued.

Bestselling Author and Thought Leader

Furthermore, Clara Shih is the author of the highly acclaimed bestseller, The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff. This influential work explores the strategic use of Facebook and Twitter for business, garnering recognition in prominent publications such as The New York Times and Harvard Business School. Subsequently, she penned Social Business Imperative, a sequel that urges companies to adapt to the evolving customer landscape with innovative business models. Indeed, The Facebook Era serves as a practical guide for executives seeking to understand and leverage social technologies like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for sales, marketing, and innovation. Shih astutely compares the “Facebook revolution” to the emergence of the internet, highlighting the power of interconnected people in the social graph. As a visionary AI speaker, she draws parallels between technological shifts and their profound impact on business.

Extensive Experience in Tech and Innovation

Before her current leadership in AI at Salesforce, Clara Shih cultivated a rich background in online advertising at Google and CRM at Salesforce.com, where she served as Product Line Director of the AppExchange. Subsequently, demonstrating her entrepreneurial spirit, Clara Shih departed from Salesforce.com to establish Hearsay Labs. This venture focused on providing social media tools designed to empower marketers in managing customer interactions across various platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. Her diverse experience across these technological domains underscores her credibility as an informed AI speaker, capable of connecting various aspects of digital transformation.

Distinguished Education and Global Recognition

Clara Shih’s academic foundation includes degrees in computer science, economics, and internet studies from the prestigious institutions of Stanford and Oxford. Additionally, she is a frequently invited keynote speaker at prominent global conferences, including Web 2.0 Expo and Enterprise 2.0, where she shares her expertise on social media marketing and the evolving landscape of technology. Her deep understanding of both the theoretical and practical aspects of technology, coupled with her insightful perspectives on artificial intelligence, positions her as a highly respected AI speaker on the international stage.

Clara Shih Speaking Topics

The Social Selling Revolution: How LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are Transforming How Agents Sell

Every day, a billion people share the most important moments of their lives on social media, from new jobs to newborns -- and everything in between. Your own social networks are full of these “social signals” and your competitors are acting on this information in real time. The days of cold outreach are over-- today's savvy agents leverage these real-time insights to get smart about whom to reach out to, when to reach out, and what to say as well as to build deep lasting relationships that result in renewal, upsell, and referrals. Bestselling author, social media expert and Silicon Valley tech CEO Clara Shih will walk through how to succeed in today's radically different selling environment.

Comprehensive Facebook Marketing Play Book

Thanks to Facebook, people are sharing more about themselves online than ever before. Not only is this affecting personal relationships, marketers too can use this information to better target their messages. The ultimate holy grail for marketers is a 100% response rate for their campaigns. The data shows unequivocally: response rates go up dramatically when the communication feels personalized or is endorsed by a friend. With hypertargeting, news feeds, and retweets, Facebook and Twitter give us the opportunity do both. Marketers need to be where their customers are and communicate via the channels preferred by their audiences. Increasingly, this is on Facebook. To be successful in the Facebook Era, marketers need to master the new skillset and consumer psychology of the social web.

Lean Startup Principles for Sales

Startup Lessons Learned explores what it takes to succeed in building a lean startup. The goal is to give practitioners and students of the lean startup methodology the opportunity to hear insights from leaders in embracing and deploying the core principles of the lean startup methodology. The day-long event will feature a mix of panels and talks focused on the key challenges and issues that technical and market-facing people at startups need to understand in order to succeed in building successful lean startups.

Digital Transformation and Customer Experience

• Use of modern digital communication channels such as video calls, online document sharing, text messaging, social media engagement to build and nurture relationships virtually • How to balance corporate brand and local/relationship manager efforts • Regulatory considerations, such as FINRA/SEC for financial services • Digital and Social Selling (Sales Effectiveness) in a Increasingly Digital World. How to leverage virtual channels to keep your sales reps productive and successful in the digital marketplace.

How to leverage LinkedIn and other social media for prospecting, nurturing customer relationships, as well as retention and relationship growth

• How to establish expert credibility and convey empathy over digital channels • Why this is a critical time for building customer trust which will last a lifetime • How to Build Employee Engagement in a Hybrid Workplace.

Special support needed for single parents and dual-working parents of young children

• How managers must manage differently than before • Setting boundaries, management team role modeling behaviors, no weekends/nights, virtual coffees, creating structures for more frequent and more personal interaction moments • How recruiting needs to adapt to a virtual environment of no in-person interviews or candidate dinners • How to think about returning to work