As well as being the #1 CRM platform in the world, Salesforce has cultivated a booming community of inspiring and insightful influencers. If you want to stay up to date with what’s happening in the ecosystem, the hottest new features, and unmissable events, you need to follow these incredible evangelists.
I didn’t want this to be your typical list of Salesforce influencers though; I wanted to spotlight some community members you may be less familiar with, who are delivering outstanding content. It goes without saying that you should definitely follow the Salesforce all-time greats like Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, and newly promoted to co-CEO Bret Taylor, but you might find some new gems in the list below – listed in no particular order… they’re all awesome!
Adam Olshansky
Salesforce Engineer – Google
If you haven’t met Adam yet, you are missing out – he is one of the nicest people in the Salesforce ecosystem! Adam is extremely passionate about giving back to the community. He’s a 15 x certified Salesforce MVP, frequent speaker at events and user groups, and Pluralsight author. Adam spoke at my user group and it was, without a doubt, the best talk of 2021…
Tim Combridge
Founder – Force Mastery
Tim is 10 x Salesforce certified and one of our most frequent guest authors at Salesforce Ben. He has established himself as an exceptional teacher and leader when it comes to Salesforce Flow. Check out his articles here!
Skye Tyler
Senior Consultant – Exponent Partners
Skye is passionate about helping non-profits and is also a key voice when it comes to increasing diversity in the Salesforce ecosystem. Skye holds nine Salesforce certifications, mentors and participates in initiatives such as Vetforce.
Ben McCarthy
Founder – SalesforceBen.com
The one and only Ben McCarthy, aka ‘Salesforce Ben’, has to feature on any list of Salesforce influencers. After founding SalesforceBen.com in 2014, he has managed to grow it into the biggest Salesforce community blog in the world. Ben has six Salesforce certifications, is Non-Executive Director at Cloud Orca, and is author of Secrets to Building a Salesforce Consultancy.
David Liu
Technical Architect – Google
Where to start… David is one of the best known MVPs in the world! He has 18(!) Salesforce certifications and one of the most successful training sites for aspiring Developers: SF99.com.
SF99.com is packed full of incredible content, including beginner tutorials and success stories. He has multiple free courses from “Fundamental Salesforce Coding Techniques” to “The Power of SOQL”.
I can also personally vouch that he is a fantastic speaker, so if you ever get a chance to go to an event where he is running a session, take my word for it and don’t miss out.
Nadina D. Lisbon
Salesforce Architect – Tradeshift
Nadina is a Salesforce MVP, RAD coach, and user group leader. She’s inspiring women everywhere to learn to code, which is why we had to ask her to write something for SalesforceBen.com! Check out her piece on how to “Create Lightning Web Components (LWC) Using Quick Actions”.
Rakesh Gupta
Senior Solution Architect – IBM
In my mind, Rakesh is the original automation guru! He is a Salesforce MVP, holds a scary number of certifications, and is the founder of Automation Champion and Automation Hour. He provides blogs and webinars designed to help you navigate the tricky world of automation!
Jessica Murphy
Edupreneur and Founder – East First Consulting
Salesforce MVP and WITDEVS co-leader, Jessica, is a co-founder of 100DaysofTrailhead, an educational consultancy, focused on supporting continuous learning through gamification while providing learning resources, career coaching, and corporate training.
Bradley Rice
Salesforce Career Development Expert – TalentStacker
With over 10 years of experience in the Salesforce space, Bradley has been an internal admin, a consultant with large firms, and for the past six years has owned and operated his own independent consulting business, Honest IT. He is also the founder of Talent Stacker, a platform designed to help individuals land Salesforce jobs and advance their Salesforce careers!
Ashish Agarwal
Salesforce Architect
Ashish is an independent Salesforce Architect, trainer and blogger with 25 Salesforce certifications and 1000+ Trailhead badges! His blog provides quick tips and step-by-step tutorials on all things Salesforce.
Rachel Watson
Tech Architecture Delivery Associate Manager – Accenture
Rachel is a Salesforce MVP and co-founder of 100DaysofTrailhead! She has founded multiple initiatives and community groups that focus on professional development, career advice, and increasing diversity including WITDEVS, Phoenix Salesforce Saturday, and Saasie Tech Socials.
Gaurav Kheterpal
Chief Learning Officer & Board of Directors – MTX Group
Another incredible Salesforce MVP, Gaurav has an astonishing 40 Salesforce certifications! He is a very well-known speaker in the community, runs the Jaipur Developer Group, and has two courses on Pluralsight: “Demystifying Salesforce eCommerce” and “How to Mobilize Your Salesforce App”.
Steve Molis
Steve Molis, aka “Steve Mo”, is the ultimate Answers Leader and a longtime Salesforce MVP.
He has racked up thousands of answers (and best answers) – in fact, I don’t know anyone that doesn’t owe him a beer! It’s not just the sheer volume of answers – it’s the amount of time and effort he puts into these answers. He will walk you through your problem step by step, with images/screenshots to make sure the issue gets resolved.
Fun fact – I did a search on the Trailblazer Community to check his number of answers/best answers, and someone has created the hashtag “#Steve Molis is a God”. It wasn’t me (promise) but I do agree. Steve was one of the first people I came across at the very start of my own journey with Salesforce, and he has helped me countless times over the years on the Answers forum.
Stacey Whitaker
Salesforce Product Owner Team Lead – Innovate
8 x certified, Salesforce MVP, Stacey, is a well known public speaker and advocate for equality. She also runs Campfire Stories, a Salesforce podcast that celebrates and shares the stories of inspiring trailblazers.
Dan Appleman
CTO/Co-Founder – Full Circle Insights
As part of researching this article, I started a conversation on Twitter to ask the Trailblazer Community who they felt were key influencers. Dan Appleman came up over and over again and it’s clear why. Dan has authored 26 courses on Pluralsight on topics from “Leading Virtual Teams” to “Getting Started with JavaScript in Salesforce”. He has also written several books including “Advanced Apex Programming”.
Daryl Moon
Salesforce Improvement Specialist – Tritium
Daryl is fast establishing himself as a Flow and automation specialist, blogging and creating courses on his site CertifyCRM.com. He has five certifications and over 80 Trailhead badges! Check out his article on SalesforceBen.com: “The History and Future of Salesforce Automation”.
Melissa Hill Dees
Founding Partner – HandsOn Connect Cloud Solutions
If you work in the nonprofit sector then you’ll almost certainly have heard of Melissa, a 6 x certified Salesforce MVP.
Her goal is to automate what can be automated so that nonprofits have more time to do what can’t be automated. She is a Founding Partner at HandsOn Connect, a Nonprofit Community Group Leader, and Dreamforce speaker. She also serves on the Board of Amplify and FoodBank USA, and is the co-founder of Nonprofit Dreamin and #foodforce.
If you want to learn more about the Nonprofit Success Pack, then check out her article here!
Andy Engin Utkan
Senior Salesforce Consultant – Cirrius Solutions Inc
Another Flow specialist! Trust me, as Salesforce retires other automation tools, you’ll want to be following these automation gurus so you can bring your Flow A game.
When I asked the community on Twitter which influencers to follow, Andy was described as a “Flow-Fluencer” (it’s catchy and we’re sticking with it).
Andy has 11 Salesforce certifications and his own blog, Salesforce Break, which can help you learn Flow.
Tiffany Spencer
COO – Esor Consulting Group
7 x certified Salesforce MVP Tiffany, is co-leader of the Orlando Salesforce Community Group and the Bethune Cookman Student Group, as well as President of Black Orlando Tech. She is passionate about helping individuals obtain their Salesforce certifications and provides pro bono support to local nonprofits in her spare time.
Don Robins
Principal Consultant and Senior Technical Instructor – ForceMentor.com
We’re finishing this mighty list of influencers with Don – he’s a legend in the developer community!
Don is a Salesforce MVP and author of 52 courses on Pluralsight (as part of his Salesorce Play by Play series). It’s a real “who’s who” of Salesforce talent and includes some amazing topics such as “ Taming the Salesforce Order of Execution” and “Demystifying Salesforce CPQ”.
Summary
That’s it from me. It was hard to stop at 20 influencers because there is just so much amazing talent in the ecosystem! Let me know in the comments who you consider to be the top Salesforce influencers to follow…