WASHINGTON, April 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce [NYSE:
CRM], the world's #1 CRM company and Intelligent Customer Success
Platform, today announced the recipients of its first-ever Equality
Awards—Academy Award winner and activist Patricia Arquette, multi-Grammy Award winner
Mary J. Blige, sports icon and
humanitarian Billie Jean King and
equal pay for equal work activist Lilly
Ledbetter.
The Salesforce Equality Awards honor trailblazers who have
dedicated their careers and lives to creating a more equitable
world. In honor of Equal Pay Day, which symbolizes how far into the
year women must work to earn what men earned the previous year,
Salesforce will celebrate four women at the forefront of the battle
for equality at a gala tonight in Washington, D.C. Patricia Arquette, Billie Jean King and Lilly Ledbetter will also participate in a panel
on equal pay moderated by Salesforce Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff at Salesforce World Tour D.C. on
April 4, 2017.
"I'm delighted to present the first Salesforce Equality Awards
to four of my personal heroes: Patricia
Arquette, Mary J. Blige,
Billie Jean King and Lilly Ledbetter," said Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, Salesforce.
"These incredible people have made the world a more equitable place
through their tireless leadership."
The Salesforce Equality Award honorees include:
Patricia Arquette is
an Oscar, Golden Globe, SAG and Emmy Award-winning actress and
global activist who used her 2015 Oscars acceptance speech to speak
out about wage disparity and bring the issue to the forefront of
public attention. Last year, she led the launch of the UN
initiative on pay equality and women's economic empowerment, The
Equal Pay Platform of Champions.
Mary J. Blige is
an iconic nine-time Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter,
actress and passionate philanthropist and is being honored for her
work in women's rights, in support of LGBTQ rights and in honor of
her upcoming album, "Strength of a Woman."
Billie Jean King is a
sports icon and humanitarian who, upon winning the 1968 Wimbledon
title, was awarded less than half of the prize money as the men's
champion. King later successfully negotiated for equal prize money
at the U.S. Open and continued the fight for equal pay for another
34 years, until the four major tennis tournaments paid men and
women equally. King is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of
Freedom and named by Life Magazine as one of the 100 most
important Americans of the 20th Century.
Lilly Ledbetter is
the namesake of the Ledbetter Fair Pair Restoration Act. After
receiving an anonymous note saying that despite top performance
reviews, she was significantly underpaid compared to her male
counterparts, she was inspired to fight for equal pay. For ten
years she fought to close the gap between women's and men's wages
through legal battles that escalated all the way to the Supreme
Court. Despite losing her legal battles, her efforts led to federal
Equal Pay legislation and motivated a generation of change
makers.
Equality is a Core Value at Salesforce
Salesforce
believes a business can be a platform for social change and have an
enormous impact on improving the state of the world. Inequality, in
all its forms, is an issue that every company and every leader must
address. The company is working – in partnership with its
employees, customers, partners, community organizations and the
tech industry – to build a path forward to equality for all. It is
taking action across four key areas: equal pay, equal opportunity,
equal education and equal rights.
Additional information:
- Read more about Salesforce's commitment to equality here:
https://www.salesforce.com/equality/
- Learn how to cultivate equality at work on Trailhead here:
https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trails/champion_workplace_equality
About Salesforce
Salesforce, the world's #1 CRM
company and Intelligent Customer Success Platform, empowers
companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. For
more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit:
www.salesforce.com.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other
press releases or public statements are not currently available and
may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase
Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based
upon features that are currently available. Salesforce has
headquarters in San Francisco,
with offices in Europe and
Asia, and trades on the New York
Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information
please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call
1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
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SOURCE Salesforce