• The AI startup Celonis is forming a new council of CEOs to advise the company and its customers.
  • CEO Alexander Rinke's first recruit was former Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block. 
  • Block was persuaded to join because he saw it as an extension of his work in digital transformation.
  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

The AI startup Celonis is forming a new council of CEOs to advise the company and its customers as they grapple with the next wave of so-called digital transformation, the company announced Monday. And the first recruit to the new council is a well-known name in the industry: Keith Block, most recently a co-CEO of the cloud giant Salesforce.

Celonis, founded in 2011, uses AI to quickly analyze a company's computer network and find ways to make it operate faster and more efficiently. The startup's tools are used by major companies such as Airbus, Siemens, Lufthansa, and Uber. The company has raised about $370 million in funding from investors, including Accel and 83North, netting it a $2.5 billion valuation as of 2019.

Celonis is growing very quickly, "at 100% year over year," the company cofounder and co-CEO Alexander Rinke told Insider. But amid that growth came common challenges among Celonis' customers, Rinke said, particularly when it came to how best to use tech like the cloud and AI in their own businesses.

"There were a lot of very strategic questions that emerged," Rinke said.  

The idea for the council really took hold after Rinke was introduced to Block around August of last year by Miguel Milano — formerly the head of Salesforce International, and more recently the first chief revenue officer at Celonis. Milano's connection to both companies let him make the introduction after Block left Salesforce last year.

That meeting led to the idea of this advisory council, with Rinke deciding to use it to build relationships with the "best operators in the world," he said. The council will be focused on holding an annual conference where the members will share learnings and guidance, in addition to other informal interactions. 

Once Block was on board, Rinke spent the rest of the fall recruiting other members in a variety of industries, including Dell CEO Michael Dell, the cofounder of Danaher Corporation Mitchell Rales, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy William Fehrman, CEO of Arena Holdings Feroz Dewan, and former Beiersdorf CEO Stefan F. Heidenreich. 

How Celonis convinced Keith Block to join its new CEO Council 

Salesforce Keith Block
Keith Block, the former Salesforce co-CEO.
Salesforce

Block has an "incredible wealth of experience" that would benefit Celonis and its customers, Rinke said. During Block's time at Salesforce, annual revenue went from $3 billion when he joined in 2013 to $17.1 billion when he left last year. He also had 26 years of experience at Oracle under his belt before joining Salesforce. 

When Block stepped down at Salesforce after less than two years in the co-CEO role, there was speculation that he might seek a CEO role elsewhere. Instead, Block told Insider that he's been splitting his time between family and advising companies like Celonis.

Indeed, Block joined State Farm Mutual's board of directors earlier this month, as the insurance company goes through a big digital transformation of its own, and said that he's been working with other unnamed firms as well (though he declined to share more details, given that his involvement isn't public knowledge).

Block was convinced to become the first member of this new CEO council because he saw it as an extension of the work with IT modernization and digital transformation he had been doing at Salesforce.

"For years, I've been advising other CEOs on digital transformation and how to scale their companies, how to grow their companies, how to leverage technology," Block told Insider. "Getting the opportunity to work with great people, a great leader, like Alex and that team, and the potential for the technology to me, it was just a natural fit and where I wanted to invest my time." 

Block said transformation is often misunderstood, because business leaders often think modernization is the same as digital transformation. Just adopting technology is not the answer, he said: Companies also need to rework business processes and rethink organizational culture, he said. 

Ultimately, all of the council's expertise together will benefit the whole industry, Block said.

"We all bring our own war stories if you will, to the table," he said. "We are all facing the same challenges around transformation, or we have faced the same challenges around transformation."

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